Game Changes Since Lsu Plucked Brown From WSU

In 1972, when then-LSU athletic director Carl Maddox was looking for a basketball coach to replace Press Maravich, he turned to a young assistant coach from Washington State University named Dale Brown.

College basketball hasn’t been the same since.

Brown is stepping down at the end of the season, his 25th at LSU, primarily because he can no longer deal with today’s coddled athletes. He would have left the game a lot sooner had it not been for a burning desire to capture a national championship.

“My ego couldn’t let me leave the game without winning one,” he said.

Dale Brown isn’t as innocent as he comes across, yet his program and persona can’t be classified as renegade, either. But Brown was indeed a character.

His team that featured Chris Jackson, Shaquille O’Neal and Stanley Roberts had no clue about chemistry and did nothing in the NCAA Tournament.

His recruiting delivery is legendary, often hiring high school coaches with prep All-Americans as his assistants. Brown’s recruitment of Los Angeles All-American John Williams in 1984 was noted by recruiters as “The Louisiana Purchase.”

But he may have been the game’s consummate motivator.

In 1987 LSU went 18-13 during the regular season with thoughts of an NIT bid, then knocked off Florida and Georgia in the SEC tournament before losing to Alabama in the final. During that week, Brown went without sleep, trying to show his players fatigue was just a state of mind. LSU earned an NCAA bid, then promptly dismissed three higher seeds - Georgia Tech, Temple and DePaul - before losing to eventual champ Indiana.

In 1988, Brown redesigned the Tigers’ uniforms for the SEC tourney. On one shoulder, LSU wore a black band, in tribute to legend Pete Maravich. On the other, the Tigers wore a black band with a gray inset. The gray pieces were from the T-shirt that former LSU player Don Redden was wearing when he died just before the tournament. Brown won the SEC tournament with middling talent.

Still, today’s student-athlete was too much to bear. He couldn’t understand how two of his former players, Randy Livingston and Ronnie Henderson, could leave LSU without their degree and how two of his foreign recruits graduated in four years.

Then there’s the sad odyssey of Lester Earl. The 6-foot-10 freshman quit the team, apologized and rejoined, missed a practice and was suspended from the team for the rest of the season last Saturday. Brown had had enough.

Brown leaves LSU trailing only Adolph Rupp in SEC victories, and has taken two teams to the Final Four. He also leaves with three consecutive losing seasons and observers who said he had lost his caress in recruiting.

But talk of Louisiana State basketball will always begin and end with one whimsical person in mind: Dale Brown.

Pac-10

Washington’s Mark Sanford freely admits he’s a fan of the New Orleans Saints. “I wanted to play for the Saints when I was growing up. It didn’t matter what position, I just wanted to play for the Saints.” But a 10-inch growth spurt in high school changed Sanford’s profession aspirations… . UCLA coach Steve Lavin on senior guard Cameron Dollar: “He’s like a Jim Plunkett at quarterback. He may not be pretty, he may not jump over the backboard, he may not be as strong or physically gifted as some point guards, but he’s a winner.” But can he sing? … UCLA is accustomed to nothing but excellence. Of all the championship banners hanging from the rafters of Pauley Pavilion, none of them represent a Pac-10 title… . Arizona State’s Mike Batiste, a 6-8 forward who became eligible on Christmas Day, is averaging 18 points and 7.5 rebounds for the Sun Devils.