Mack Brown Advises Coaches On How To Deal With Intense Scrutiny

Mack Brown is taking criticism from all angles right now for the performance of his team, but Brown’s 30 years as a coach has prepared him for this type of scrutiny.

On Wednesday, he shared advice that other coaches, especially young coaches, can use to their advantage.

Brown said, “I’ve been around a long time and got a lot of friends in this business.  Friends understand.  They get it.  Most of them have been in a hole at some place or other, at some point or other.  If they haven’t, they will be.  That’s just part of our business. It’s part of who you are.  Coaches’ nature is to fight back, compete, and that’s what we’re doing.”

When asked to pinpoint the time in his career when he learned how to deal with rampant opinions and rumors, Brown pointed to a moment after the 2003 season.

He said, “After ’03 when we lost to Washington State in the bowl game is where it really it me because there was so many rumors about regents were meeting with me about firing coaches, and I had to fire them and demand them, but lord, I was at the coaches’ clinic in Orlando with two of them that I had supposedly turned loose.  My daughter called crying and said, ‘Dad, did you quit?’ I said, ‘I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.’ That’s when I said this is just ridiculous.  Go back and coach.  Do what you’re supposed to do. You learn to worry about the things you can control and not the rest of it.  If we win, everything is fine. If you lose, it’s not.  That’s the way this business in.

“The other thing you learn, especially if you coach at a place like Texas, is that it’s fair to have opinions.  I’ve got mine.  Coaches, when they give their opinion, there’s a lot more people talking about their opinion than I talk about yours. 

“You have a right to have your opinion. Fans have a right to have their opinion and very honestly, coaches do to. I didn’t speak out for a long time here because it gets bashed when you say what you think. What I’ve learned is that I would encourage coaches to speak out, say what you think.  I would encourage coaches across the country to speak out.  Say what you think.  Make it very clear that some of the opinions are yours and some of the opinions are yours as the head coach of the university.  But I can have personal opinions.”

Unfortunately, Brown has to endure overreactions like the one offered by Paul Finebaum, who stated during ESPN’s College Gameday last Saturday that Brown was without a doubt coaching for his career against Ole Miss last Saturday night.  (To which Chris Fowler stated Finebaum’s comments were over the top.)

In general, Brown said, “If I had gotten mad about everything people said rude about me or ugly about me for 16 years here or 30 years as a head coach, lord I’d be miserable.  I’d be walking around all the time miserable.”