Colorado University Athletics
Dean Brittenham, Former CU Track Coach, Dies At 84
June 29, 2015 | General, Track and Field
Dean Brittenham, a former University of Colorado athletic department staffer and nationally renowned strength coach, died last week at his home in Lyons on his 84th birthday.
A native of Brady, Nebraska, and 2011 inductee into the Nebraska Sports Hall of Fame, Brittenham received his master's degree from CU and was hired by the school in 1972 as an athletic development coach and recruiter in football. He later became the Buffs' head cross country and track coach before leaving in 1984 to begin a career in professional sports.
Among the pro teams he worked for were the Broncos, Chiefs, Vikings, Saints and Patriots in the NFL; the Indiana Pacers and Utah Jazz in the NBA; and the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago Cubs in Major League Baseball.
Brittenham, the former director of the athletic development program at the prestigious National Institute for Fitness and Sport in Indianapolis, trained notable professional and Olympic athletes such as the Williams sisters (Venus, Serena), Gayle Sayers, Dale Murphy, Steve Finley, Jim Courier, Art Burns, and Abigail Spears.
In 1995, Brittenham and his late wife Bev moved to San Diego, where he established the Shiley Elite Athletic Excellence Program at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla.
He also headed up athletic development clinics abroad (Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iceland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia) and founded "Brain in the Bag, LLC" to promote "brain breaks" throughout school days to help students enhance their learning.
Applied to sports, Brittenham's goal was to encourage athletes to become "whole brain thinkers," stressing a program that emphasized the building of cognitive function and less weight lifting in favor of more flexibility and ambidexterity.
By emphasizing overall athleticism along with speed and ambidexterity, Brittenham determined that athletes' ability to read and react on the field was developing faster because of more brain growth.
"We knew the brain was important and so forth, but we didn't know how we were growing the brain," Brittenham told The Longmont Times-Call in a 2011 interview. "It was a by-product of all the training and the program."
Brittenham helped create braininabag.com, which is dedicated to improving athletes' performance by turning them into "whole-brain thinkers."
"It's just been a dream for me to be involved in all this," Brittenham said in the Times-Call interview. "I can't take credit for it but we now know that most of these people became whole-brain thinkers. And I now think we can turn everybody into whole-brain thinkers."
After graduating from Brady (Neb.) High School in 1949, Brittenham attended the University of Nebraska on a basketball scholarship for two years before serving in the Navy for four years. He then returned to Nebraska to earn his bachelor's degree in physical education.
In addition to CU, Brittenham's college coaching career included stops at Kansas, Occidental College in Los Angeles and Nebraska as an assistant track coach and the football team's strength and conditioning coach.
It was in Lincoln in that job where he gained international accolades as a pioneer and innovator in strength and conditioning. Legendary Cornhuskers football coach Bob Devaney approached Brittenham about trying to improve his players' speed.
His training regimen must have helped; the Cornhuskers won back-to-back national championships in football (1970-71) and Brittenham's methodology began moving to the forefront of the athletic world.
Brittenham is survived by his second wife, Carolyn, and two sons (Steve, Longmont; Greg, Haines, Alaska); a sister (Molly Rundle, of Brady, Nebraska); five grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
Funeral services in Colorado will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 30 at the LifeBridge Christian Church, 10345 Ute Hwy. in Longmont. Services in Nebraska will be held Thursday, July 2 at the Brady United Methodist Church with interment afterward at the Brady Cemetery.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Dean and Beverly Brittenham Scholarship fund (providing college scholarships for Brady High School Graduates) and sent to Ahlberg Funeral Chapel, 326 Terry Street, Longmont, CO 80501. Condolences can be left at www.ahlbergfuneralchapel.com
