As it turns out, Nick Saban isn’t the only Power Five head football coach to undergo the knife this offseason.
Tuesday morning, North Carolina announced that on Monday Mack Brown underwent what the school described as successful knee replacement surgery. The release noted that the surgery on the 67-year-old Brown was performed by Dr. Michael Bolognesi, who played football for Brown at UNC from 1989-93, at Duke University Hospital.
“First off, how cool is it that one of our former players replaced my knee yesterday,” Brown said in a statement. “We talk about building young men so they can be productive husbands, fathers and citizens. Carolina produces a lot of special people and I’m happy we were able to play a small part in Mike’s development because we counted on him and he, along with the rest of the surgical and anesthetic team, did a tremendous job.
“We had been planning to have this procedure done in February, but after accepting the job here at Carolina that obviously wasn’t going to be possible. We did want to get it taken care of and this window on the calendar made the most sense. I don’t expect this to slow me down at all.”
The procedure was conducted in the morning and doctors had the Hall of Famer walking later in the day. He was discharged from the hospital and sent home on Monday afternoon. Brown is expected to be back at work today.
— Carolina Football (@UNCFootball) June 4, 2019
Brown was the head coach at UNC from 1988-97 before leaving to take the same job at Texas. After leaving the Longhorns and a multi-year stint in broadcasting, Brown returned to the Tar Heels in November of last year.
“The surgery went really well with no issues or complications and he’ll begin a standard rehabilitation program in Chapel Hill immediately,” said Bolognesi. “We don’t expect there to be any need to alter his summer schedule as it relates to team and football operations.”