The friendships, lessons, and lasting influence of a Louisiana basketball legend
by Terry Waldrop | November 1, 2026
With the passing of legendary LSU basketball coach Dale Brown, yet another of my childhood coaching heroes has left us.
But this one hurt more than the others.
You see, Dale Brown wasn't simply someone I grew up watching on television, admiring from a distance, or dreaming of someday meeting.
I actually got to know him.
I worked his basketball camps, shared friendships with members of his staff, sought his advice throughout my coaching career, and became part of the remarkable fraternity of coaches he brought together each summer in Baton Rouge.
Whether I reached out by letter, email, or telephone, Coach Brown responded.
Always.
It didn't matter whether I was a ninth-grade assistant coach at West Monroe High School, the head coach at tiny Sterlington High School, or coaching college basketball.
Whether I was at Navarro College in Texas, suddenly working with players he was interested in recruiting, or sitting across the court from him on the opposing bench at Southeastern Louisiana University, Coach Brown made time for me.
Our professional circumstances changed over the years. Sometimes I was a young coach seeking advice. Sometimes I had access to prospective LSU recruits. Eventually, I found myself competing against him.
But none of those circumstances changed how he treated me.
He valued me just as much when I had nothing to offer him professionally as when our paths crossed in the basketball business.
And I wasn't unique.
He mentored countless coaches who worked his summer camps, from young assistants trying to find their way in the profession to accomplished coaches who had already won championships of their own.
He made every one of us feel important.
Over the years, I learned that Dale Brown possessed a remarkable ability to connect people. Some of my closest friendships began because he brought together coaches from different backgrounds, different states, and different levels of basketball.
Those friendships have endured long after our coaching careers ended.
That's why this loss feels different.
I've mourned other coaching heroes, men whose accomplishments inspired me and whose careers helped shape my philosophy of coaching.
But Dale Brown was more than a familiar face on television or a name in the record books.
He was real to me.
I had conversations with him. I received encouragement from him. I watched him demonstrate loyalty, compassion, and genuine concern for people when there was absolutely nothing in it for him.
Some of those moments came during the most difficult days of my life.
And others came during the most rewarding.
When I learned of his passing on October 23, 2026, I wasn't simply mourning a legendary basketball coach.
I was mourning someone who had personally influenced my life.
To understand why Dale Brown meant so much to me, you have to go back to where it all began.
A boy growing up in football-crazed Louisiana during the 1970s, sitting beside his father, watching the LSU Tigers whenever television gave us the opportunity.
When LSU Basketball Became Part of My Life
You have to remember what sports television was like in those days.
LSU football might be televised a couple of times a year, if we were lucky. There was no streaming, no ESPN carrying games around the clock, and certainly no opportunity to watch every game your favorite team played.
When LSU basketball came on television, it was a treat.
And in our house, it was an event.
Some of my earliest and fondest childhood memories are of watching Coach Brown and his LSU Tigers with my late father.
We celebrated their victories and mourned their defeats. We lived and died with LSU basketball.
Those teams played with passion, desire, and a relentless pursuit of the game I loved.
And the man leading them was unlike anyone I had ever seen.
Coach Brown prowled the sidelines with an emotional intensity that seemed almost impossible to contain. He celebrated, pleaded, shouted, encouraged, argued, and practically willed his teams to victory.
I was fascinated.
As I grew older and began playing basketball myself, I became increasingly interested in the way he communicated with his players.
It was a passionate, emotional frenzy that sometimes appeared to bewilder opponents and officials alike.
But his players embraced it.
They believed in him. They responded to him. And they played for him.
THAT, perhaps as much as anything, made me want to become a basketball coach.
Little did I know that someday I would not only meet the man but develop a relationship with him that would extend across decades.
Or that some of the most important friendships and experiences of my professional life would begin because of him.
He Made Basketball Matter in Louisiana
It's difficult to explain to younger generations just how much Dale Brown changed the basketball culture of Louisiana.
This was football country.
Always had been.
Saturday nights in Tiger Stadium were practically a religious experience, and basketball was what happened between football seasons.
Dale Brown changed that.
He gave LSU fans something to look forward to in the winter. He packed the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, turned ordinary basketball games into must-see events, and created an atmosphere that could rival just about anything in college athletics.
The Deaf Dome became legendary.
And suddenly kids growing up in Louisiana weren't just dreaming about playing football for LSU.
They were dreaming about playing basketball for Dale Brown.
But I don't think people today fully appreciate what Coach Brown and the LSU Tigers meant to basketball fans, not just in Louisiana, but across the country.
Dale Brown made LSU basketball the hottest ticket around in a state where football was practically a religion.
Think about that for a moment.
In Louisiana, you didn't compete with LSU football.
You simply didn't.
But Dale Brown did.
He turned the Pete Maravich Assembly Center into one of the focal points of college basketball in America.
The PMAC was packed. The crowds were loud, passionate, and knowledgeable. The atmosphere was electric. When the Tigers played a nationally ranked opponent, there were few places in college basketball where you would rather be.
The national television networks noticed.
ESPN was becoming a major part of the college basketball landscape, and LSU became one of those programs fans across the country wanted to watch.
Dick Vitale, with his unmistakable enthusiasm and colorful descriptions, helped bring the excitement of college basketball into living rooms everywhere.
Billy Packer was one of the most respected analysts in the sport, and Louisiana's own Tim Brando became one of the familiar national voices of college basketball.
Those were the voices of an era when college basketball was exploding in popularity.
And LSU was right in the middle of it.
When the Tigers were featured on national television, it was appointment viewing.
You arranged your evening around the game.
You knew when tipoff was.
You made sure you were sitting in front of the television.
And if you were fortunate enough to have tickets to the PMAC, you knew you were about to experience something special.
There were the deafening crowds, the student section, the intensity, and the remarkable collection of players who came through Baton Rouge.
And there was Dale Brown, seemingly involved in every possession, every whistle, every confrontation, and every emotional swing of the game.
It was theater.
It was entertainment.
And it was big-time college basketball.
For those of us who grew up when television appearances were rare, the transformation was almost unbelievable.
The same LSU basketball program that we once considered ourselves fortunate just to see on television had become a nationally recognized attraction.
And it didn't happen by accident.
Dale recruited great players. He scheduled major opponents. He promoted his program relentlessly. He understood the importance of television exposure long before many coaches fully appreciated what it could mean.
He made LSU basketball relevant on a national stage.
But perhaps his greatest accomplishment was making young people across Louisiana believe that basketball mattered just as much as any other sport.
Those packed PMAC crowds weren't simply spectators attending basketball games.
They were evidence of a cultural transformation.
Dale Brown had done something that once seemed almost impossible.
He made basketball appointment viewing in football-crazed Louisiana and made LSU one of the programs the rest of the country wanted to watch.
And for a generation of Louisiana kids like me, that changed everything.
The Magic of March — And a Classmate Named Don Redden
The LSU teams of 1980 and 1981, along with the unforgettable 1986 Final Four team, remain distinctly etched in my memory.
The 1981 team was a powerhouse, winning 31 games and advancing to the Final Four in Philadelphia.
But the 1986 team?
That was something entirely different.
That was magic.
The Tigers entered the NCAA Tournament as an 11th seed. Nobody outside Louisiana gave them much chance of doing anything significant.
Naturally, that was exactly the kind of situation Dale Brown seemed to relish.
The Tigers opened with a remarkable double-overtime victory over heavily favored Purdue, 94–87.
Two days later, against highly ranked Memphis State in Baton Rouge, Anthony Wilson gathered a loose ball and put up a short, off-balance shot as time expired.
The ball kissed the glass, bounced around the rim, and fell through.
LSU 83, Memphis State 81.
The PMAC erupted.
The Tigers were headed to Atlanta, where they knocked off No. 2 seed Georgia Tech, 70–64.
That set up yet another confrontation with top-seeded Kentucky, a team that had already beaten LSU three times that season.
Three times!
Surely Kentucky wasn't going to lose to a team it had dominated throughout the year.
But somebody forgot to tell Dale Brown.
The Tigers defeated the Wildcats 59–57, and suddenly the unthinkable had become reality.
LSU was headed to Dallas and the Final Four.
Louisville, the eventual national champion, would end that remarkable run in the national semifinals.
But it didn't diminish what had happened.
For several magical weeks, people all across Louisiana were united by a basketball team that refused to accept what everyone else considered inevitable.
And for those of us from Northeast Louisiana, there was an additional source of pride.
One of the driving forces behind the Tigers' remarkable success was the late Don Redden, a Monroe native and, more importantly to me, a classmate of mine at Ouachita High School.
I knew Don long before he became a hero to LSU basketball fans across Louisiana.
Watching someone I had gone to high school with play such an important role in taking the Tigers to the Final Four made that remarkable journey even more special.
And Don wasn't simply along for the ride.
He was magnificent.
He scored 27 points against Georgia Tech in the regional semifinals and was named Most Valuable Player of the NCAA Southeast Regional in Atlanta.
Think about that.
A young man from Ouachita High School in Monroe, Louisiana, was the MVP of the regional that sent LSU to the Final Four.
For a young coach from the same high school, watching a former classmate achieve that kind of success on college basketball's biggest stage was something I'll never forget.
Don's untimely death in 1988, at just 24 years old, made those memories even more poignant.
When I think about that magical 1986 team, I don't simply remember the victories over Purdue, Memphis State, Georgia Tech, and Kentucky.
I remember Don Redden.
A fellow Ouachita Lion who helped make an entire state believe that anything was possible.
And that's another reason that 1986 Final Four run will always hold such a special place in my heart.
That remarkable tournament embodied everything Dale Brown believed about competition.
Believe in yourself.
Believe in your teammates.
Never accept that someone else gets to determine your limitations.
And never, ever quit.
Basketball Wasn't Just a Game. It Was an Event.
Coach Brown understood something that went beyond coaching strategy and recruiting.
He understood promotion.
He understood that if basketball was going to compete for attention in Louisiana, it had to become something people didn't want to miss.
And boy, did he deliver.
There were victories over some of the biggest names and most formidable programs in college basketball.
In 1989, LSU defeated John Thompson's second-ranked Georgetown Hoyas in the Louisiana Superdome before more than 54,000 fans, a record regular-season crowd at the time.
In January 1990, the Tigers beat Jerry Tarkanian's fifth-ranked UNLV Runnin' Rebels, 107–105.
And then there was February 3, 1990.
LSU versus Loyola Marymount.
I remember that day as clearly as just about any game I ever attended.
I was a young head coach at Sterlington High School and had brought my basketball team down to Baton Rouge to watch the Tigers.
I wanted my players to experience big-time college basketball.
Little did I know that we were about to witness one of the most extraordinary games in college basketball history.
Consider the talent assembled on that floor.
LSU had Chris Jackson, Shaquille O'Neal, Stanley Roberts, and Vernel Singleton, among others.
Loyola Marymount featured the unforgettable Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble, playing Paul Westhead's breathtaking, relentless, full-court brand of basketball.
It was an absolute track meet.
Up and down.
Back and forth.
Scoring seemingly every few seconds.
Both teams attacked with an almost reckless abandon that delighted the crowd and made the scoreboard operator earn his money.
The game went to overtime, and LSU eventually prevailed, 148–141.
Two hundred eighty-nine combined points.
In a college basketball game!
Chris Jackson scored 34. Shaquille O'Neal recorded 20 points, 24 rebounds, and 12 blocked shots. Hank Gathers scored 48 for Loyola Marymount, while Bo Kimble added 32.
It was extraordinary.
I had taken my high school players to Baton Rouge hoping they would experience something memorable.
Instead, we witnessed history.
Years later, LSU fans would vote that contest the greatest game in the first 50 years of the Assembly Center.
I have never forgotten it.
And neither, I suspect, did those young men who accompanied me.
Tragically, Hank Gathers would die just over a month later, making the memory of that remarkable afternoon even more meaningful.
That was Dale Brown's gift.
He made basketball an event.
He created experiences that people carried with them for the rest of their lives.
And I'm convinced no single individual did more to elevate the visibility and popularity of basketball throughout Louisiana than Dale Brown.
He didn't just recruit basketball players. He recruited an entire state to love the game.
From a Young Coach to a Mentor
After finishing college and beginning what could generously be described as a fledgling high school coaching career, I wrote Coach Brown a letter asking whether I might work at his summer basketball camp.
I would have volunteered.
Actually, I probably would have paid HIM for the privilege.
Instead, I found myself becoming part of something that would help shape my professional life for decades.
What always amazed me was how generous Coach Brown was with his time.
When I was a ninth-grade assistant coach at West Monroe High School, he made time for me.
When I moved into the considerably more prestigious position of head basketball coach at Class 1A Sterlington High School, he made time for me.
When I moved on to Navarro College in Texas, I suddenly found myself working with players who attracted the attention of major college programs, including LSU.
That changed the professional dynamic somewhat. I was no longer simply a young coach seeking advice from one of his heroes. I was now coaching players he might be interested in recruiting.
But the relationship never became purely transactional.
We could talk recruiting, naturally. That was part of our profession.
But we could just as easily talk basketball, coaching philosophy, or life.
And later, when I became an assistant coach at Southeastern Louisiana University, our relationship took on yet another dimension.
We found ourselves coaching against one another.
The man I had watched on television as a boy, the man whose coaching style had fascinated me and inspired me to enter the profession, was now standing across the court on the opposing sideline.
Think about that.
For a young Louisiana coach, it was an extraordinary full-circle experience.
But whether I was coaching against him or simply calling for advice, Dale Brown was still Dale Brown.
He made time for me.
He always had.
Through the years, I continued to reach out to him. Sometimes I wrote letters. Later, there were emails and telephone calls.
If I needed advice, encouragement, or simply wanted his perspective on something happening in basketball, he was there.
He answered.
Here was a coach who had reached the pinnacle of college basketball, who had coached some of the greatest players in the history of the sport, and whose name was recognized throughout America.
Yet he never seemed to think himself too important to respond to an old camp coach seeking advice.
And he treated so many others the same way.
Understand something.
I never played basketball at LSU.
I would have given just about anything to have been good enough to wear that uniform, even if it meant spending four years at the end of the bench.
But Dale Brown treated me as though I had been a four-year starter.
As my own career progressed, I never forgot that.
The Greatest Basketball Classroom I Ever Attended
For all the lessons Coach Brown taught me personally, perhaps his greatest contribution to my coaching education came through his summer basketball camps.
Dale had an extraordinary ability to bring people together.
His camps were like a who's who of basketball coaching, particularly in Louisiana.
There were legendary high school coaches and multiple state championship winners such as Robert Cade and Rick Brown from Ferriday, Kenny Almond, Gary Duhe, Joe Johnson, Mark Ludke, Larry Green, Tom Snell, Bobby Beene, and Gerry Marlin.
There was Pat Neely from Wyoming, my great friend Herb More from San Antonio, who coached Shaquille O'Neal in high school, and the legendary T.J. "Toody" Cirincione.
And the list went on.
There was Scott Geautreaux, a former Nicholls State player and coach. John Morrison, Adam Morrison's father, came from Casper College in Wyoming. There were Coach Francis and Coach Marshall from New Orleans, Robert Lee, and Mike Martin from Natchez High School.
And there was Tom Schuberth from Northeast Louisiana University, another important mentor in my coaching life.
The collective experience represented by that group was remarkable.
Think about the number of state championships those coaches had won.
Think about the thousands of players they had coached, the programs they had built, and the years of basketball knowledge gathered under one roof.
There were coaches who had won championship after championship. There were coaches who had spent their lives developing young men in small communities where the high school basketball coach was as important a figure as almost anyone in town.
And there were younger coaches like me, trying to absorb as much of that knowledge as possible.
But the fascinating thing about Dale Brown's camps was that nobody seemed particularly interested in establishing a pecking order.
We were all basketball coaches.
And Dale made certain we all felt like we belonged.
There was also the unforgettable, irrepressible Billy Donovan, a quadriplegic coach whose friendship and presence became such a special part of that camp family.
Then there were the LSU basketball staff members Coach Brown had assembled around him.
Johnny Jones, Bob Starkey, Jim Childers, and Craig Carse were among the assistants and staff members who contributed to that remarkable environment.
And there were student assistants such as Lou DiFeo, Randy Phillipson, G-Man Gandy, and so many others whose names and faces remain part of those memories.
They worked, organized, taught, assisted, and did whatever needed to be done.
Some would go on to establish careers of their own in basketball.
Others would take different paths.
But for those summers, we were all part of the same basketball family.
And at the very center of the operation was a woman who deserves tremendous credit.
Wanda Carrier.
Coach Brown's administrative assistant was, in many ways, the person who made the entire operation function.
Think about the logistics of bringing together that many coaches, campers, speakers, staff members, and personalities from across the country.
Schedules had to be coordinated. Coaches had to be contacted. Camp assignments had to be made. Accommodations, paperwork, communications, and countless other details had to be handled.
And somehow, Wanda kept it all together.
Dale Brown was the visionary, the personality, and the magnet who brought people to Baton Rouge.
But Wanda Carrier was the organizational force who helped turn his vision into a functioning operation.
Anyone who has ever organized a major basketball camp understands that the glamour is usually reserved for the people standing on the court.
The real work often happens in the offices, on the telephones, and behind the scenes.
Wanda was indispensable.
She was also an important part of the personal relationships that developed around the LSU basketball program.
She knew us. She knew our families and our circumstances. She helped make that environment feel less like a temporary summer job and more like an extended family.
I would come to appreciate that personal connection in a way I could never have anticipated during the summer of 1994.
And those are just the names I can remember off the top of my head.
There were so many others.
I was honored simply to be in the same building with those men and women.
Coach Brown took care of his camp coaches. He fed us and paid us $200 a week, which was pretty darn good money back then!
But the money was the least valuable thing we received.
The real compensation was the education.
Dale brought in a collection of speakers unlike anything I had ever seen, before or since.
Imagine being a young basketball coach and having an opportunity to learn from John Wooden, Rollie Massimino, Wimp Sanderson, and Bill Walton.
Then add Skip Bertman, Mike Archer, Curley Hallman, Avery Johnson, and countless others.
These people came to speak with campers, but often the greatest moments happened afterward, when the coaches gathered for evening sessions.
We talked basketball, philosophy, leadership, motivation, competition, and life.
Sometimes we debated.
Sometimes we argued.
Most of the time, I just listened.
Those late-night sessions were among the finest educational experiences of my coaching career.
They were worth more than any coaching clinic I ever attended, and frankly, more than a good portion of the formal education I received.
But something happened during those summers that was even more valuable than the basketball education.
We formed friendships.
Real friendships.
Friendships that endured long after we stopped coaching together at LSU.
There were coaches from small Louisiana towns, nationally recognized college coaches, former players, future head coaches, and people from entirely different backgrounds.
Dale brought all of us together.
He didn't seem particularly interested in whether you were famous or obscure, whether your school had 100 students or 30,000, or whether you had won a national championship or were still trying to figure out how to win a district game.
If you loved basketball, wanted to learn, and were willing to contribute, you belonged.
We came to those camps to teach basketball. What Dale gave us was an education in people, relationships, and life.
And the full significance of that education would become apparent only years later.
Tom Snell, a Parking Lot, and a Friendship That Endured
One of my closest friends today is Tom Snell.
Interestingly enough, it didn't start that way.
Not even close.
Tom was the basketball coach at tiny Linville High School in Northeast Louisiana. Linville was a baseball powerhouse, and Tom had built an extraordinary program that won multiple state championships.
Basketball, unfortunately, was another story.
His teams struggled mightily, and despite his best efforts, wins were difficult to come by.
But Tom was a competitor, and he wasn't about to accept that things couldn't get better.
So he wrote Dale Brown a letter.
He explained the difficulties he was having with his basketball program and asked Coach Brown for advice.
Now, consider the circumstances. Dale Brown was one of the most recognizable college basketball coaches in America. He was running a major Southeastern Conference program, recruiting nationally, playing in front of packed arenas, and dealing with the countless demands that came with being the head coach at LSU.
And here was a coach from a tiny school in Northeast Louisiana, struggling to win basketball games, asking for help.
Dale could have sent him a form letter.
He could have mailed a few basketball drills.
He could have ignored the letter entirely.
Instead, he invited Tom to Baton Rouge.
As Tom has told me the story many times, when he arrived at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, he found Coach Brown outside picking up paper and trash scattered around the grounds.
Tom joined him.
And for approximately 45 minutes, the two of them walked around the PMAC, picking up paper, cleaning the grounds, and talking basketball.
Think about that.
One of the most recognizable coaches in the country was spending nearly an hour picking up trash with a small-town high school coach who had written him asking for help.
There were no television cameras, no reporters, and no audience.
Just two basketball coaches, cleaning up around the arena and discussing the game they loved.
That was Dale Brown.
But the story doesn't end there.
Tom eventually became part of Coach Brown's summer basketball camp staff and developed a close friendship with LSU assistant Bob Starkey.
And that's where our paths crossed again.
You see, Tom and I had known each other as competing high school basketball coaches.
And we weren't particularly fond of one another.
In fact, adversarial might be a polite description of our relationship.
We competed against each other, formed our opinions from opposite sidelines, and didn't exactly spend much time exchanging Christmas cards.
Then we found ourselves working together at Dale Brown's basketball camp.
And something happened.
We got to know each other.
Not as opposing coaches trying to beat one another, but as people.
We talked basketball, shared experiences, laughed, argued, and discovered that we actually had quite a bit in common.
What began as an adversarial relationship developed into a friendship that has now endured for decades.
Today, Tom Snell is one of my closest friends.
And here's something that makes that friendship even more meaningful.
Tom and I have lunch together once a week.
We've been doing that for years.
We talk about basketball occasionally, of course. Old coaches never completely give up the game, even when the game has long since given up on them.
But mostly we talk about life.
Family. Friends. The world around us. The good things, the difficult things, and the ordinary things that make up our days.
Sometimes we reminisce about our coaching years.
Sometimes we solve all the problems facing college basketball, although for some strange reason nobody in Indianapolis ever calls to ask our opinion.
And sometimes we're simply two old friends having lunch.
But every time I think about how that friendship began, I find myself coming back to one person.
Dale Brown.
Without his willingness to answer a letter from a struggling high school coach, Tom might never have become part of that summer camp staff.
Without those camps, Tom and I might have remained nothing more than two adversarial coaches who occasionally crossed paths on a basketball court.
Instead, we developed a friendship that has lasted a substantial portion of our lives.
And now, more than thirty years later, we still sit down together every week.
That's the kind of influence Dale Brown had on people.
He didn't simply teach basketball.
He brought people together.
He created relationships that continued long after the final buzzer, long after the coaching careers ended, and long after the summer camps became memories.
Every week, when Tom Snell and I sit down for lunch, we're enjoying the benefits of a friendship that Dale Brown helped make possible decades ago.
Another victory that never appeared on a scoreboard.
Billy Donovan and Dale Brown's Love for the Underdog
Another of the unforgettable personalities who became part of Coach Brown's extended basketball family was Billy Donovan.
Billy was a quadriplegic basketball coach and, to those of us who worked those camps, an extraordinary individual.
But Billy was much more than a coach whose physical circumstances made his story unusual.
He was one of us.
He was part of the coaching fraternity that Dale had assembled, and he became a special part of my life, just as he did for so many of the coaches who spent those summers in Baton Rouge.
Billy represented something essential about Dale Brown.
Dale had a lifelong affection for the underdog.
He was drawn to people who faced difficult circumstances, people others underestimated, and people who refused to accept the limitations that life or society placed upon them.
Billy belonged in that world.
And just as important, he belonged in our world.
Coach Brown's camps weren't simply a collection of famous coaches sharing their knowledge with youngsters.
They were a community.
And Billy was part of that community.
I think about the friendships that grew out of those camps, the people who became important in our lives, and the remarkable assortment of personalities Dale somehow brought together.
Billy was one of the most unforgettable.
His friendship meant a great deal to me.
And I know I wasn't alone.
People arrived with different backgrounds, different life experiences, different accomplishments, and different challenges.
But they found something in common.
They were basketball people.
And they belonged.
Some coaches are remembered for the players they recruited. Some are remembered for the championships they won. Some are remembered for the programs they built.
Dale deserves to be remembered for the people he brought together and the relationships that followed.
Billy was part of that legacy.
A very special part.
The Man Who Went Searching for Noah's Ark
There was another side of Dale Brown that television audiences didn't always see.
The man was endlessly curious.
He was intellectually adventurous, relentlessly optimistic, occasionally outrageous, and genuinely fascinated by the possibilities of human achievement.
He read motivational books constantly.
He studied leadership, psychology, philosophy, religion, competition, and the potential of the human spirit.
He could quote Zig Ziglar or Norman Vincent Peale just as easily as he could discuss a zone press or a late-game offensive situation.
He believed in teamwork, perseverance, faith, and the importance of putting others ahead of yourself.
One theme he returned to repeatedly was the notion that the greatest opportunity for me was found in we.
That philosophy wasn't confined to his locker room.
It was visible in the way he treated people.
He wrote motivational books himself and seemed determined to share whatever he had learned with anyone willing to listen.
And then there were his adventures.
This was a man who actually went searching for Noah's Ark.
No kidding.
The head basketball coach at LSU, responsible for recruiting, winning SEC basketball games, satisfying boosters, managing players, and dealing with the NCAA, decided to go looking for Noah's Ark.
Who does that?
Dale Brown, that's who.
He traveled, explored, sought out unusual experiences, and seemed determined to squeeze every ounce of adventure out of the life he'd been given.
He possessed an almost childlike curiosity about the world.
Not childish.
Childlike.
He never lost the wonder of discovering something new.
And whenever he discovered something, he wanted to tell everybody about it.
A conversation with Dale might begin with basketball, wander into a discussion of leadership, take a detour through a quotation from a motivational speaker, and somehow end up halfway around the world.
But there was usually a point.
And that point almost always involved people, their potential, their dignity, or their ability to overcome adversity.
This was a man who lived a life few people could even imagine.
And the extraordinary thing is that he never seemed too busy living that life to take an interest in yours.
A Kindness My Father Never Forgot
In the summer of 1993, I was working Coach Brown's basketball camp when my father was battling cancer.
He had been diagnosed earlier that year, and like so many families dealing with that terrible disease, we were navigating an uncertain and frightening time.
I don't know how Coach Brown found out about my father's illness.
I never asked.
But somehow he knew.
And every day during camp, he made a point of asking me how my father was doing.
Every day.
Think about that for a moment.
Here was the head basketball coach at LSU, a man with a thousand demands on his time, running one of the most successful basketball camp operations in the country.
And somehow, amid all that activity, he remembered that one of his camp coaches had a sick father back home in Monroe.
When camp ended and I returned home, I told my dad that Coach Brown had been asking about him.
I'll never forget the smile that came across his face.
You see, my father had never met Dale Brown.
Not once.
But here was the coach whose teams we had watched together for so many years, the man whose victories we celebrated and whose losses we mourned, asking about him personally.
It meant the world to my dad.
And it meant the world to me.
It was such a simple thing.
Just a few questions from one man about another man's health.
But it brought a little joy to someone dealing with a serious illness.
And Dale Brown had no idea how much that meant.
That's the thing about genuine kindness.
You don't always realize how far it travels.
The Longest Walk
The following summer, in 1994, I returned to Baton Rouge to work both weeks of Coach Brown's basketball camp.
My father was nearing the end of his radiation treatments and, at the time, seemed to be doing fairly well.
We were hopeful.
Then, on Monday morning, I received a telephone call in the LSU basketball office.
My father had unexpectedly passed away.
There are moments in life that you never forget, no matter how much time passes.
I remember that call.
And I remember the walk from the basketball office back to the dormitory to pack my belongings.
It was a long walk.
A very long walk.
Coach Brown's longtime assistant, Johnny Jones, had been informed of my father's passing by Wanda Carrier, LSU basketball's extraordinary administrative assistant.
I didn't know Johnny particularly well at the time.
We were acquainted through the camps, but we weren't close friends.
It didn't matter.
Johnny came to me, put his arm around my shoulder, and walked with me back to the dormitory.
He didn't deliver some grand speech.
He didn't offer a collection of clichés about life and death.
He simply walked beside me, his arm around my shoulder, offering support to another coach who had just lost his father.
I thanked him.
Johnny probably doesn't remember that walk today.
But I do.
More than thirty years later, I remember it vividly.
And I've never forgotten what it meant.
It was a reflection of Johnny Jones, certainly.
But it was also a reflection of the culture Dale Brown had established around his basketball program.
We weren't all LSU employees.
Some of us were college coaches. Some were high school coaches. Some were young assistants just trying to find their way in the profession.
But in Dale Brown's world, once you became part of that coaching fraternity, you belonged.
We were all his guys.
After flying home to Monroe, one of the first telephone calls I received was from Coach Dale Brown.
He called to offer his condolences.
Again, think about that.
He didn't have to call.
He had no obligation to call.
I wasn't one of his full-time assistants. I wasn't a former player. I wasn't a major donor or some prominent figure whose friendship might benefit his basketball program.
I was simply one of his camp coaches.
But my father had died, and Dale Brown wanted me to know he cared.
The year before, he had given my father a smile by asking about him.
Now, with my father gone, he was reaching out to the son.
It was always about relationships with Dale Brown.
Always.
Loyalty Wasn't Just Something He Talked About
There's another memory from those camp years that illustrates the kind of loyalty Coach Brown inspired.
One summer, a highly respected basketball coach from the Baton Rouge area found himself in a difficult situation.
He was an outstanding coach, a Hall of Fame-caliber guy, and someone who had been part of Coach Brown's camp family.
As I recall, a school superintendent decided to fire him, and some of the public comments surrounding the situation struck me as attacks on the man's character.
I was working camp when all this unfolded.
Now, I don't remember every detail of that dispute more than thirty years later.
But I remember Dale Brown's reaction.
He was having none of it.
Coach Brown made it clear to all of us that when someone attacked the character of one of his camp coaches, they weren't simply attacking that individual.
They were attacking all of us.
Including him.
That was how he viewed loyalty.
Coach Brown became involved, defended his friend, and made it clear he wasn't going to quietly stand by while someone he respected was publicly diminished.
If my memory serves me correctly, the coach had his job back within about four days.
The superintendent may have learned something about loyalty that week.
The rest of us already knew.
If Dale Brown was on your side, you had a friend and an ally.
And you didn't have to wonder whether he'd be there when things got difficult.
He would.
A Night at the PMAC I Will Never Forget
My first game as an NCAA Division I basketball coach was against LSU and Coach Dale Brown in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
For a young Louisiana coach who had grown up idolizing the man, it was quite an experience.
Our Southeastern Louisiana team was badly overmatched, but our players competed.
We battled, scratched, clawed, and refused to back down.
Unfortunately, LSU was LSU, and the Tigers were simply too talented.
The Lions ended up on the wrong end of a blowout.
After the game, we loaded our players into the vans for the trip back to Hammond.
I was driving one of them.
As I began pulling away from the PMAC, I heard someone yelling behind us.
I stopped and rolled down the window.
And there, chasing down our van, was none other than Coach Dale Brown.
I was stunned.
Here was the head basketball coach at LSU, a nationally recognized figure who had taken his program to Final Fours and coached some of the greatest players in college basketball, running through a parking lot to catch a van full of players from a team he had just beaten soundly.
He came to my window and told me how proud he was of me and our basketball team.
He talked about how hard our players had competed despite being overmatched. He said this was a different Southeastern Louisiana team from those he had faced before.
And he encouraged us to keep working, never give up, and reach for the stars.
He didn't have to do any of that.
The game was over. LSU had won. He had a thousand other things he could have been doing.
But he wanted those young men, and a young assistant coach, to know that someone had noticed their effort.
That Southeastern team would eventually come within a miraculous overtime shot of reaching a game with an NCAA Tournament berth on the line.
I've thought about that night many times over the years.
Not because we lost to LSU.
But because Dale Brown cared enough to chase down a van.
A Telephone Call After a National Championship
In 2006, I had the extraordinary privilege of coaching Texas Wesleyan University to the NAIA National Championship.
Any coach who has spent years in the profession understands what goes into winning a national championship.
The long hours. The recruiting. The practices. The travel. The setbacks. The sacrifices. The countless decisions that must somehow come together at precisely the right time.
For more than twenty years, I had chased that dream.
And in 2006, it became reality.
It remains one of the proudest accomplishments of my professional life.
But among the many memories of that championship season, one stands out for reasons that have little to do with the final game.
The following week, my telephone rang.
It was Coach Dale Brown.
He was calling to congratulate me.
He told me how proud he was of me and what we had accomplished at Texas Wesleyan.
Think about that.
The man I had watched on television with my father as a boy, the coach whose passion had inspired me to enter the profession, was now calling to congratulate me on winning a national championship.
This was the same man who had opened the doors of his basketball camp to a young high school coach, answered my letters and telephone calls, encouraged me throughout my career, and never made me feel that my questions weren't worth his time.
Now he was calling to tell me he was proud.
He didn't have to do that.
But that's who Dale Brown was.
I've received a number of honors and recognitions throughout my career, but some moments mean more than plaques, trophies, or awards.
That telephone call was one of them.
It was a reminder that the relationships we establish in coaching can become more meaningful than the games themselves.
And there's another part of that national championship story that makes it even more special.
A part that brings us right back to Dale Brown's summer basketball camps.
Brennen Shingleton, Two Championships, and a Remarkable Circle of Relationships
One of my assistant coaches on that 2006 national championship team was Brennen Shingleton.
Brennen had played for me when I was an assistant coach at Southeastern Louisiana University.
Later, he joined my coaching staff at Texas Wesleyan and became an important part of our championship program.
But where did Brennen and I first meet?
You guessed it.
The Dale Brown Basketball Camp.
Another relationship that began because Coach Brown brought people together.
At the time, there was no way either of us could have known where our paths would lead.
We were simply basketball people who happened to cross paths during those summer camps in Baton Rouge.
Later, our paths came together again at Southeastern Louisiana, where I coached Brennen.
Still later, he became my assistant at Texas Wesleyan.
And in 2006, we celebrated a national championship together.
But the story didn't end there.
Brennen eventually became the head coach at Texas Wesleyan University.
And in 2017, eleven years after our championship, he led the Rams to another NAIA National Championship.
Two championships at the same university, eleven years apart.
I was the head coach of the first.
Brennen was the head coach of the second.
And both of us could trace the beginnings of our relationship to Dale Brown's basketball camp.
But here's where the story becomes almost unbelievable.
A member of Brennen's national championship team was Coach Dale Brown's grandson.
Think about that remarkable circle of relationships.
Dale Brown brought a young coach named Terry Waldrop into his basketball camp family.
Through that camp, Terry met Brennen Shingleton.
Brennen eventually played for Terry at Southeastern Louisiana and later joined his coaching staff at Texas Wesleyan.
Together, they helped win a national championship in 2006.
Eleven years later, Brennen won another national championship as the head coach, with Dale Brown's grandson among the members of that team.
And in between those championships, Dale Brown picked up the telephone to tell that former young camp coach how proud he was of him.
You couldn't have scripted it much better.
I look back at all the circumstances that had to come together for those relationships to develop.
The people who had to meet.
The opportunities that had to arise.
The paths that had to cross.
And the starting point for so much of it was the same.
Dale Brown and his basketball camps.
Now, don't misunderstand me.
National championships are won by players and coaches through extraordinary commitment, sacrifice, preparation, and hard work.
Dale Brown didn't win those two national championships for us.
But he helped bring together people whose relationships became part of those championship journeys.
And that's an entirely different kind of legacy.
The championship trophies are part of Texas Wesleyan's basketball history.
But the relationships that helped make those experiences possible trace back to Baton Rouge.
Sometimes I wonder whether Dale ever fully appreciated the number of connections he created and just how far those relationships eventually reached.
One young coach meets another at summer camp.
Years later, they win a national championship together.
The younger coach eventually wins another championship, with the grandson of the man who introduced them on his team.
And all those years later, the friendships remain.
Tell me that isn't a legacy.
And once again, its significance extends far beyond anything that ever appeared on a scoreboard.
When the Mentor Asked Me to Mentor Someone Else
Years later, after I had stepped away from coaching and moved back to Monroe, Coach Brown reached out to me with a request.
He wanted me to help another college basketball coach.
This was someone Dale cared about, someone he wanted to see succeed, and someone he believed could benefit from a little guidance.
He asked whether I would sit down with the coach and help prepare for an upcoming job interview.
But this wasn't simply about rehearsing answers to questions from a search committee.
Coach Brown wanted me to help this individual develop a plan.
A real plan.
How to approach the interview. How to articulate a coaching philosophy. How to establish program goals. How to organize the basketball operation, build a staff, recruit players, establish expectations, and create a structure that could produce long-term success.
In other words, Dale didn't just want this coach to win the interview.
He wanted the coach to know how to build a winning program after getting the job.
Of course, I agreed.
I sat down with the coach and shared the knowledge and experiences I had accumulated over more than twenty years in college basketball.
We talked about the realities of running a program, the importance of organization and planning, the expectations of administrators, and the difference between having a good interview and presenting a vision that people could believe in.
At the time, I didn't give much thought to the significance of Coach Brown's request.
A friend had called and asked me to help another coach.
That's what coaches do.
But sometime afterward, as I reflected on our conversation, something occurred to me.
Dale Brown had asked ME to mentor another college coach.
Think about that.
Here was a man who knew virtually everybody in basketball. His network included Hall of Fame coaches, national championship winners, former players, and some of the most respected basketball minds in America.
He could have called any number of them.
Instead, he called me.
A former young camp coach who had once written him a letter asking for an opportunity. A guy who would have worked those camps for free just to be around him.
I was genuinely flattered.
More than that, I was honored.
Because I realized that Coach Brown wasn't simply asking me to do someone a favor.
He was demonstrating that he valued my experience, respected what I had accomplished, and trusted me to help someone whose future mattered to him.
And there was something else about that request that was quintessential Dale Brown.
Even after all those years, he was still looking out for another coach.
He was still trying to open a door.
Still trying to give someone an opportunity.
Still connecting people who might be able to help one another.
The same man who had once made time for a young ninth-grade assistant coach was now asking that former assistant to make time for someone else.
And perhaps without even realizing it, he had taught me one more lesson.
The real measure of mentorship isn't simply what you teach someone. It's whether they eventually become capable of helping someone else.
For years, I had benefited from Dale Brown's generosity.
On that occasion, he gave me the privilege of extending that generosity to another coach.
And of all the honors and recognitions I've received during my coaching career, being asked by Dale Brown to help mentor another coach remains one of the most meaningful.
Not because of the task itself.
But because of the man who asked me to do it.
A Champion of the Underdog
Dale Brown was, at his core, an underdog coach.
If the cowboys and Indians were playing, Dale was probably helping the Indians.
It wasn't that he hated the cowboys. He simply had an instinctive desire to stand beside people he believed had been treated unfairly.
Throughout his career, Dale spoke openly about social issues and injustice at a time when many prominent coaches preferred to remain silent.
Sometimes he was praised for it.
Sometimes he was vilified.
And sometimes his views made people downright uncomfortable.
But Dale never seemed particularly concerned about making everyone comfortable.
He believed what he believed, and he was willing to say it.
He saw one race: the human race.
Those who knew him understood that this wasn't some carefully manufactured public image.
It was genuine.
Television audiences saw the animated, emotional, occasionally volcanic basketball coach stalking the sidelines, battling officials, and willing his Tigers to victory.
But beneath all that fire was something much deeper.
Dale Brown believed in the dignity of people.
Not just famous people.
Not just wealthy people.
Not just great basketball players.
Everyone.
He believed a ninth-grade assistant coach deserved his time.
He believed a struggling small-town coach from Linville deserved his attention, even if the two of them ended up spending 45 minutes picking up trash in the PMAC parking lot.
He believed a quadriplegic basketball coach named Billy Donovan belonged in the fraternity of coaches he had gathered.
He believed that young men playing for an overmatched Southeastern Louisiana basketball team deserved his encouragement.
He believed a grieving young coach deserved a telephone call.
And years later, he believed another young college coach deserved an opportunity, so he reached out to someone he thought might be able to help.
And he understood something that many people in positions of power never seem to figure out.
You don't diminish your own importance by making someone else feel important.
You enhance it.
One Final Honor
In a particularly poignant twist of timing, just days before his passing, Dale Brown was named the 2027 recipient of the prestigious John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award.
The announcement came on October 21, 2026, just two days before Coach Brown died.
It was an extraordinary and fitting honor for a man whose life and career embodied so much of what John Wooden believed coaching should represent.
And for me, there was something especially meaningful about the connection.
John Wooden was one of the legendary figures Coach Brown brought to his summer basketball camps, allowing young coaches like me to learn from one of the greatest teachers our profession has ever known.
Now Dale Brown would join the distinguished company of coaches recognized in Wooden's name.
The honor celebrates more than victories and championships. It recognizes leadership, character, dedication to student-athletes, and the lasting influence coaches have on others.
I can think of few descriptions more appropriate for the Dale Brown I knew.
The announcement included a video tribute from Shaquille O'Neal, one of Brown's most celebrated players, and the award was scheduled to be formally presented in Los Angeles in April 2027.
Sadly, Dale would not live to attend that ceremony.
But the recognition had come while he was still with us.
John Wooden and Dale Brown had been friends, and Wooden understood something about Dale that wasn't always apparent to those who knew him only from television.
He saw beyond the emotional sideline behavior and the occasionally controversial public personality.
He recognized the depth of the man.
I understood that.
Because I had seen it myself.
In the way Dale treated the young coaches who worked his camps.
In the friendships he helped create.
In the questions he asked about my father.
In the telephone call after Dad died.
In his loyalty to people he believed had been treated unfairly.
In the congratulations he offered after my national championship.
In his trust when he asked me to mentor another coach.
And in that night he chased down a van outside the PMAC simply to encourage a young coach and his players.
It was one of the final honors of an extraordinary life.
A life that reached far beyond a basketball court.
And as fitting as that recognition was, I suspect that the relationships he created and the people he influenced would have mattered even more to Dale Brown than another trophy.
The Victories That Never Appeared on a Scoreboard
Looking back over more than forty years, I realize that perhaps Dale Brown's greatest gift wasn't simply his ability to motivate basketball players or build championship teams.
It was his extraordinary ability to bring people together.
Think about the friendships that began because of one man.
Tom Snell and I started as opposing coaches who didn't particularly like one another. Today, he's one of my closest friends. And every week, we sit down together for lunch, enjoying a friendship that began because Dale brought us together.
Herb More came from San Antonio, and decades later, our friendship remains.
Billy Donovan became a special part of the lives of countless coaches who worked those summer camps.
Brennen Shingleton and I met through those camps, eventually won a national championship together, and watched another championship follow years later, with Dale Brown's grandson on Brennen's team.
We came from different places. We coached at different levels. We had different personalities, different philosophies, and sometimes very different opinions.
But Dale brought us together.
And behind the scenes, people like Wanda Carrier worked tirelessly to make those connections and experiences possible.
There were assistant coaches, student assistants, administrative staff members, and an extraordinary collection of high school and college coaches whose contributions made those camps something far more meaningful than a summer basketball program.
Dale created an environment where a ninth-grade assistant coach could sit alongside a state championship coach, a major college assistant, or a nationally recognized coaching legend, and everyone belonged.
Some of those friendships have lasted longer than our coaching careers.
Others became the foundation for championship programs.
And still others created opportunities for the next generation of coaches.
I wonder sometimes whether Dale ever fully appreciated just how many lives became connected because of him.
We came to Baton Rouge to teach basketball.
We ended up learning about people, loyalty, friendship, and life.
And through it all, at the center of those relationships, was Dale Brown.
He won 448 games at LSU. But I suspect the number of friendships he created, relationships he nurtured, and lives he influenced was considerably greater.
Those were victories that never appeared on a scoreboard.
And those are the victories that endure.
Returning to the PMAC — And a Friendship That Has Lasted a Lifetime
On November 11, 2026, LSU and the Brown family will hold a Celebration of Life honoring Coach Brown at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Fittingly, the tribute will take place in the very building where so much of his legacy was created.
I plan to be there.
But perhaps the most fitting part of that evening, at least for me personally, will be reuniting with one of my closest and dearest friends, Herb More, who is making the ten-hour drive from San Antonio, Texas.
Herb was Shaquille O'Neal's high school basketball coach.
We met more than thirty years ago while working Coach Brown's summer basketball camps at LSU.
We came from different places and different backgrounds, brought together by a mutual love of basketball and one extraordinary man.
And what began as a friendship between two basketball coaches became something much more meaningful.
Through the years, Herb and I have shared the highs and lows of our coaching careers.
We've celebrated victories, endured defeats, exchanged advice, and occasionally questioned our own sanity for choosing this profession in the first place.
But more importantly, we've shared our lives.
We've experienced the joys, disappointments, challenges, and personal struggles that come with growing older.
We've been there for each other through circumstances that had absolutely nothing to do with basketball.
Our friendship has endured through the years, long after those summer basketball camps became memories.
And none of it would have happened without Dale Brown.
That's what makes November 11 so meaningful to me.
Herb is driving ten hours from San Antonio, and I'll be traveling from Monroe.
We'll meet again in Baton Rouge, at the very place where Coach Brown brought us together all those years ago.
Only this time, we won't be there to coach basketball.
We'll be there to honor the man who introduced us.
I suspect there will be a few stories told, a lot of memories shared, and probably some laughter mixed with the sadness.
Knowing Herb and me, there might even be an old coaching argument or two.
But somewhere during that evening, I know I'll look at my longtime friend and appreciate something that goes far beyond basketball.
The man we have come to honor is the very reason we're friends in the first place.
Think about that.
More than thirty years ago, Dale Brown brought two basketball coaches together at his summer camp.
He couldn't possibly have known where our careers would take us or what life would have in store for either of us.
He couldn't have known the victories, defeats, disappointments, celebrations, and personal struggles we would share.
Yet here we are, more than three decades later, preparing to return to Baton Rouge as lifelong friends to honor the man who made that friendship possible.
And I suspect Herb and I won't be the only ones there with stories like that.
There will be former players, coaches, friends, family members, and countless others whose lives crossed paths because of Dale Brown.
Some will remember championships.
Some will remember great games and unforgettable players.
Others will remember a telephone call, a letter, a word of encouragement, or an unexpected act of kindness.
And others, like Herb and me, will remember the friendships that began because Dale brought people together.
For me, the PMAC has always been more than a basketball arena.
It's the building I watched on television as a kid, dreaming about what it must be like to coach basketball on that stage.
It's where I later worked summer camps and learned from some of the greatest minds in the profession.
It's where I developed friendships that have lasted much of my adult life.
It's where I experienced the thrill of coaching against LSU in my first game as a Division I assistant.
And it's where, on a Monday morning in 1994, I received the telephone call informing me that my father had died.
That building holds a remarkable collection of memories for me.
Some wonderful.
Some painful.
All unforgettable.
And now I will return to honor the man who was responsible for so many of them.
Dale Brown won 448 basketball games at LSU.
But more than thirty years after he brought two young coaches together, those two men will return to the PMAC as lifelong friends to celebrate his life.
Tell me that isn't a victory.
And not one point of it ever appeared on a scoreboard.
The Lessons That Remain
I went on to spend much of my adult life coaching college basketball.
I was fortunate enough to win championships, work with remarkable young men, and experience things I could never have imagined as that kid watching LSU basketball with his father.
Eventually, in 2006, I had the extraordinary privilege of coaching Texas Wesleyan University to a national championship.
Along the way, I coached hundreds of players and worked alongside countless coaches and administrators.
And somewhere in all those years, the lessons Dale Brown taught me continued to show up.
In the way I tried to communicate with my players.
In the passion I brought to the sideline.
In my belief that effort and determination could overcome disadvantages.
In the loyalty I believed coaches and teammates owed one another.
And, perhaps most importantly, in the way I tried to treat young coaches who wanted nothing more than an opportunity and a little encouragement.
I didn't always get it right.
Neither did Dale.
No coach does.
But I learned from him that coaching was about something much larger than the final score.
It was about relationships.
It was about loyalty.
It was about believing in people, sometimes before they believed in themselves.
And it was about never becoming so important that you forgot where you came from or the people who helped you get there.
Dale Brown won championships, coached legendary players, made two Final Four appearances, and helped transform basketball in a state where football had always been king.
Those accomplishments are recorded in the history books.
His induction into basketball halls of fame and the recognition associated with the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award provide further testimony to an extraordinary career.
But his influence on basketball in Louisiana cannot adequately be measured in victories, championships, attendance figures, or Final Four appearances.
He inspired generations of young people to fall in love with a game.
And he inspired young coaches, including me, to believe they could someday make their own contribution to it.
For me, his legacy reaches all the way back to a living room in Northeast Louisiana, where a young boy sat beside his father watching the LSU Tigers whenever television gave them the opportunity.
It stretches through magical March evenings, packed arenas, summer basketball camps, and the friendships that came from them.
It includes my Ouachita High School classmate Don Redden helping take the Tigers to the Final Four.
It includes Tom Snell, a man I once knew primarily as an adversary on the basketball court, who became one of my closest friends. More than thirty years later, we still have lunch together every week. A friendship that began because Dale Brown invited a struggling high school basketball coach to Baton Rouge and welcomed both of us into his extended basketball family.
It includes Herb More, whose friendship has enriched my life for decades and who is now preparing to drive ten hours to Baton Rouge so we can honor the man who brought us together.
It includes Billy Donovan and the remarkable fraternity of coaches who became part of our lives because Dale brought us together.
It includes Brennen Shingleton, whom I first met through Coach Brown's camps, who played for me at Southeastern Louisiana, who helped me win a national championship at Texas Wesleyan, and who later won a national championship of his own with Coach Brown's grandson on the team.
It includes a telephone call the week after that 2006 championship, when my childhood coaching hero told me how proud he was of me.
It includes the day, long after my coaching career had ended, when the man I had turned to for advice asked me to pass along some of what I had learned to another coach he wanted to see succeed.
It includes the smile on my father's face when he learned that Dale Brown had been asking about him.
It includes a young assistant coach named Johnny Jones putting his arm around my shoulder and walking with me after I learned my father had died.
And it includes Wanda Carrier, the remarkable administrative assistant who helped bring that entire collection of people together and whose compassion was part of what made the LSU basketball family so special.
It includes a telephone call from Coach Brown when I returned home to Monroe, a gesture he was under no obligation to make but made anyway.
And it includes one unforgettable night in Baton Rouge, when a nationally famous basketball coach ran through a parking lot to catch a van carrying a young assistant coach and his defeated players.
He wanted them to know their effort mattered.
And that he believed in them.
More than three decades later, I can still see him standing outside that van.
I can still hear the encouragement in his voice.
And I can still feel what it meant to that young coach who had once watched him on television with his father and dreamed of following in his footsteps.
As I grow older, I realize something else.
The heroes of our youth eventually leave us.
The coaches we admired, the teachers who inspired us, the parents who encouraged us, and the people who helped shape our lives don't remain with us forever.
But their influence does.
And sometimes the greatest measure of a person's life isn't what they accomplished for themselves.
It's what they made possible for others.
That's what made Dale Brown different for me.
He wasn't simply a childhood hero whose accomplishments I admired.
He was a man I actually knew.
A man who answered my letters, emails, and telephone calls. A man who shared his knowledge and encouragement with young coaches who could offer him little in return. A man who brought together people who might otherwise never have met and whose friendships have now endured for decades.
A man who called to congratulate me when I won a national championship.
A man who later asked me to help another coach find his own path to success.
And when I needed him most, during the illness and death of my father, he was there.
That's why this one hurts a little more.
On November 11, when Herb and I walk into the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, we'll be there to say goodbye to Coach Brown.
But in a very real sense, the fact that we'll be walking into that building together will be one more reminder of what he gave us.
A friendship that began more than thirty years ago.
A friendship that has endured through the highs and lows of basketball and, far more importantly, of life itself.
And somewhere in the memories of that evening will be the people who have spent their lives building upon the opportunities and relationships Dale created.
Coaches who became friends.
Players who became coaches.
Mentors who became mentors to others.
Championship teams whose connections began at a basketball camp in Baton Rouge.
The story of Dale Brown's life will always include 448 victories, two Final Fours, legendary players, and the transformation of LSU basketball.
But those numbers tell only a small part of the story.
The rest is written in the lives of people he touched.
People like Tom Snell.
Herb More.
Brennen Shingleton.
Billy Donovan.
Johnny Jones.
Wanda Carrier.
And, thankfully, me.
Dale Brown probably never realized just how much those moments meant to me.
But I never forgot.
Not one of them.
Rest in peace, Coach Brown.
And thank you for making a kid from Louisiana believe he could become a basketball coach.
