Former CU Baseball Coach, State Media Icon Irv Brown Passes Away
February 03, 2019 | General
The Man Who Seemed To Know Everybody in Colorado Sports Was 83
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow28l8M4Xto&feature=youtu.be
BOULDER – Irv Brown, the former University of Colorado baseball coach, collegiate referee and longtime local media personality, passed away early Sunday morning from complications due to a brief illness. He was 83.
His oldest son, Greg, currently an assistant football coach at Auburn, relayed that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma just last Wednesday. He died at a hospice in Denver.
"The biggest and best thing growing up was that I never had to go outside my home for a hero or a role model," Brown said. "All I had to do was look at my dad every day."
During his nine-year run as CU's baseball coach, the Buffaloes were 224-158-2 in 384 games, the second-most by a coach in the school's baseball history. His .586 winning percentage was the second-best by any coach who was the helm for 48 or more games. His last eight teams all sported winning records, including a 32-11 mark in 1973, his best year as well as CU's best mark in any year with at least 20 games.
His two biggest stars went on to play a combined 26 seasons in the major leagues, catcher John Stearns and pitcher Jay Howell. Stearns and Dennis Cirbo earned All-America honors under Brown's tutelage, with nine overall earning All-Big Eight accolades.
"I owe a tremendous amount to Irv Brown," Howell said at his induction into CU's Athletic Hall of Fame last November. "I've had five managers who are Hall of Famers ... Tommy Lasorda, Billy Martin, Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox, Yogi Berra. Yeah, I was a journeyman ... but I never would have got there without Irv Brown."
Howell reiterated that on Sunday: "Without him, I didn't stand a chance. I really mean that from the bottom of my heart. He laid down the seeds for me to make it in professional baseball."
"Irv was everything when it came to my baseball career," Stearns said. "Going into college and wanting to play professional baseball, he was a terrific coach who was there in every aspect for me and had the utmost influence on my career. And he was also an assistant coach on my football team.
"He had a bright and optimistic approach to coaching," Stearns added. "Positive in everything he said and did. Even if you made a mistake, he'd never rip into you, he would try and build you up and instill confidence. I think that's why Eddie (Crowder) wanted him on his football staff. It was an honor and a thrill to play under him for four years."
"Irv was like my second father," said Jay Sferra, a two-time All-Big Eight centerfielder on Brown's 1973-77 teams. "I was 1,700 miles away from home for the first time. I was walking by his office and he and the Owner (the father of Boulder Camera sports editor Dan Creedon) would be there talking. Irv would open up the window and say, 'J.J. get in here now.' He personally made my transition to college easier and always made me feel special. And he was one hell of a baseball coach.
"When I arrived with my dad the summer of 1973 in Boulder we stopped at Irv and Pat's house and dropped off all my luggage," Sferra added. "My dad then went to Las Vegas and he became a blackjack and baccarat dealer and Irv would always ask me to tell your dad I'm coming to see him in Vegas, and without a doubt, every time he officiated a game in Vegas he stopped off to see a my dad to say hello. He was that special."
Brown also coached the freshman football team in 1972 and was a defensive line coach for three years under Crowder.
The Olympic sports, referred to as minor and then non-revenue sports back in that era, were all housed in Gate 1 of Folsom Field … all wedged into a large room that earned the nickname, "The Bullpen." The coaches at the time included Brown, Bill Marolt (skiing), Don Meyers (track), Mike Sager (wrestling), C.D. Bodam (tennis), Terry Danko (swimming), Dave Wardell and Sid Freudenstein (gymnastics) and Mark Simpson (golf).
"He was one of kind. Energetic, positive, humorous, loyal and just loved people," said Marolt. "Those characteristics that made him a great coach and broadcaster. All of us were in the bullpen and were really good guys. We may have been cramped, but we really had a positive environment surrounding that staff and Irv was a big part of that. It was an amazing time with amazing people."
Mike Moran was CU's sports information director during Brown's tenure as baseball coach. "Irv Brown was one of the most fascinating people in sports that I ever met. He seemed to know everyone, and everyone seemed to know him.
"I was sitting with Bobby Knight in a courthouse in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1979 when he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a cop during practice at the Pan American Games," Moran recalled. "Despite what was going on in the chamber, Knight wanted to talk about two people, basketball coaching great Pete Newell and Irv Brown. For me, Irv remains one of the most compelling people that I ever had the chance to deal with in my decade of service at CU after succeeding Fred Casotti as SID in 1968."
He was a well-respected basketball official, working 12 seasons in the NCAA all over the country but mainly in the west. How good a referee was Brown? He officiated six Final Fours in those dozen years (1969-80) and maintained a long-standing friendship with Indiana's Knight. He also spent several years as the supervisor of officials for the Western Athletic and Big Sky conferences.
After retiring from officiating, Brown turned his attention to broadcasting on both radio and television. Few may recall, but the very first college football game aired on ESPN was on Sept. 8, 1979, one day after the network debuted. Brown was the color analyst alongside Jerry Gross for an Oregon 33-19 win over Colorado in Boulder – selected because it was Chuck Fairbanks' first game as CU's head coach. The game was shown on tape delay later that evening.
Brown transitioned into fundraising after stepping down as CU's baseball coach in the summer of 1978. He worked for the better part of two years in that role before his career in the media started to flourish. He was already serving as the sports director at Denver's KHOW-Radio in his last years in Boulder, assuming that role in May 1976.
He always kidded some in athletics that his best moment in those two years came when he won the department's H.O.R.S.E tournament, winning the title over assistant women's basketball coach Bob Foley by making a free throw – while sitting down.
Dave Logan, former CU star in football and basketball from 1972-76, also wanted to play baseball in the spring and Eddie Crowder (football coach) had approved it; Logan is one of two people ever to be drafted in those three sports. But when Bill Mallory succeeded Crowder as head coach, he wanted Logan in spring football practices so he never played for Brown at Colorado.
But the two remained in touch. "Irv asked me what I was going to do, and I was choosing between going to camp with the (Seattle) Seahawks or a couple of business ventures," Logan recalled Sunday. "He invited me to come out and do a Super Bowl preview show with him. I didn't know what that really was and asked him … he just deadpanned me and sarcastically said, 'It's a Super Bowl preview show. We're going to talk about the Super Bowl.' He was kind and didn't follow that with a "Well, duh.' That was January 1985.
"We laughed because even though management liked me, I didn't get paid," Logan said. "But that eventually led to me entering the radio business and I was soon doing five hours a day, with Irv and Joe Williams and Irv got me $1,000 a month. That's how my now 30-plus year career in broadcasting started, and I owe it all to Irv. We stayed together a long time, and even when he left to go to another station, we were friendly competitors and still did some TV games together."
Those three, along with Woody Paige, were the four at the forefront of Denver sports talk radio when it took off in the mid-1980s.
"The Irv and Joe Show was legendary," Marolt fondly recalled. "Their conversation would often end up with Joe remembering when Irv was the baseball coach at CU in our tiny bullpen and then say to him, 'Don't come cryin' to me.'"
"I don't think there's been anybody in the history of this state that has touched more people in the world of sports than Irv Brown did," said Williams, his longtime radio partner. "Whether it be high school, college or the pros, easily hundreds if not into the thousands. They would come out to our remote sites over 37 years to see Irv. And here's the amazing thing: he remembered everybody's name. I never could figure out how he was able to do that."
One of Brown's former broadcasting partners on Denver Nugget games, Al Albert, echoed the number of people that Irv interacted with. "If there's six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, there just has to be two degrees of separation with Irv."
"He was a big voice in the state, maybe the biggest ever when it came to sports," said Rick George, CU athletic director. "He was always fair, always positive and that made it enjoyable to be on the radio with him. Irv represented what is best in what we do."
"I loved him," Logan added. "I learned a great deal from him. You can do good sports talk and be informative and entertaining, yet not take yourself too seriously. And then there's spontaneity, how to quickly react on a moment's notice. One day he called into our show from Houston … he gets on the phone for maybe 30 seconds and says, 'Hey fellas, here's Ralph Sampson.' I knew a little about Sampson and we scrambled to make it a good interview, but that was Irv, he kept everybody on their toes.
"He was always loyal to his friends, and if you were his friend, you were his friend for life."
"Irv was such special people person. He always remembered your name, your background, and the connections you had to him," said Steve Hatchell, a CU graduate who has held many top positions in the college football world, most recently as the executive director and CEO of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame. "He was the best of friends and supporter. Everything was happier when he was there. He showed us all how to connect with all those in his world. Truly a light has gone out with his passing; his passing is the definition of sadness."
"Name another superb game official and umpire who became a radio star and didn't have any enemies. You can't do it," said Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff whose relationship with Brown dated back to when he was in the Big Eight Conference office. "Irv was one of a kind, and I am proud to have called him my friend."
"Above all, Irv was a dear friend. I will miss his humor, his knowledge and his friendship," said Larry Zimmer, the longtime sports director at KOA-Radio and voice of the Buffaloes for 42 years. "We worked many basketball games together on television while doing the Western Athletic Conference 'Game of the Week' in the 1980's. We were competitors and later colleagues in radio sports. The 'Irv and Joe Show' was long-running and legendary. I don't think there was a person involved in Colorado sports that Irv didn't know. I will miss him."
Zimmer shared a couple of stories he had with Irv. "We were doing a Texas-El Paso game at Air Force and were located just three rows up from the floor. While the game was going on, (UTEP coach) Don Haskins came up and wanted to see a replay. I'm trying to keep up with the action and the 'former ref' is trying to explain to Don that we were on the air live and we couldn't show him a replay.
"And one season, long before Lee Corso did the same on ESPN's GameDay, we opened the telecasts with Irv wearing the head of one of the mascots. In a game at Brigham Young, he took off the 'Cougar' head and exclaimed, 'Who did you expect? Donnie Osmond?'"
He was born on March 30, 1935 in Denver. He graduated from Denver's North High School in 1953, where he was a three-sport star himself, lettering in football, basketball and baseball, earning All-City honors in the latter two. He first attended Garden City Junior College where he garnered all-league honors in baseball (and literally the only time in his life when he didn't live in Colorado). He then went on to earn All-District and All-League honors in both basketball and baseball at the University of Northern Colorado, where he graduated in 1957 with a bachelor's degree in Physical Education.
At various times over the course of 13 years, Brown was the head coach for football, basketball and/or baseball at Arvada High School, winning the state's baseball title in 1964. In 1968, he started the baseball program at Metro State College in Denver, compiling a 28-26 record in two seasons there before Crowder named him the Buffaloes' head coach at the age of 34. He also coached American Legion baseball for 14 summers.
His resume also included being an anchorman on KWGN-TV (Channel 2 in Denver, which included announcing Denver Nugget games), director of a basketball officials' camp, a scout for the Kansas City Royals and the Philadelphia Phillies, vice president of an insurance company and a public school teacher.
Brown was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1997, and served for over two decades on its selection committee.
"I first met Irv in the 1960s when he was a baseball scout and was assigning basketball officials for my father (Harry, the coach at the University of Southern Colorado)," said Tim Simmons, CU's SID during Brown's final two years at the school and who has worked side-by-side with Brown on the Hall of Fame committee. "I always enjoyed visiting with Irv as you learned something new about Colorado sports history when talking with him. I tell people that there are two 'Classics' when it comes to learning about the sports history of this state and they were both named Irv: Brown and Moss.
"Irv Brown was a great 'pitchman' for sports in our state and was an influential member of the selection committee for the Hall. His endorsement of a nominee carried a lot of weight with committee members. He will be missed by many, especially for my family since he was the last speaker at my father's memorial service in April 1990.
"Now, Harry and many other basketball coaches are waiting for him at the gate to welcome a Colorado Classic!"
He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Pat (they were high school sweethearts); three children, Greg, Mike and Casey; seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Tad Boyle, CU's basketball coach, may have summed it up best in 14 words: "Our University and the whole state of Colorado has lost a really special guy."
A memorial service has been set for 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 16 at Broomfield United Methodist Church, located off West 10th Avenue between Daphne and Emerald streets).
BOULDER – Irv Brown, the former University of Colorado baseball coach, collegiate referee and longtime local media personality, passed away early Sunday morning from complications due to a brief illness. He was 83.
His oldest son, Greg, currently an assistant football coach at Auburn, relayed that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma just last Wednesday. He died at a hospice in Denver.
"The biggest and best thing growing up was that I never had to go outside my home for a hero or a role model," Brown said. "All I had to do was look at my dad every day."
During his nine-year run as CU's baseball coach, the Buffaloes were 224-158-2 in 384 games, the second-most by a coach in the school's baseball history. His .586 winning percentage was the second-best by any coach who was the helm for 48 or more games. His last eight teams all sported winning records, including a 32-11 mark in 1973, his best year as well as CU's best mark in any year with at least 20 games.
His two biggest stars went on to play a combined 26 seasons in the major leagues, catcher John Stearns and pitcher Jay Howell. Stearns and Dennis Cirbo earned All-America honors under Brown's tutelage, with nine overall earning All-Big Eight accolades.
"I owe a tremendous amount to Irv Brown," Howell said at his induction into CU's Athletic Hall of Fame last November. "I've had five managers who are Hall of Famers ... Tommy Lasorda, Billy Martin, Tony LaRussa, Bobby Cox, Yogi Berra. Yeah, I was a journeyman ... but I never would have got there without Irv Brown."
Howell reiterated that on Sunday: "Without him, I didn't stand a chance. I really mean that from the bottom of my heart. He laid down the seeds for me to make it in professional baseball."
"Irv was everything when it came to my baseball career," Stearns said. "Going into college and wanting to play professional baseball, he was a terrific coach who was there in every aspect for me and had the utmost influence on my career. And he was also an assistant coach on my football team.
"He had a bright and optimistic approach to coaching," Stearns added. "Positive in everything he said and did. Even if you made a mistake, he'd never rip into you, he would try and build you up and instill confidence. I think that's why Eddie (Crowder) wanted him on his football staff. It was an honor and a thrill to play under him for four years."
"Irv was like my second father," said Jay Sferra, a two-time All-Big Eight centerfielder on Brown's 1973-77 teams. "I was 1,700 miles away from home for the first time. I was walking by his office and he and the Owner (the father of Boulder Camera sports editor Dan Creedon) would be there talking. Irv would open up the window and say, 'J.J. get in here now.' He personally made my transition to college easier and always made me feel special. And he was one hell of a baseball coach.
"When I arrived with my dad the summer of 1973 in Boulder we stopped at Irv and Pat's house and dropped off all my luggage," Sferra added. "My dad then went to Las Vegas and he became a blackjack and baccarat dealer and Irv would always ask me to tell your dad I'm coming to see him in Vegas, and without a doubt, every time he officiated a game in Vegas he stopped off to see a my dad to say hello. He was that special."
Brown also coached the freshman football team in 1972 and was a defensive line coach for three years under Crowder.
The Olympic sports, referred to as minor and then non-revenue sports back in that era, were all housed in Gate 1 of Folsom Field … all wedged into a large room that earned the nickname, "The Bullpen." The coaches at the time included Brown, Bill Marolt (skiing), Don Meyers (track), Mike Sager (wrestling), C.D. Bodam (tennis), Terry Danko (swimming), Dave Wardell and Sid Freudenstein (gymnastics) and Mark Simpson (golf).
"He was one of kind. Energetic, positive, humorous, loyal and just loved people," said Marolt. "Those characteristics that made him a great coach and broadcaster. All of us were in the bullpen and were really good guys. We may have been cramped, but we really had a positive environment surrounding that staff and Irv was a big part of that. It was an amazing time with amazing people."
Mike Moran was CU's sports information director during Brown's tenure as baseball coach. "Irv Brown was one of the most fascinating people in sports that I ever met. He seemed to know everyone, and everyone seemed to know him.
"I was sitting with Bobby Knight in a courthouse in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1979 when he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a cop during practice at the Pan American Games," Moran recalled. "Despite what was going on in the chamber, Knight wanted to talk about two people, basketball coaching great Pete Newell and Irv Brown. For me, Irv remains one of the most compelling people that I ever had the chance to deal with in my decade of service at CU after succeeding Fred Casotti as SID in 1968."
He was a well-respected basketball official, working 12 seasons in the NCAA all over the country but mainly in the west. How good a referee was Brown? He officiated six Final Fours in those dozen years (1969-80) and maintained a long-standing friendship with Indiana's Knight. He also spent several years as the supervisor of officials for the Western Athletic and Big Sky conferences.
After retiring from officiating, Brown turned his attention to broadcasting on both radio and television. Few may recall, but the very first college football game aired on ESPN was on Sept. 8, 1979, one day after the network debuted. Brown was the color analyst alongside Jerry Gross for an Oregon 33-19 win over Colorado in Boulder – selected because it was Chuck Fairbanks' first game as CU's head coach. The game was shown on tape delay later that evening.
Brown transitioned into fundraising after stepping down as CU's baseball coach in the summer of 1978. He worked for the better part of two years in that role before his career in the media started to flourish. He was already serving as the sports director at Denver's KHOW-Radio in his last years in Boulder, assuming that role in May 1976.
He always kidded some in athletics that his best moment in those two years came when he won the department's H.O.R.S.E tournament, winning the title over assistant women's basketball coach Bob Foley by making a free throw – while sitting down.
Dave Logan, former CU star in football and basketball from 1972-76, also wanted to play baseball in the spring and Eddie Crowder (football coach) had approved it; Logan is one of two people ever to be drafted in those three sports. But when Bill Mallory succeeded Crowder as head coach, he wanted Logan in spring football practices so he never played for Brown at Colorado.
But the two remained in touch. "Irv asked me what I was going to do, and I was choosing between going to camp with the (Seattle) Seahawks or a couple of business ventures," Logan recalled Sunday. "He invited me to come out and do a Super Bowl preview show with him. I didn't know what that really was and asked him … he just deadpanned me and sarcastically said, 'It's a Super Bowl preview show. We're going to talk about the Super Bowl.' He was kind and didn't follow that with a "Well, duh.' That was January 1985.
"We laughed because even though management liked me, I didn't get paid," Logan said. "But that eventually led to me entering the radio business and I was soon doing five hours a day, with Irv and Joe Williams and Irv got me $1,000 a month. That's how my now 30-plus year career in broadcasting started, and I owe it all to Irv. We stayed together a long time, and even when he left to go to another station, we were friendly competitors and still did some TV games together."
Those three, along with Woody Paige, were the four at the forefront of Denver sports talk radio when it took off in the mid-1980s.
"The Irv and Joe Show was legendary," Marolt fondly recalled. "Their conversation would often end up with Joe remembering when Irv was the baseball coach at CU in our tiny bullpen and then say to him, 'Don't come cryin' to me.'"
"I don't think there's been anybody in the history of this state that has touched more people in the world of sports than Irv Brown did," said Williams, his longtime radio partner. "Whether it be high school, college or the pros, easily hundreds if not into the thousands. They would come out to our remote sites over 37 years to see Irv. And here's the amazing thing: he remembered everybody's name. I never could figure out how he was able to do that."
One of Brown's former broadcasting partners on Denver Nugget games, Al Albert, echoed the number of people that Irv interacted with. "If there's six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, there just has to be two degrees of separation with Irv."
"He was a big voice in the state, maybe the biggest ever when it came to sports," said Rick George, CU athletic director. "He was always fair, always positive and that made it enjoyable to be on the radio with him. Irv represented what is best in what we do."
"I loved him," Logan added. "I learned a great deal from him. You can do good sports talk and be informative and entertaining, yet not take yourself too seriously. And then there's spontaneity, how to quickly react on a moment's notice. One day he called into our show from Houston … he gets on the phone for maybe 30 seconds and says, 'Hey fellas, here's Ralph Sampson.' I knew a little about Sampson and we scrambled to make it a good interview, but that was Irv, he kept everybody on their toes.
"He was always loyal to his friends, and if you were his friend, you were his friend for life."
"Irv was such special people person. He always remembered your name, your background, and the connections you had to him," said Steve Hatchell, a CU graduate who has held many top positions in the college football world, most recently as the executive director and CEO of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame. "He was the best of friends and supporter. Everything was happier when he was there. He showed us all how to connect with all those in his world. Truly a light has gone out with his passing; his passing is the definition of sadness."
"Name another superb game official and umpire who became a radio star and didn't have any enemies. You can't do it," said Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff whose relationship with Brown dated back to when he was in the Big Eight Conference office. "Irv was one of a kind, and I am proud to have called him my friend."
"Above all, Irv was a dear friend. I will miss his humor, his knowledge and his friendship," said Larry Zimmer, the longtime sports director at KOA-Radio and voice of the Buffaloes for 42 years. "We worked many basketball games together on television while doing the Western Athletic Conference 'Game of the Week' in the 1980's. We were competitors and later colleagues in radio sports. The 'Irv and Joe Show' was long-running and legendary. I don't think there was a person involved in Colorado sports that Irv didn't know. I will miss him."
Zimmer shared a couple of stories he had with Irv. "We were doing a Texas-El Paso game at Air Force and were located just three rows up from the floor. While the game was going on, (UTEP coach) Don Haskins came up and wanted to see a replay. I'm trying to keep up with the action and the 'former ref' is trying to explain to Don that we were on the air live and we couldn't show him a replay.
"And one season, long before Lee Corso did the same on ESPN's GameDay, we opened the telecasts with Irv wearing the head of one of the mascots. In a game at Brigham Young, he took off the 'Cougar' head and exclaimed, 'Who did you expect? Donnie Osmond?'"
He was born on March 30, 1935 in Denver. He graduated from Denver's North High School in 1953, where he was a three-sport star himself, lettering in football, basketball and baseball, earning All-City honors in the latter two. He first attended Garden City Junior College where he garnered all-league honors in baseball (and literally the only time in his life when he didn't live in Colorado). He then went on to earn All-District and All-League honors in both basketball and baseball at the University of Northern Colorado, where he graduated in 1957 with a bachelor's degree in Physical Education.
At various times over the course of 13 years, Brown was the head coach for football, basketball and/or baseball at Arvada High School, winning the state's baseball title in 1964. In 1968, he started the baseball program at Metro State College in Denver, compiling a 28-26 record in two seasons there before Crowder named him the Buffaloes' head coach at the age of 34. He also coached American Legion baseball for 14 summers.
His resume also included being an anchorman on KWGN-TV (Channel 2 in Denver, which included announcing Denver Nugget games), director of a basketball officials' camp, a scout for the Kansas City Royals and the Philadelphia Phillies, vice president of an insurance company and a public school teacher.
Brown was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1997, and served for over two decades on its selection committee.
"I first met Irv in the 1960s when he was a baseball scout and was assigning basketball officials for my father (Harry, the coach at the University of Southern Colorado)," said Tim Simmons, CU's SID during Brown's final two years at the school and who has worked side-by-side with Brown on the Hall of Fame committee. "I always enjoyed visiting with Irv as you learned something new about Colorado sports history when talking with him. I tell people that there are two 'Classics' when it comes to learning about the sports history of this state and they were both named Irv: Brown and Moss.
"Irv Brown was a great 'pitchman' for sports in our state and was an influential member of the selection committee for the Hall. His endorsement of a nominee carried a lot of weight with committee members. He will be missed by many, especially for my family since he was the last speaker at my father's memorial service in April 1990.
"Now, Harry and many other basketball coaches are waiting for him at the gate to welcome a Colorado Classic!"
He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Pat (they were high school sweethearts); three children, Greg, Mike and Casey; seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Tad Boyle, CU's basketball coach, may have summed it up best in 14 words: "Our University and the whole state of Colorado has lost a really special guy."
A memorial service has been set for 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 16 at Broomfield United Methodist Church, located off West 10th Avenue between Daphne and Emerald streets).
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