ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Brian Newberry, the first-year head coach at Navy, reads a meditation from Marcus Aurelius every day. His summer reading list included “The Inner Game of Tennis” — long endorsed by Pete Carroll for the thinking football coach — and he’s a devout follower of John Wooden’s sporting philosophy.
With a bushy white beard and a résumé that includes amateur photography and being a tour guide at Glacier National Park, Newberry’s background isn’t from the academy handbook. After all, he’s from a landlocked state (Oklahoma) and once left the football coaching profession for six months and pondered applying to the Rocky Mountain School of Photography.
Newberry’s affinity for photography, nurtured from his time at Glacier, has taught him that light can often change perspective. And while he doesn’t fit the buzz-cut portrait of an academy coach, he has the opportunity to deliver Navy football into a new light.
The country will get a high-profile close-up of Newberry on Saturday. His debut after being elevated from Navy’s defensive coordinator comes in Dublin, Ireland, against No. 13 Notre Dame, the highest-profile game of Week 0 of the college football season.
While his look may be out of the military school paradigm, his hard-earned path to this spot and mentality will resonate with Navy fans.
“My philosophy and mentality is the same as when I was a defensive coordinator,” Newberry said. “We’re going to be super aggressive. We have nothing to lose.”
Newberry’s path here came after a modest playing career at Baylor was curtailed by injuries. By earning his degree in education there in 1998, he became the first member of his family to graduate from college.
His first job was at Glacier National Park in Montana, giving guided Red Bus tours in vintage 1930s convertible buses. Newberry would drive a nearly 35-mile road through the park, through the Rockies, over the continental divide and deliver a…
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