Coach Dale Brown, one of the outstanding personalities in college athletics, began his 44-year coaching career as a high school wrestling, football, and track coach. He served as an assistant coach for 5 years at Utah State and 1 year at Washington State University before becoming head coach at Louisiana State University. In the 25 years before Brown's arrival, LSU won a total 288 games and went to 2 NCAA tournaments. Under Brown's coaching, game attendance soared and the Tigers won 448 games and appeared in 13 NCAA tournaments. His 1986 team was the lowest seed (11th) to ever advance to the Final Four. Only one other coach in the Southeastern Conference won more games than Brown, whose team won or were the runners-up at the SEC conference 8 times during a 14-year span. Coach Brown is the only SEC coach to appear in 15 straight national tournaments, and he was voted SEC Coach the year multiple times. He was also selected as the Louisiana College Basketball Coach of the Year 7 times. In 1981, Sporting News and the NBC Sports staff named Brown the National Basketball Coach of the Year. In recent years, Coach Brown has become an author and motivational speaker.
