Larry Brown at 75: The final act?

Photo by AISHA-ZAKIYA BOYD

ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands -- He says people around the NBA think he's a dinosaur.

And to be honest, Larry Brown never really did fall for the 3-point shot, the biggest weapon in today's NBA.

Plus, all the years of competition committee meetings, trying to loosen up zone and illegal defensive regulations mostly fell on deaf ears. That got old, too.

So as the coach nears his 75th birthday on Sept. 14, he's down in Dallas, trying to lead the Southern Methodist University Mustangs through the American Athletic Conference this winter.

Not exactly the exit you might have envisioned for one of the greatest coaches ever.

But it's not a second straight SMU trip to the Big Dance, or another Final Four appearance, or even his second NCAA championship that seem to be guiding Brown in the winter of his storied career.

It's living up to the impossible standard of his mentor in his own way, a tough Brooklyn Jew with a knack for reaching the unreachable, building a career of fixer-uppers on a long, winding road.

***

A recent turn earlier this month took him to the Caribbean island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he taught about 30 coaches in a free clinic.

Brown had come at the request of Milt Newton, one of Danny Manning's backup band “Miracles” at Kansas, and now the general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Newton started a foundation to give back to his home island, and Brown didn't hesitate to give his commitment.

On an island he'd never been, Brown looked at home, spending more than two hours in a memorable chalk talk -- without notes, sometimes without a breath.

He then took to the court, taking the novice coaches through the nuances of defending and executing a motion offense.

There's no telling how much of it stuck with the coaches, but the biggest and most important messages were more simple: Get your players to play hard and together, and find a way for them to "love my ass."

***

Brown's resume is lengthy, but it works against his legacy in ways.

The coach couldn't get comfortable anywhere, and he's often seen as the guy who can get your rebuilding process started, not the guy who can see it through.

Brown is comfortably behind Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson and Mike Krzyzewski in this era's coaching pantheon. But you could make a solid case he occupies the Teddy Roosevelt spot on his generation's Mount Rushmore.

His eyes wander too much to be as beloved as his mentor, North Carolina legend Dean Smith, or even Coach K.

But isn't what he did with Allen Iverson and that Detroit Pistons team at least nearly as impressive as the way Popovich and Jackson have (expertly) handled idyllic situations? Especially given the rest of the careers of Iverson and those Detroit "stars" outside of those special couple years?

But more than that, he's a basketball coach's basketball coach.

During the clinic, Brown talked about how his teams still have a couple practices each season where they practice practicing.

Here, he'd drill them on the drills: How many guys need to be where and with how many balls so when he called the drill out, there wouldn't be wasted time during transitions.

After a particularly torturous one-on-one drill, half the team would get water. Meanwhile, the others are killing themselves trying to make as many 15-footers (he's old school like that) as they can make in 75-second increments.

Brown talked about how he wanted everything to be "basketball-related activity." You don't practice ball-handling by bouncing two balls; when has anyone ever had two balls in a game?

Brown also explained how at North Carolina, he'd be thinking all practice long about the 100 or so (!!!) line drills Coach Smith would have them run at the end.

So he doesn't have players run sprints, unless there's a discipline issue. Sounds great, huh? But can you imagine the deal with the devil you are making there, and how hard this man is going to expect you to work the rest of the session?

Iverson's "practice" rant doesn't sound so strange anymore, does it?

***

Brown told a Dean Smith story that is a perfect synopsis about his mentor, who Brown calls the "most decent man" he knows.

With the Denver Nuggets in 1977, Brown had the ninth pick in the draft and had settled on Bernard King or Tree Rollins, depending on who fell.

Smith called Brown a week before the draft and told him his player, Tommy LaGarde, would be selected before Denver picked.

Brown thought he was in luck. He didn't want the UNC center so that meant his chances at Rollins or King were helped.

As the draft approached, word was getting around that LaGarde had failed a physical. His knee was shot. So he didn't go in the top five, as Smith had said.

But as the time for Denver to pick grew closer, it was still becoming apparent the Nuggets would get either King or Rollins and ownership was starting to celebrate, believing wholly in the plan Brown had outlined for the organization.

Smith called again.

He told Brown that he would be drafting Tommy LaGarde at No. 9, no questions asked.

And as Denver ownership celebrated the selection of Rollins, the commissioner announced what Brown had just told him: The Nuggets took LaGarde.

It didn't go well, and after one year, LaGarde and his bad knee were off to Seattle, as a courtesy of a strange contract provision that guaranteed the rest of his contract if he was traded, but not if he was retained.

That offseason, Brown was golfing with Smith and asked his mentor what was up.

"You knew about the failed physical, the knee. Why would you do that to me? It could cost me my job."

"Coach," Smith said. "I knew you'd be alright."

***

Smith died in February and Brown said he thought of Coach like a father, mentioning three times at the clinic that his own dad died when he was young.

The LaGarde story seems crazy on first glance, especially through the lens of today's hand-in-front-of-our-face society and crazed sports culture.

Why would Smith put Brown in a position to fail? Some kind of role model.

But some four decades later, it's obvious that Larry Brown is alright.

And LaGarde, who is 60, is probably appreciating that players' union health care for the screaming knee on his 6-foot-10 frame.

In retrospect, isn't what Coach Smith did the only choice that a decent man could've made?

And who of us has the kind of respect of others to make it?

***

Brown has learned to pass along those lessons in his own ways.

He recalled a meeting he had with the 1997-98 Philadelphia 76ers early in a tough season.

Brown asked Jimmy Jackson where he ranked among the game's best perimeter players. The Ohio State University star relented that Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were better, but that he was the third best.

He asked Jerry Stackhouse the same question. Only MJ was better. Stackhouse was second best.

Brown asked Iverson, who was playing point guard at the time, where he ranked at his position.

“Coach you know I'm the best.”

“So,” the coach said. “We've got the third best perimeter player in the league, the second best perimeter player in the league and the best point guard.

“Then how the hell are we 6-19?”

Jackson and Stackhouse were traded that season for spare parts like Aaron McKie, who Brown called one of the best teammates he ever coached.

Those parts became the supporting cast around Iverson, who served as the engine for that 76ers era, reaching the NBA Finals in 2001, Iverson's MVP year.

He told more stories of the headaches and triumphs of coaching The Answer at the peak of his powers: “I was put on this earth to coach Allen Iverson,” he said, shaking his head, never noting whether it was a blessing or a curse.

***

Brown and SMU are in the news lately as the NCAA reportedly is investigating the program.

It apparently has to do with a player named Keith Frazier, a former McDonald's All-American who has been in and out of academic suspensions the past couple years.

Brown brought up Frazier to the coaches after the on-court session.

“We've done wrong by him,” Brown said, vaguely, not pinning blame on himself or his program, or the NCAA and its rules.

He added that Frazier has a 1-year-old and says he'll be back playing this year for the Mustangs.

As Brown approaches 75, he moves slowly with a pronounced limp off the court.

But on the court at the clinic, he moved well on it, and commanded the entire gym despite his worn-out hum of a voice.

"At the end of the day, my coaches that I had on every level helped me get to where I am," Brown said afterward. "I'm older now and I want to share all the knowledge that I was taught.

"I worry about that all the time. Because I think a lot of people, when I was growing up, they got into coaching because they love kids, and love to teach. Now there's a lot of other reasons they're getting into it. 

"So when you have people like this (at the clinic), you know they're in it for the right reasons, and that's why I love being parts of things like this."

After watching Newton get his childhood park named after him the next night, Brown would be gone that weekend, back to Dallas and another group of young men, trying to get back to the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year.

He'll prepare them by practicing practice, competing fiercely and stealing his old coach's tenets with his own Brooklyn twist.

On this earth to show them how to impact decent men.