Larry Brown Popular Books

Larry Brown Biography & Facts

Lawrence Harvey Brown (born September 14, 1940) is an American basketball coach and former player who last served as an assistant coach for the Memphis Tigers. Brown is the only coach in basketball history to win both an NCAA national championship (Kansas Jayhawks, 1988) and an NBA title (Detroit Pistons, 2004). He has a 1,275–965 lifetime professional coaching record in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) and is the only coach in NBA history to lead eight teams (differing franchises) to the playoffs. He also won an ABA championship as a player with the Oakland Oaks in the 1968–69 season, and an Olympic Gold Medal in 1964. He is also the only person ever to coach two NBA franchises in the same season (Spurs and Clippers during the 1991–92 NBA season). Before coaching, Brown played collegiately at the University of North Carolina and professionally in the ABA. Brown was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach on September 27, 2002. On July 8, 2021, the National Basketball Coaches Association awarded Brown the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award. Early life and early basketball accomplishments Brown is Jewish and was born in Brooklyn, New York. His maternal grandfather Hittelman was from Minsk, Belarus, and his mother's family immigrated to the United States in 1910 and opened a bakery in Brooklyn. His mother met his father Milton Brown, a furniture salesman, when she was 26 years old. He has an older brother, Herbert, who has been an NBA head coach. In 1947 his father died suddenly of a ruptured aneurysm. His family moved first to Brooklyn, then to Long Beach, New York, on Long Island. His mother lived until the age of 106. A 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) point guard, Brown attended Long Beach High School. He won a gold medal with Team USA in basketball at the 1961 Maccabiah Games in Israel, on a team that included Art Heyman and Charley Rosen. Brown attended University of North Carolina, where he played basketball under legendary coaches Frank McGuire and Dean Smith. Brown was an All-Atlantic Coast Conference player in 1963. Playing career A stellar player for the Tar Heels in the early 1960s, Brown was considered too small to play in the NBA. He began his post-college career with the National Alliance of Basketball Leagues's Akron Wingfoots, where he played for two years (1964–65). He led the Wingfoots to the 1964 AAU National Championship. Brown was selected for Team USA's 1964 Summer Olympics team, which won the gold medal. After a two-year stint (1965-1967) as an assistant coach at North Carolina, Brown joined the upstart American Basketball Association, playing with the New Orleans Buccaneers (1967–68), Oakland Oaks (1968–69), Washington Caps (1969–70), Virginia Squires (1970–71), and Denver Rockets (1971–72). Brown was named MVP of the ABA's first All-Star Game in 1968, and was named to the All-ABA Second Team the same year. Brown led the ABA in assists per game during the league's first three seasons, and when he ended his playing career, Brown was the ABA's all-time assist leader. His total of 2,509 assists places him seventh on the ABA's career list, and he holds the ABA record for assists in a game with 23. He was a three-time ABA All-Star. Coaching and management career Early years: 1969–1983 Brown's first head coaching job was at Davidson College in North Carolina in 1969. He resigned after less than two months, having never fielded a team or coached a game. He did not discuss the reasons for his resignation, saying only that "it was in the best interests of Davidson and myself". He has later stated that it was a matter of the program reneging on promises made. Brown moved on to the ABA and coached with the Carolina Cougars and then the Denver Nuggets, who later joined the NBA in 1976, for five and a half seasons from 1974 to 1979. He then moved on to coach for UCLA (1979–1981), leading his freshman-dominated 1979–80 team to the NCAA title game before falling to Louisville, 59–54. However, that appearance was later vacated by the NCAA after two UCLA players were found to be ineligible—one of the few times a Final Four squad has had its record vacated. Brown was the head coach for the NBA's New Jersey Nets for two years following that, from 1981 to 1983. University of Kansas: 1983–1988 Brown began his tenure at the University of Kansas (1983–1988), replacing the fired Ted Owens, who had overseen back-to-back losing seasons in 1981–82 and 1982–83. Brown's impact was felt almost immediately, as the 1983–84 Jayhawks put together a 22–10 record, finished in second place in that year's Big 8 standings, upset Oklahoma to win the 1984 Big 8 Tournament, and advanced to the 1984 NCAA Tournament's Round of 32 before losing to Wake Forest. In the meantime Brown signed the most coveted high school player in the country, Danny Manning, to play for KU after signing his father, Ed Manning, to a position as an assistant coach. Perhaps Brown's finest team at Kansas was the 1985–86 team. This squad put together a 35–4 record, the first 30-win season in KU history. They won the Big 8 regular season title for the first time since 1978, defeated Iowa State to win the 1986 Big 8 Tournament, and advanced to the 1986 Final Four before losing to Duke in the semifinals. In the 1987–88 season, Kansas got off to a mediocre 12–8 start, including 1–4 in the Big 8, and the end of the Jayhawks' 55-game homecourt winning streak in Allen Fieldhouse. Ultimately, behind the high-scoring of Danny Manning, KU rallied to win nine of their next twelve games to finish third place in the Big 8 and qualify for the 1988 NCAA tournament as a 6-seed in the Midwest Regional. Kansas then proceeded to defeat 11th-seed Xavier, 14th-seed Murray State, and 7th-seed Vanderbilt before meeting rival Kansas State, which had beaten KU twice in three meetings that year. KU upset the 4th-seeded Wildcats 71–58 in the Elite Eight to reach the Final Four in Kansas City's Kemper Arena. Once there, Kansas upset the East Region's #2 seed Duke, 66–59, avenging an overtime loss at home to the Blue Devils earlier in the season. Two nights later, the Jayhawks, who became known as "Danny and the Miracles", upset the Southeast Region's #1-seed and fellow Big 8 rival Oklahoma, 83–79, to avenge a regular-season sweep by the Sooners and win the 1988 NCAA championship. Manning, who scored 31 points and grabbed 18 rebounds in the final, was named Most Outstanding Player of the Tournament. Kansas concluded the year 27–11; the 11 losses remain a record for most losses by an NCAA champion to this day. Two months later, Brown opted to return to professional coaching, departing KU for the San Antonio Spurs. In his five seasons at Kansas, Brown had one Big 8 regular season title, two Big 8 postseason titles, five NCAA Tournament appearances, three Sweet 16 appearances, two trips to the Final Four, and one national title. As a collegiate coach, he had a cumulative co.... 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