Overview:
Alex Mack won college football’s ‘Academic Heisman Award’ before earning a spot on the NFL’s All-Decade Team
The inquisitive, straight-A student sensed the classroom’s angst as he peppered his San Marcos High School teacher with questions.
He prattled on nonetheless.
“I think I annoyed every teacher and fellow student,” he recalled 25 years later at age 40.
“I’m sure it’s somewhat annoying … It’s a classroom environment, it’s not just for you … and someone else is going to have the same question.
“I try to be nice when I do it, at least.”
Nobody ever complained, but not just because he was nice.
You don’t complain about the class nerd when he’s a 6-foot-4 and 270-pound football and wrestling star who can both do the splits … and split you in half.
Alex Mack had enough strength and athleticism — and especially the brain power — to gain induction last week into the College Football Hall of Fame.
The former San Marcos High and Cal Berkeley lineman was officially enshrined Dec. 9 during the 67th Annual National Football Foundation Awards Dinner held at the Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.
His exploits will now be forever immortalized at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, the city that he helped get to Super Bowl LI in 2017 as the Atlanta Falcons’ All-Pro center.
“I loved playing football, it’s an incredible game,” Mack said during the predinner news conference. “I did it because it was fun, and to get this award is beyond anything I ever dreamed of.
“I’m filled with gratitude for all of the teammates, coaches, family and friends’ support I had to be here. This was not done alone.”
Royal Treatment
His San Marcos teammates might have tolerated Mack’s self-described “inquisitive nature,” but Dare Holdren recalled how the star lineman would also endure their occasional teasing.
“He was a super nice kid,” said Holdren, Mack’s former defensive coordinator who now serves San Marcos as its principal. “His freshman nickname was Goofy because he walked funny with his big old feet.
“As a senior, he was ‘Man Child.’”
Mack still never imagined a career in the NFL. He wondered if he was even good enough to play for Cal despite dominating the line of scrimmage in the Channel League for three all-conference seasons.
And nobody was ever more studious about his sports. He was more egghead than meathead.
“If everybody listened like Alex, coaching football would be easy,” Holdren said.
He played on both sides of the line for San Marcos, recording 93 tackles and eight quarterback sacks on defense during his senior season in the fall of 2003.
Mack was twice selected to the CIF’s All-Southern Section team. He shared the Channel League’s Defensive MVP Award in 2003.
Two decades later, in the fall of 2023, San Marcos retired his No. 65 jersey during a game against arch-rival Dos Pueblos High.
He’d been inducted into the Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table Hall of Fame just one month earlier.
And yet, he nearly missed out on playing college football altogether.
Few scouts ever checked him out in the football backwater of the Central Coast.
“I got some recruiting letters, but no one really called or saw me,” Mack said. “This was before the real internet recruiting era, so you had to send out actual tapes.”
The only other San Marcos Royal to play in the NFL was Bradlee Van Pelt, and he was the son of five-time Pro Bowl linebacker Brad Van Pelt.
On a scale of one to five, Mack was listed as just a two-star recruit by Rivals.com.
He might have been partly to blame.
“Maybe it was because I was telling the truth on those forms that ask you, ‘What’s your bench press?’” he said.
“I was honest. Terrible mistake.”
Mack also admitted to using “some very unusual technique in high school” and being “constantly on the ground.”
A lot of that came from his wrestling career. He went 43-2 as a senior while advancing to the CIF state finals.
“In high school, you’re just bigger than people and anything works,” Mack said. “You just kind of throw them all out of the way and it was just easy.
“But to the credit of my high school coaches, they taught me how to work really hard and play aggressive football.”
King of the Hill
Former San Marcos assistant coach Dennis Kittle tapped into Mack’s “otherworldly work ethic” by having him lead the linemen on 10, full-speed runs up a hill after every practice.
“He outworked everybody,” Kittle said, noting that Mack once showed up to practice after a dental procedure.
Kittle had his fun while sharpening Mack’s extraordinary focus. He once threatened to cut off the fingers of any offensive lineman caught holding.
“I don’t think he would have actually cut my fingers off,” Mack said, “but he used to clean his fingernails with a pocketknife.”
Mack caught the attention of Jeff Tedford, Cal’s coach at the time, only after attending the Bears’ full-contact summer camp before his senior year of high school.
Jim Michalczik, Tedford’s offensive line coach, needed only a few days of camp to decide that “this kid was someone I wanted to coach for four or five years.”
“Santa Barbara is not L.A.,” Michalczik said. “Those guys sometimes fall through the cracks a little bit.
“Alex hadn’t done all the combines and all of those things.”
One of Mack’s fondest memories in life was getting summoned to Cal’s football offices during the camp and “Tedford having my jersey on the wall and offering me a scholarship.”
He recalled thinking “What a cool place!” as he walked through campus on his way back to the camp dorms.
“I loved the aspect of college football, of going to a school and going to class and learning stuff,” Mack said.
“I just thought how special it was, being newly out of high school with your new freedom, but with all this responsibility.”
Mack was still unsure of his football future, however.
“I just felt real lucky to have the opportunity,” he said of Tedford’s offer. “I was able to get a scholarship to one of the best schools on the planet.
“I remember thinking that, ‘Well, maybe football is not for me … Maybe I’m just not good enough.
“‘I’ll try as hard as I can, but if it doesn’t work out, I can get a great education at a state school that I could probably afford to pay if I don’t have a scholarship.’”
Mack, who had a grade-point average of 4.2 and SAT score of 1150 at San Marcos, wound up earning a bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies.
He also “got 90% of a Masters done … so I’m not perfect.”
First Road Block
An imperfect, first day in pads at Cal’s training camp gave him pause during the fall of 2004.
“We did a drive drill which has line versus line, trying to push each other back,” Mack said. “I went against Brandon Mebane, who was a sophomore and not even a starter at the time.
“And he destroyed me. He blew me up. I was like backpedaling for 10 yards. Absolutely crushed me.
“And I was like, ‘Oh wow! I have a lot of work to do!’”
But Mack was as much a workhorse as he was a quick learner. He added 30 pounds of muscle to his 6-foot-4 frame during his redshirt season.
“Amazing what a one full year of a weightlifting regimen will do to you,” he said. “I quickly got to 300 pounds.”
He risked the revival of the “Goofy” nickname by working on his agility even as he hustled from one class to another.
“I remember having trouble doing the wide-foot drive, so I used to go up all the stairs on campus with wide feet because it kind of mimics a football position,” Mack said.
“There were a lot of stairs, so I had a lot of reps and opportunities to go up and down.”
Cal posted a 34-17 record during Mack’s four seasons. They capped each one with a bowl victory.
The 2006 Bears won their first Pac-10 championship since 1975 and the 2007 team rose as high as No. 2 in the national rankings.
His fellow Pac-10 players voted him to receive the Morris Trophy as the league’s top offensive lineman in both 2007 and 2008.
Even Rivals.com admitted the error of its ways, placing him on its All-America team after both of those seasons.
Mack also received the Draddy Trophy — now known as the Campbell Trophy — that honors the college football player with “the best combination of academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership.”
It’s best known as the “Academic Heisman.”
The ever-humble Mack took one look at the other nominees during the Draddy Trophy banquet and suffered an attack of “Imposter Syndrome.”
“There were like 15 or 20 of us, or something — and I was like, ‘Wow, these guys are really good and really smart … What a cool honor to be here with them,’” he said. “And then I win it, and I’m like, ‘No way!’
“Like, ‘I don’t deserve this … Somebody made a mistake … We need to recount these votes or something.’”
Pros and Cons
His doubts re-emerged after the Cleveland Browns took him in the first round of the 2009 NFL draft with the No. 21 overall pick.
“I had a pretty rough training camp,” Mack recalled. “Pretty miserable.
“They had Shaun Rogers (at nose tackle) at the time. He is a very special player.
“I was unprepared for that combination of size, skill and power.”
The coaches also “threw the world at us … It was definitely trial by fire.”
Mack even contemplated quitting football at that point. He wrote all the pros and cons of remaining in camp as he sat in his dorm room.
Offensive line coach George Warhop helped him “push through it,” however.
Mack pushed it all the way through 13 years in the NFL, starting 196 games from 2009 to 2021 for the Browns, Falcons and San Francisco 49ers.
He was voted All-Pro in 2013, 2016 and 2017 and was named by the Pro Football Hall of Fame to its 2010-2019 All-Decade Team.
Mack also played in seven Pro Bowls, and never more famously than in the 2011 game. He took the final pitchout of a wild, multilateral play and ran 40 yards for the game’s last touchdown.
Kyle Shanahan, his former offensive coordinator in both Cleveland and Atlanta, gave Mack the nickname of “Golden Retriever” for his relentless downfield blocking. He likened him to a dog chasing after a Frisbee.
Mack’s perseverance was on full display during a 2011 game when he made all 87 snaps for the Browns despite suffering from acute appendicitis.
He delayed his surgery until the next day.
He also played in the 2017 Super Bowl despite having broken the fibula in his left leg during Atlanta’s triumph in the NFC championship game just two weeks earlier.
“I was more afraid of not being able to play in this game than how hard it would be,” he said after the Falcons’ overtime loss to the New England Patriots.
Traveling Man
But Mack wasn’t just a player of football. He was also one of its ambassadors.
He visited U.S. troops in Southeast Asia in 2011 as part of the NFL’s USO program.
He participated in TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors), which provides care and resources to those grieving a death in the military or veteran community.
Mack also joined an NFL players group called American Football Without Barriers. He spread the game of football to such countries as Hungary, Brazil, Turkey, Finland and Germany.
He always treated world travel as an offseason learning experience.
“I’ve seen about 55 countries,” he said.
Mack retired from football after helping the 49ers advance to the 2021 NFC championship game.
His constant quest for knowledge entered a new stage in retirement when he decided to remodel his house.
“I learned a lot of carpentry skills because I did some of it myself,” he said. “That was fun … Did some woodworking.
“I’ve done some broadcasting stuff for NFL games on the radio, which has been fun … I need more practice at it because it’s a skill.”
He also checked off an item on his bucket list by taking a lengthy train trip through Europe with his wife, Rachael.
“Just kind of dipped around for two months,” Mack said. “I didn’t have to worry about training anymore.
“I didn’t have to worry about working out and finding a gym and doing stuff and being in shape.
“It was awesome.”
The Macks have since become the parents of two daughters, which has created a whole new educational experience for the football Hall of Famer.
“I get to practice being a dad,” he said, “and learn how to do that stuff.”
