Event at last Hyslop Game?

[star2city]

Great article on Dale Brown in the Devil's Lake Journal

For the Hyslop history archives

Born on halloween in 1935, during the Great Depression, Brown grew up, along with two sisters, being raised by their mother, who rode a taxi home after giving birth to the boy who would later become a coaching legend.

His father, abandoned the family just two days before Brown was born and the two did not meet until his father made an unannounced visit to Brown while in class one day at St. Leo's. It was a meeting the younger Brown ended in a hurry and returned to class. The two would meet some nine years later when Brown, while stationed in the service in Fort Riley, Kansas, made a trip to Enid, Oklahoma to have a brief discussion with his father.

"Sports were my father-figure," Brown said. "They gave me a direction and a purpose."

Brown led the state in scoring as a senior with a 22 points per game average, and helped the Lions to the state tournament as a key reserve the previous year.

It was in that tournament, at Hyslop Arena, on the campus of the University of North Dakota, that Brown first made contact with another former North Dakota state great that went on to a successful coaching career at the collegiate level and with whom Brown, along with Harvey, N.D. native Jud Heathcote, would be forever entwined.

Lute Olson led Grand Forks Central to the state title in 1952 after knocking off Brown and the Lions 54-44 in the opener and left an impression on the younger Brown, as did the experience of playing in the state tournament.

"I remember the absolute thrill of going to the state tournament," said Brown, who still resides in Baton Rouge, where he is neighbors with Cannon.. "It was like Madison Square Garden. I thought Hyslop was just gigantic.

"Lute Olson and the rest of the players on the Grand Forks team were all outstanding basketball players," Brown added. "They were so much more mature and so much more poised than everyone else. But, it was also easy to see that (Olson) was the undoubted leader of that team."

Twenty-seven years later the three North Dakotans would have their respective teams in the final AP poll at the end of the 1978-79 season. Heathcote's Michigan State Spartans, led by Magic Johnson, were ranked No. 3 in that poll, while Brown's LSU squad was ranked No. 9 and Iowa, coached by Olson, was No. 20.

After graduating from St. Leo's, Brown enrolled at Minot State College, opting against playing at the University of North Dakota after a visit to the school.

"I was so intimidated by the lifestyles of the players (at UND)," Brown said. "Many of them had fancy clothes and cars ... and I had an inferiority complex."

Whatever shortcomings Brown believed he might have had began to erode once he got on the floor at Minot State, which was guided by another North Dakota coaching legend, Herb Parker.

"What I learned from (Parker), first of all is that he was a magnificent man," Brown said of his college mentor. "He knew the game of basketball and he was a genuinely nice man."

Led by Parker and Brown, Minot State advanced to the NAIA national tournament in 1954. Played in Kansas City's famed Municipal Auditorium, the same site that played host to the first-ever NCAA Final Four some 15 years earlier.

While a student at Minot State, Brown coached the junior varsity team at his former school. When his Beaver career ended in 1957, Brown took his first job as a teacher and coach at tiny Columbus High School in the far northwest corner of his native North Dakota.

"I coached basketball and track, taught classes and was the principal," Brown said. "They paid me $4,700 per year and I couldn't believe I was making that kind of money."

While at Columbus, Brown also initiated the wrestling program at the school and led the team to a fifth-place finish in the inaugural state tournament in 1959.

"We bought some films and books," Brown said. "No one knew much about the sport, but we studied our tails off."

But after that 1958-59 season a call from Fr. Blaine Cook brought Brown back to Minot and to St. Leo's. He spent five years as an assistant football coach under Mandan native and former NFL coach Ron Erhardt. He also guided the Lions for five years on the basketball court.

[UND92,96]

Great article on Dale Brown in the Devil's Lake Journal

For the Hyslop history archives

Interesting article. I didn't realize Jud Heathcote had any ND roots.