Longtime UNC, high school football coach Ken Browning honored with field dedication

Kenny Browning — on the very night Northern Durham put the name of the legendary Knights alumnus and football coach on the second-year school campus’ stadium — still was ready to volunteer. Browning, while walking off the field with Von Watson following the halftime dedication ceremony, confirmed he would give Watson — the manager of Northern Durham’s 1993 N.C. 4A state championship team — a ride home.

Browning’s latest honor reaffirmed just how good the coach has been to N.C. football — both at the high school level and the college level.

The dozens of Knights gridiron alumni who joined Browning and wife Susan at midfield for the dedication ceremony offered testament to the importance of bonds forged within athletics and education.

“People appreciate that you care about them,” Browning said. “They were all volunteers, the players. Football is a game of morale first.”

Browning’s N.C. High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) and Northern Durham hall-of-fame memberships were earned for milestones well beyond 200-plus career wins, including a 43-2 record among his final three seasons leading the Knights (1991-93), and victories as the N.C. East-West All-Star Game and as N.C.-S.C. Shrine Bowl coach.

Long before the undefeated 1993 campaign, Browning cemented his legacy as a coach of coaches.

“If it wasn’t for him, then I probably wouldn’t have gone to college,” said Earl Smith, who played for Browning at Ledford, and coached with Browning at Northern Durham. Smith, like Browning, graduated from Guilford College and coached at Ledford, along with Wake County schools Millbrook and Wake Forest. Smith led New Hanover to a state title.

After Northern Durham’s championship, Browning joined the North Carolina Tar Heels’ staff during Mack Brown’s first tenure. Browning remained in Chapel Hill for 18 years, and retired as the university’s longest-tenured assistant coach (in multiple capacities on offense and defense), serving under Brown, Carl Torbush, John Bunting, and Everett Withers.

Browning never held the college football coaching staff title now known widely as “high school relations director.” His impact in this regard, still, was transformative.

“Mack had actually stated publicly that one of his goals was to make a real impact in North Carolina high schools, and this was a great step in that direction,” said Rick Strunk, retired NCHSAA Associate Commissioner whose responsibilities included NCHSAA record book and hall of fame development.

Browning was integral to the development of the likes of native North Carolinians and Tar Heels Greg Ellis (East Wake), Rick Terry (Lexington), Marcus Jones (Southwest Onslow), and Russell Davis (E.E. Smith - Fayetteville) on their ways to the NFL. Jason Peace, who quarterbacked Northern Durham to the 1993 state title, later joined Browning with the Tar Heels. Jermicus Banks, one of Smith’s Millbrook standouts, earned a scholarship to Chapel Hill. Browning continued to offer clinics, statewide, for high school coaches through the years.

“It’s not just about what they were doing for us. I took the approach, ‘What can we do to help you all, too?’” Browning said. “If we made football really good in North Carolina, then North Carolina was going to be the biggest beneficiary.”

Browning’s recruiting connections laid the foundation for North Carolina’s run of 35 total wins, back-to-back 10-wins seasons, and four consecutive bowl wins from the 1995-98 seasons. The back-to-back 10-wins seasons and four consecutive bowl wins have happened just one other time in Tar Heels history. North Carolina defeated Duke, N.C. State, and Wake Forest each year from 1995-98, and won what Brown hailed as a college version of “the state championship.”

“Now, it’s more about NIL and money,” said Carl Reeves, who played for Browning before his careers at N.C. State and with the Chicago Bears. “Back then, it was all about relationships. At the end of the day, that’s what matters.”

Thirty-plus years after the state title, Browning made another sideline handoff — the stadium dedication plaque presented to Browning — to his manager. Browning then reminded those nearby of a lifetime relationship dynamic by which Watson, still, takes care of him.

“I’m going to do that,” Watson said. “He’s been very good to me.”