Mack Brown opens up on why he's still coaching, not retiring

North Carolina head coach Mack Brown is unchallenged as the oldest head man in college football following the retirement of Nick Saban in January. Turning 73 years old on August 27 ahead of his 37th season as a head coach.

Brown has already been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and has a national title win on his resume, yet he keeps coming back year after year. And ahead of yet another season at the helm for the Tar Heels, he was plainly asked why does he keep doing this. Referencing former head coaches who also coached for numerous decades just like himself.

“It’s a good question, I’ve had coaches ask me that in our league and I said this at the ACC Media Days,” Brown said. “I was with Coach [Joe] Paterno when he was 85 And Coach [Bobby] Bowden when he was 84 and I asked them what are you doing? And they were coaching, I said gotta be the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, and Coach Paterno said, ‘I got 17 grandkids and no hobbies. So I don’t have anything to do.’

“In fact, he said, ‘I don’t want hanging out with those grandkids every day for 12 hours or something.’ And Sally said, Do you even know their names?'”

Brown revealed that Paterno’s wife Sue believed that he only knew the name of one of his grandchildren, the one named after him. As he also shared his insights from Bowden regarding his lengthy head coaching career that didn’t end until he was 80 years old.

“And then I asked Coach Bowden and it was very interesting, Coach Bowden said, ‘The day that I quit coaching the next significant day in my life will be the day that I’m buried.’ And you know, the thing that that you all have, and the thing that I have is a purpose and we like what we do. And you get up every morning with something you’ve done your whole life,” Brown said.

“This is my 37th camp as a head coach, I would not know what to do next year if I didn’t have this. I don’t want I’d do, I’d be walking down the street looking for something to do on opening day,” he joked.

Aside from football clearly being Brown’s sole devotion, he also revealed what truly keeps him coming back to work every single day. Along with his desire to continue building up the North Carolina program after returning in 2019 following a previous decade-long tenure in Chapel Hill.

“And I love these kids, and it sounds like a coach speak again, but every time I get mad at the NCAA, or North Carolina, or collectives I go eat lunch with them and they’re asking me questions and they want to know about this and that. I said I got a purpose and I love the game of football,” Brown said, “And I’ve been involved with it my whole life for longer than 50 years because I played before I coached.”

“And we’ve got some things we got to fix,” Brown added. “I came back and promised North Carolina I’d try to make them relevant again. We are relevant, but I don’t want to just run off by things are a mess. I’d like for things to get settled and feel really good about where we are before I start doing something else.”