Feb 16, 2023 2 min read

Bill Brown, the winningest coach in California University men’s basketball history, died Wednesday. He was 71 years old.

Brown was the Vulcans’ coach from 1996 through the 2015-16 season and accumulated a 365-211 record with the Vulcans.

In 1996, Brown was hired at Cal to succeed Jim Boone, who had left for Robert Morris. Brown guided Cal to the NCAA Division II Final Four in 2008 when the Vulcans had a 28-6 record. Brown’s Cal teams made the national tournament six times and he was named PSAC Coach of the Year five times.

Brown was a double amputee. He had his right leg amputated below the right knee in 2006, the result of a 20-year battle with Type-I diabetes. He had the left leg amputated in 2014, but he continued to coach. After his 20 seasons at Cal, Brown joined the staff at Duquesne University, where he was the Dukes’ Director of Community Relations and Player Mentoring.

Through it all, Brown maintained a don’t-feel-sorry-for-me attitude and never complained or made excuses. His positive approach to life inspired not only his players but those who knew him.

A native of Toledo, Ohio, brown was as good a recruiter as there was in major college basketball from 1980 to 1985, when he was an assistant at Arkansas under legendary coach Eddie Sutton. When Sutton moved on to Kentucky, Brown was hired as the head coach at Sacramento State, where the athletic director was Tom Pucci, who would eventually hire Brown again at Cal.

After two seasons at Sacramento State, during the school’s transition to Division I, Brown became an assistant at Tennessee for one season. Then he moved back to his native Ohio to become head coach at Division III Kenyon, a place where stringent academic requirements make it difficult to win. Brown, however, won big and guided the Lords to two NCAA Division III tournaments in eight years. One of his Kenyon players was Shaka Smart, who was an assistant coach under Brown at Cal and is currently the head coach at Marquette.

Brown was preceded in death by his wife, Christy Smith Brown.

Friends will be received from 12 to 4 p.m. on Sunday in the James C. Stump Funeral Home Inc., 580 Circle Drive, Rostraver Township 724-929-7934 www.jamesstumpfuneralhome.com A Funeral Service will be held in the funeral home on Sunday at 4 p.m. following visitation.