Over a career that spanned nearly three decades, Kenny Browning ’68 has seen and accomplished much. But what played out the evening of Sept. 20 at Northern Durham (N.C.) High School was a first for one of the state’s most successful high school football coaches.

Surrounded by friends, family and more than 100 former players at Northern Durham, Ken stood at midfield as school officials named the football field he once roamed for 17 years after him.

Ken said he was honored by the ceremony, but true to his character, he found more pride in reuniting with so many former players – family, really – many of whom he hadn’t seen in years. “That’s what I remember most is getting to be around all those young men,” says Ken, who starts to chuckle. “And, really, they aren’t so young anymore.”

Ken is one of North Carolina’s all-time football coaching greats. He finished with a 214-56-6 record in his high school career, which opened with six years at Ledford High School in Thomasville, N.C.

But it wasn’t just the winning that separated Ken from his peers. He’s proud of the work he and his assistant coaches did in developing young boys into men of character and discipline.

“Coaching football is like teaching in a classroom,” he says. “The best teachers help their students be as good as they can be. Not just the starters, but the backups and third-string players because they’re showing up every day wanting to grow, too. That’s what I wanted to do as a football coach is help them all.”

Ken played football for four years at Guilford, learning from some of the College’s best coaches and administrators. People like his head coach John Stewart, Athletics Director Herb Appenzeller, men’s basketball coach Jerry Steele and baseball coach Stuart Maynard ’43. All have since passed away, but Ken says their values and work ethics were passed on to him. “It was my job to pass those same things on to my players.”

In 1993, Ken’s Northern Durham team went undefeated and won a state title. The next year he made the leap to college, working as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina and retiring as the university’s longest-tenured assistant football coach. These days he’s a volunteer coach at Northern Durham, but spends most of his time raising grass-fed cattle on his farm not far from the school.

He’s heard from a lot of Guilford classmates in the past week offering him congratulations and catching up on old times. “Guilford was a special place for me,” he says. “It gave me the chance to learn and teach and then go out and coach some great kids. I’m grateful for that.”