Jacobs: Larry Brown Links Tangle Final Four

Larry Brown has been there.

And there, and there.

Brown, a basketball vagabond, embraces his distinction as likely the only man to coach at the three perennial powerhouse programs competing in this Saturday’s Final Four, schools that combined for 17 NCAA basketball titles and 48 Final Four appearances. “You leave UCLA in college, and North Carolina, and you end up in Kansas, and you realize the history and tradition behind all of those programs, and you’re part of it, it’s just mind-boggling,” Brown said.

Further tangling his loyalties, Brown considers John Calipari, the head coach at Memphis, the fourth school in the field, to be “like my son.”

“I’m having second thoughts about going,” Brown said Wednesday, fretting over a trip to San Antonio. He already decided that, if he does attend the Final Four, he will wear neutral colors -- black or gray. “I don’t know where I would sit. I think I would have to sit a half in each place. Only one of the teams would win, three would be disappointed. So I don’t know. It’s something I’ve got to think about.”

Brown is the only coach to win both an NCAA title (at Kansas in 1988 with “Danny and the Miracles”) and an NBA championship (at Detroit in 2004). He is also the only coach in NBA history to lead seven different teams to the playoffs. He took three teams to the Final Four in seven years as a college coach, two squads as far as the championship game.

Brown possesses a remarkable ability to follow and instantaneously critique the movements of all 10 players on the court, a rare trait. “He was born to coach,” said Art Chansky, a four-time author working on a biography of Brown.

That innate vision, combined with toughness, leadership and teaching skills, as well as more than 1,200 victories as a pro coach, earned Brown induction in 2002 into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

“He may be the greatest coach in the history of basketball, but he has so much baggage. Some of it is his fault, some of it isn’t,” Chansky said. “The story with Larry is that he left a lot of places, and how he left.”

The 5-9 guard from Brooklyn served as head coach at UCLA in 1980 and 1981, within memory of John Wooden’s unparalleled tenure. Wooden landed 10 NCAA titles between 1964 and 1975; upon Brown’s arrival the school had won 39 championships in a multitude of sports.

“It was overwhelming, the excellence of the whole athletic program at UCLA, and the expectations,” Brown said.

His first Bruins squad uncharacteristically lost its first home game, lost at Pauley Pavilion to archrival Southern Cal, lost consecutive contests, and failed to finish first in the Pac-10. “I was setting these records, one after another,” Brown said dryly.

But, relying heavily on a sophomore center and four freshmen, the squad surprisingly rallied to reach the '80 national championship contest, falling to Louisville 59-54. Afterward, a proud Brown was approached by a UCLA alumnus, who put even that achievement into perspective.

“’Congratulations, Larry, you did it again,’” the man said.

“I said, ‘What do you mean?’”

“He said, ‘You’re the first coach at UCLA to lose the final game.’”

After two years at Westwood, even as the Bruins were hit with an NCAA probation -- largely caused by booster activities during Wooden’s tenure -- Brown left for the NBA.

Three seasons later, he turned up at Kansas.

“Kind of pushed” to take the job by KU alumnus Dean Smith, he said, Brown served as head coach from 1983-84 through 1988, posting a 129-44 record. Twice he led the Jayhawks to the Final Four. Kansas lost in the 1986 semifinals to Duke, then won the title behind Danny Manning in 1988, defeating Duke along the way. KU has not captured a championship since.

Smith, Brown's coach and later boss at UNC, “used to tell me stories about Phog (Allen) and Allen Fieldhouse and the fans there,” Brown said. “When I got there, I realized the feeling these people had for their sport is as strong as the Carolina fans (feelings) are, in as much as they respect the program traditions. If you think about it, James Naismith was there, Adolph Rupp was there, Dean Smith, Phog Allen, Wilt Chamberlain, John McLendon. How are you going to surpass that?”

Brown left for the NBA immediately after winning the ’88 title, avoiding a three-year NCAA probation earned for illegal inducements and other misconduct.

“He had disdain for the NCAA rules,” Chansky said. “He was a college coach with a pro mentality.”

With the program in turmoil, the school followed Smith’s recommendation and hired his unknown, 10-year assistant at UNC, Roy Williams.

Later, Brown nearly beat Williams to the punch to become head coach at North Carolina.

Brown arrived at Chapel Hill in 1959 to play for Frank McGuire, and spent half his career under Smith’s tutelage. He went on to serve as a Smith assistant in 1966 and 1967, helping to assemble a squad that went to three consecutive Final Fours from 1967 through 1969.

When the Tar Heels needed a replacement for Bill Guthridge in 2000, Brown sought the job. Instead the school chose Matt Doherty, one of Williams’ former assistants at KU. Folks at UNC told him he was too old, among other things, according to Brown. “I think there were some people there that didn’t want me,” he said.

Given his propensity for abrupt and often controversial departures, Brown was asked about the bad feelings engendered by Williams’ 2003 decision to quit Lawrence for Chapel Hill, where he replaced Doherty.

The veteran leave-taker said there was no good way to end such relationships.

“I don’t like talking about this…but the bottom line is, and I tell everybody this, Roy gave them 15 years,” Brown said. “We all are proud of that. If they weren’t upset that he left, that would have meant he probably did a terrible job. The problem was, he told them he wasn’t leaving, this was his last job. He didn’t realize at the time how much he wanted to go back to Carolina. It had nothing to do with Kansas.”

Fortunately for the game of basketball, Brown has been as masterful at spinning off coaching disciples as he has been bad at making exits.

Both Calipari and current Kansas head coach Bill Self worked on Brown’s staff at KU. Calipari later worked under Brown with the Philadelphia 76ers.

And, yes, Brown is well-acquainted with Williams, who served as one of his assistants on Team USA in the 2004 Olympics, when the Americans won the bronze medal. Brown and Smith presented Williams at his Hall of Fame induction in 2007.

At age 67, Brown still aches to return to the game in some capacity. “I just miss it terribly,” he said. Relegated to enjoying basketball vicariously, he attends practices and otherwise follows the programs of protégés such as Self (“a special guy”), Calipari, Villanova’s Jay Wright, Indiana’s Tom Crean, Texas A&M’s Mark Turgeon and Southern Miss coach Larry Eustachy.

Self and Calipari separately phoned Brown shortly after reaching the Final Four. Both invited him to attend, intensifying his conflict of interests.

“I’ve been pretty lucky; this weekend will let everybody know that,” Brown said. “This is the biggest thing for me: I know how Coach (Smith) feels about all the guys that are lucky enough to be in this profession because of his influence. That gives him an unbelievable sense of pride. Well, I’m getting to experience this now.”