Dale Brown knew how to make a great first impression, and he was at his best when the odds were against him. The greater the challenge, the more he seemed to relish taking it on.
It’s probably fitting that the legendary LSU basketball coach, who died last week at age 90, was born on Halloween because his was a life full of tricks and treats.
He made his first great impression on me as the spanking new head basketball coach when I was a senior at LSU. As sports editor of the campus newspaper, The Reveille, I was the first to interview him as the Tigers’ new coach in March of 1972. He reminded me of that often during his coaching career. One mid-week autumn afternoon in the 1980s, I was interviewing an LSU football player as we sat on a bench outside of Tiger Stadium. Coach Brown strode by and, spotting me, walked up close, pumped his fist and smiled and said, “You and me, 1972, my first interview as coach, in there.” And he pointed to the stadium, home of his first office, slightly bigger than a walk-in closet.
Brown’s enthusiasm, his charisma, his energy, his knowledge of history and his ability to spout quotes from poems and classic literature impressed me from the start. He may not have had a bigger office yet in the new LSU Assembly Center (later christened the Maravich Assembly Center), but he made a great first impression on the basketball world with an upset victory in his first game as LSU’s coach there. His unranked Tigers upset 11th-ranked Memphis State, 94-81, and five players scored in double figures – four of whom were walk-ons. Eddie Palubinskis, a native Australian who transferred from Ricks Junior College in Idaho, led the way with 32 points, and the Tigers made an indelible impression on their fans and the Memphis State Tigers with their relentless hustle, especially on defense. The team was nicknamed “The Hustlers” after that endearing trait. That Memphis State team was no slouch, either. It went on to finish that 1972-73 season as runner-up in the NCAA finals, losing only to Bill Walton (44 points) and the UCLA Bruins coached by John Wooden.
The greater the challenge part? Let’s fast forward to Feb. 11, 1978. On that date, LSU upset No. 1 Kentucky, 95-94 in overtime, despite having all five starters foul out. Against the top-ranked team in the country and with no starters on the court, the Tigers prevailed on grit and hustle and desire. Coach Joe B. Hall, who guided that UK team to the NCAA title the following month, said after the game, “We haven’t learned to adjust to teams that want the game more than we do. LSU wanted it more and I compliment them on the way they played.” And the master motivator who got LSU wanting that game more than Kentucky was none other than Dale Brown.
Coaches sometimes talk about how victories aren’t as important as giving one’s best effort, and Coach Brown said as much on many occasions. That sentiment came vividly to life in January of 1986 in a gut-wrenching 54-52 home loss to Kentucky – the first of three losses to Kentucky that season. The game wasn’t decided until the buzzer, but Brown felt victorious in defeat.
“I don’t want to sound like a baby, but I could cry,” said Brown after a game that climaxed a seven-day stretch that began with Nikita Wilson of Leesville being declared academically ineligible. In the same week star forward John Williams and reserve Bernard Woodside came down with the chicken pox. “I don’t know how many games I’ve coached, I think it’s been more than 400,” said Brown, “but I think that’s the greatest effort … because the guys believed in themselves. This game gave me a shot of adrenaline. It showed me that man still has greatness in him because they showed it tonight.”
The only big man available that night for the Tigers was the oft-clumsy 6-foot-10 Jose Vargas, but he contributed eight points, three rebounds and a blocked shot before fouling out. The Tigers emerged stronger, surprising all as an 11th seed in the NCAA Tournament by advancing to the Final Four – ironically by beating SEC nemesis Kentucky for the first time in four tries that season in the regional finals at Atlanta.
Brown’s 1980-81 team that finished 31-5 and advanced to the Final Four is remembered as his best, but even that team overcame adversity. In their season-opening Great Alaska Shootout, LSU lost to Arkansas after Brown benched many of his star players for much of the second half because he was unhappy with their effort. That discipline caught their attention and sparked a run that included 17 straight SEC victories.
Brown’s best coaching job might have been in the 1986-87 season. That’s when he took a group with no superstars that was 15-13 at the end of the regular season, and guided them, while purposely fasting from sleep for two nights, to the title game of the SEC Tournament and then to the NCAA Tournament regional finals. With a heartbreaking loss to Kentucky and phone-punching coach Bobby Knight, the Tigers narrowly missed a second straight Final Four.
Brown not only made great first impressions, he also made a great final impression in his farewell game as LSU’s coach in 1997. With his squad on the brink of losing 20 games in a season for the first time in his career and in the SEC cellar, he somehow got his troops to upset Arkansas. And he did it in a way that epitomized his knack for working best with the wayward, the lonely and the orphans. David Bosely, a senior from West Virginia who joined the team as a walk-on three years prior, had the best game of his career, with 15 points and three steals to lead the Tigers.
Shaquille O’Neal, the former LSU superstar who was then an injured Los Angeles Lakers star, spoke to the team before that game and told them to win it for LSU and for Coach Brown. Dale said he told them not to win for him but for themselves, no doubt remembering his pride in a defeated team in ’86 that “believed in themselves.”
In an interview with the Town Talk after that finale, Brown reflected on his career. Highlights included that he turned down an offer from Oral Roberts in the mid-1970s to be the coach and AD at Oral Roberts University for six times the pay he was receiving at LSU. It included a 30-passenger jet for himself and the team. But he decided that wouldn’t be right because he had given his word to LSU (not to mention a signed contract) that he would stay there. He had some other attractive offers to coach in the NBA but turned those down as well.
“I really like it here,” said the man who travelled the world, climbing the Matterhorn, travelling down the Amazon River, walking the Great Wall of China, and searching for Bigfoot. “I love Baton Rouge. I love the food. I really love the people. They’re unique, really. I’m not a mover, I’m a homebody.”
He may have been the only immigrant from Minot, N.D., ever to make such a home life in Baton Rouge, but, overall, Baton Rouge and the state of Louisiana were enriched by his making that move.
And staying.
And thriving when the challenges were seemingly impenetrable.