ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, November 27, 1996           TAG: 9611270043
SECTION: SPORTS                   PAGE: B-2  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: CHAPEL HILL, N.C.
SOURCE: Associated Press

BROWN IS NAMED ACC'S TOP COACH

North Carolina's Mack Brown, whose team was unranked in the preseason but spent a month in the top 10 and finished the regular season 9-2, was named The Associated Press coach of the year in the Atlantic Coast Conference on Tuesday.

Brown, 45, became the fourth North Carolina football coach to win the ACC award in 44 seasons, and the first since Dick Crum won the honor in 1980.

``This award is a way for me to say thank you for nine years of performance by players, because those guys that hung in here, that fought through those 1-10 seasons that never got a bowl ring had as absolutely as much to do with this award today as some of our guys did this year,'' Brown said.

``I wouldn't have been here unless those guys were able to overcome the adversity they did to help our program continue to move forward.''

It was Brown's first major coaching award in 13 seasons at Appalachian State, Tulane and North Carolina. Brown, in his ninth season at North Carolina, also is in the running for a pair of national coaching awards that will be announced in December.

Brown, whose team is headed to the Gator Bowl on Jan.1, received 34 of a possible 88 votes from members of the Atlantic Coast Sports Writers Association. Clemson's Tommy West got 28 votes, and Florida State's Bobby Bowden was third with 25.

The other vote went to Virginia coach George Welsh, last year's winner. (Voting in Scoreboard. B4)

Other North Carolina coach of the year winners include Bill Dooley in 1971 and Jim Hickey in 1963. Crum, Dooley and Hickey all won or shared ACC titles during their award-winning seasons, while Brown's club finished in a second-place tie with Clemson.

``When you are recognized by the media, I think it's one of the greatest compliments a coach can have,'' Brown said. ``That's something that I feel very good about with this award.''

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