Fred Brown--Hall of Fame, July 22, 1990
He gave Iowa lift, from downtown
By RON MALY
Register Staff Writer
07/22/1990
As a University of Iowa junior, he was called the missing link by Coach Ralph Miller in what was to become a championship season.
As a senior, he was much more than a link. He was virtually the whole show under Coach Dick Schultz.
Fred Brown was his name, basketball was his game. The 6-foot 3-inch guard excelled in the sport at every level of competition.
They called him downtown Freddie Brown when he dialed long distance for many of his points in 13 seasons for the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association. But he was strictly uptown in style in his two-year career as a Hawkeye.
Add in a strong showing at Southeastern Community College of Burlington before his days at Iowa, and it's easy to see why Brown qualifies to become today the 125th member of the Des Moines Sunday Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.
"Even though I wasn't a native Iowan, I'm proud to have spent some time in the state," Brown said. "It was a love affair. I still have fond memories of how the people of the state took me in.
"I live in Seattle now, but when I go back to Iowa to visit, it's like I never left."
Brown was born in Milwaukee, where he led Lincoln High School to two state championships. Although Miller, who was Iowa's coach from 1965 to 1970, would have preferred Brown be a Hawkeye for four years, he settled for the next-best thing.
"Fred couldn't qualify academically to play Big Ten Conference basketball out of high school," Miller said. "So he enrolled in junior college at Burlington, and we stayed in contact with him."
In his two seasons at Southeastern, Brown scored 1,675 points -- averaging 21.3 a game as a freshman, 26.8 as a sophomore -- and was named to the national junior college all-tournament team in 1969. Then it was on tow Iowa, where he quickly earned the respect of Miller and a gang of veteran players.
"In his first season with us," Miller said, "it was a situation where one person made a huge difference in a team. Fred was the missing link. We were a good team, but he helped make us a very good one.
"Chad Calabria, Glenn Vidnovic, John Johnson, Dick Jensen and Ben McGilmer were seniors when Brown came in, and he was just what we needed."
Although Brown could be an explosive scorer, Miller hardly ever mentioned offense first when he was describing any player. Before he talked about points, Miller talked about defense and passing.
Brown was capable in both areas.
"He was a fine passer, a good shooter and quite capable of playing excellent defense," Miller said. "Now, he didn't try very often to play strong defense when he was a junior in college, but I did notice that he could be an outstanding defensive player when I saw him in a tournament."
Miller recalls a conversation he had with Brown when he recruited him: "You're supposed to be a fine offensive player, and we know that. But I also saw you play defense for 5 minutes in a junior college game, and I'm going to make you one of the best defensive guards in the Big Ten."
"He worked on his defense very hard, and became a solid all-around player," Miller said.
Conference Champs
Brown was a point guard on the 1969-70 Iowa team that, after a sluggish start, took the Big Ten by storm. The Hawkeyes finished with a 20-5 overall record, and seized the conference championship with a 14-0 mark.
In 14 of their 25 games, they scored 100 points or more. In nine league games, they surpassed 100. In their final six games, they went past 100 -- including a 121-point outburst against Notre Dame in a third-place NCAA Mideast Regional tournament game.
Iowa's 102.9 average in conference games that season is still a Big Ten record.
Although some -- including Schultz, who then was Miller's top assistant -- thought the 1969-70 Hawkeyes had the ammunition to be national champions, they lost their chance when Jacksonville nipped them, 104-103, in the first round of the Mideast Regional.
Brown was a player who knew his role in that devastating lineup. He was the new kid on the block. He didn't come to Iowa City to show Johnson, who would later join him on the SuperSonics; Calabria; Vidnovic, or any other members of the team he could throw his weight around.
Just his passes.
"Filled a Need"
"I wasn't the type of player who wanted to score points," Brown said. "I just filled a need. Those other guys had all been there. I could pass well, and the other guys wanted to shoot. Because I was the point guard, I had the ball. So I got it to them."
Brown kept it a few times, too. He averaged 17.9 points a game -- one of four Hawkeyes who hit at a 17-point clip or higher.
With Miller having left to take the Oregon State coaching job, and with most of the experienced players gone, Brown was left to carry the load in the 1970-71 season under Schultz.
Schultz's first Hawkeye team lost eight of its last nine games, and finished 9-15.
Still, Brown had a brilliant season. He played in all 24 games, averaged 27.6 points and had a high game of 37 against Purdue. The average hasn't been matched by a Hawkeye since.
To further explain how dominant Brown was on that Hawkeye team, consider that center Kevin Kunnert had the team's second-best scoring average at 10.4.
Brown averaged 28.9 points in Big Ten games; he was on all-America teams selected by Basketball News, Basketball Weekly and the Helms Foundation; he was an all-conference first-team player; and he was named Iowa's most valuable player.
Fred could always shoot," Schultz said, "but we had a problem getting him to shoot more as a senior. He preferred to drive, and set up other people."
He said he helped recruit Brown, and always thought highly of him.
"He was a classy guy -- honest and straight-forward," said Schultz, who now is executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. "I felt he'd be a good professional player, but so many things can happen in the NBA that you never know for sure."
Looking back at his collegiate career, Brown said, "The individual statistics aren't that important to me. I'd have preferred to be on a national championship team."
National Champ
That honor finally came Brown's way when the SuperSonics won the NBA championship in 1979. He had been Seattle's first-round draft choice in 1971, and quickly became a factor on the team. he played in 33 games and averaged 4.2 points as a rookie, then hit at a 13.5 clip while playing 79 games in his second season.
In his 13 seasons, Brown averaged 14.5 points and is the team's career scoring leader with 14,018 points. He owns the club record for points in a game with 58 against Golden State on March 23, 1974. He is also the Sonics' career leader in minutes played (26.4 average per game), assists (3.4 average), field goals (6,006), field goals attempted (12,568) and steals (1.2 average per game).
"I was a point guard when I first got to the pros," Brown said, "but became a shooting guard in my third season. The decision was made because we needed point production."
Brown said he acquired the nickname Downtown Freddie Brown during an autograph-signing session following a Seattle game.
"The kids who came up to me asked if I'd sign my name Downtown Freddie Brown," he said. "There were some media people there at the time, and they picked up on it."
Retires
Brown retired following the 1983-84 season, going out with an 8.5 average during the regular season and a 9.8 mark in the playoffs.
"The team was restructuring, and I didn't want to be a guy sitting at the end of the bench," Brown said.
Brown, 42, is now assistant vice president of sales and marketing for the Goodwill Games, which are in progress in Seattle.
"I was the guy who had to raise $26 million for the Games," Brown said. "When the Games are over, I'll go back to the real world -- which, for me, is commercial and residential real estate."
Brown met his wife, Linda, when both were students at Iowa. They have three sons -- Fred Jr., 16; Terik, 12, and Bryan, 10.
Brown's main game these days is tennis.
"I'm waiting to play Boris Becker," he joked.
By RON MALY
Register Staff Writer
07/22/1990
As a University of Iowa junior, he was called the missing link by Coach Ralph Miller in what was to become a championship season.
As a senior, he was much more than a link. He was virtually the whole show under Coach Dick Schultz.
Fred Brown was his name, basketball was his game. The 6-foot 3-inch guard excelled in the sport at every level of competition.
They called him downtown Freddie Brown when he dialed long distance for many of his points in 13 seasons for the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association. But he was strictly uptown in style in his two-year career as a Hawkeye.
Add in a strong showing at Southeastern Community College of Burlington before his days at Iowa, and it's easy to see why Brown qualifies to become today the 125th member of the Des Moines Sunday Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.
"Even though I wasn't a native Iowan, I'm proud to have spent some time in the state," Brown said. "It was a love affair. I still have fond memories of how the people of the state took me in.
"I live in Seattle now, but when I go back to Iowa to visit, it's like I never left."
Brown was born in Milwaukee, where he led Lincoln High School to two state championships. Although Miller, who was Iowa's coach from 1965 to 1970, would have preferred Brown be a Hawkeye for four years, he settled for the next-best thing.
"Fred couldn't qualify academically to play Big Ten Conference basketball out of high school," Miller said. "So he enrolled in junior college at Burlington, and we stayed in contact with him."
In his two seasons at Southeastern, Brown scored 1,675 points -- averaging 21.3 a game as a freshman, 26.8 as a sophomore -- and was named to the national junior college all-tournament team in 1969. Then it was on tow Iowa, where he quickly earned the respect of Miller and a gang of veteran players.
"In his first season with us," Miller said, "it was a situation where one person made a huge difference in a team. Fred was the missing link. We were a good team, but he helped make us a very good one.
"Chad Calabria, Glenn Vidnovic, John Johnson, Dick Jensen and Ben McGilmer were seniors when Brown came in, and he was just what we needed."
Although Brown could be an explosive scorer, Miller hardly ever mentioned offense first when he was describing any player. Before he talked about points, Miller talked about defense and passing.
Brown was capable in both areas.
"He was a fine passer, a good shooter and quite capable of playing excellent defense," Miller said. "Now, he didn't try very often to play strong defense when he was a junior in college, but I did notice that he could be an outstanding defensive player when I saw him in a tournament."
Miller recalls a conversation he had with Brown when he recruited him: "You're supposed to be a fine offensive player, and we know that. But I also saw you play defense for 5 minutes in a junior college game, and I'm going to make you one of the best defensive guards in the Big Ten."
"He worked on his defense very hard, and became a solid all-around player," Miller said.
Conference Champs
Brown was a point guard on the 1969-70 Iowa team that, after a sluggish start, took the Big Ten by storm. The Hawkeyes finished with a 20-5 overall record, and seized the conference championship with a 14-0 mark.
In 14 of their 25 games, they scored 100 points or more. In nine league games, they surpassed 100. In their final six games, they went past 100 -- including a 121-point outburst against Notre Dame in a third-place NCAA Mideast Regional tournament game.
Iowa's 102.9 average in conference games that season is still a Big Ten record.
Although some -- including Schultz, who then was Miller's top assistant -- thought the 1969-70 Hawkeyes had the ammunition to be national champions, they lost their chance when Jacksonville nipped them, 104-103, in the first round of the Mideast Regional.
Brown was a player who knew his role in that devastating lineup. He was the new kid on the block. He didn't come to Iowa City to show Johnson, who would later join him on the SuperSonics; Calabria; Vidnovic, or any other members of the team he could throw his weight around.
Just his passes.
"Filled a Need"
"I wasn't the type of player who wanted to score points," Brown said. "I just filled a need. Those other guys had all been there. I could pass well, and the other guys wanted to shoot. Because I was the point guard, I had the ball. So I got it to them."
Brown kept it a few times, too. He averaged 17.9 points a game -- one of four Hawkeyes who hit at a 17-point clip or higher.
With Miller having left to take the Oregon State coaching job, and with most of the experienced players gone, Brown was left to carry the load in the 1970-71 season under Schultz.
Schultz's first Hawkeye team lost eight of its last nine games, and finished 9-15.
Still, Brown had a brilliant season. He played in all 24 games, averaged 27.6 points and had a high game of 37 against Purdue. The average hasn't been matched by a Hawkeye since.
To further explain how dominant Brown was on that Hawkeye team, consider that center Kevin Kunnert had the team's second-best scoring average at 10.4.
Brown averaged 28.9 points in Big Ten games; he was on all-America teams selected by Basketball News, Basketball Weekly and the Helms Foundation; he was an all-conference first-team player; and he was named Iowa's most valuable player.
Fred could always shoot," Schultz said, "but we had a problem getting him to shoot more as a senior. He preferred to drive, and set up other people."
He said he helped recruit Brown, and always thought highly of him.
"He was a classy guy -- honest and straight-forward," said Schultz, who now is executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. "I felt he'd be a good professional player, but so many things can happen in the NBA that you never know for sure."
Looking back at his collegiate career, Brown said, "The individual statistics aren't that important to me. I'd have preferred to be on a national championship team."
National Champ
That honor finally came Brown's way when the SuperSonics won the NBA championship in 1979. He had been Seattle's first-round draft choice in 1971, and quickly became a factor on the team. he played in 33 games and averaged 4.2 points as a rookie, then hit at a 13.5 clip while playing 79 games in his second season.
In his 13 seasons, Brown averaged 14.5 points and is the team's career scoring leader with 14,018 points. He owns the club record for points in a game with 58 against Golden State on March 23, 1974. He is also the Sonics' career leader in minutes played (26.4 average per game), assists (3.4 average), field goals (6,006), field goals attempted (12,568) and steals (1.2 average per game).
"I was a point guard when I first got to the pros," Brown said, "but became a shooting guard in my third season. The decision was made because we needed point production."
Brown said he acquired the nickname Downtown Freddie Brown during an autograph-signing session following a Seattle game.
"The kids who came up to me asked if I'd sign my name Downtown Freddie Brown," he said. "There were some media people there at the time, and they picked up on it."
Retires
Brown retired following the 1983-84 season, going out with an 8.5 average during the regular season and a 9.8 mark in the playoffs.
"The team was restructuring, and I didn't want to be a guy sitting at the end of the bench," Brown said.
Brown, 42, is now assistant vice president of sales and marketing for the Goodwill Games, which are in progress in Seattle.
"I was the guy who had to raise $26 million for the Games," Brown said. "When the Games are over, I'll go back to the real world -- which, for me, is commercial and residential real estate."
Brown met his wife, Linda, when both were students at Iowa. They have three sons -- Fred Jr., 16; Terik, 12, and Bryan, 10.
Brown's main game these days is tennis.
"I'm waiting to play Boris Becker," he joked.
posted by ronald wesley maly at 1:51 PM
<< Home