James Allen "Babe" Brown (July 31, 1900 – June 23, 1965) was an

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and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

coach and college athletics administrator. He was the head coach in basketball and football at the

University of Idaho The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It is the state's land-grant and primary research university,, and the lead university in the Idaho Space Grant Consortium. The University ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, and later a three-sport coach and

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches and ...

at the

College of Idaho The College of Idaho (C of I) is a private liberal arts college in Caldwell, Idaho. Founded in 1891, it is the state's oldest private liberal arts college and has an enrollment of over 1,000 students. The college's alumni include eight Rhode ...

Caldwell Caldwell may refer to: People * Caldwell (surname) * Caldwell (given name) * Caldwell First Nation, a federally recognized Indian band in southern Ontario, Canada Places Great Britain * Caldwell, Derbyshire, a hamlet * Caldwell, East ...

. He also coached multiple sports at four high schools in Idaho: Lewiston, Burley,

, and

Nampa The Namibia Press Agency (NAMPA) is the national news agency of the Namibia, Republic of Namibia. It was founded in 1987 under the name Namibia Press Association as a SWAPO partisan press agency, and resuscitated after Namibian War of Independence ...

Early years

Born in the farming community of

Star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

southwestern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

Idaho, Brown graduated from Boise High School in 1919 and was a multi-sport athlete at the University of Idaho in Moscow, where he lettered in football,

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

, and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

. He was a hard-hitting

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

on the football team under head coaches Thomas Kelley and R.L. "Matty" Mathews. His senior season was Idaho's first as a member of the

Pacific Coast Conference The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pac-12 Conference claims the PCC's history as part of its own, with eight of the ten PCC members (including a ...

. He was also a member of Kappa Sigma

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Coaching career

Following his playing days, Brown was an assistant at Idaho under Mathews, then became a high school coach in 1925 at Lewiston High School, and won the state title in basketball in 1926.idhsaa.org
- Basketball champions - through 2011 After several years with the Bengals, he left coaching for two years to work in private business in southern Idaho, then returned to coaching in 1932 at

Burley High School Burley High School is a four-year secondary school in Burley, Idaho, the largest of four traditional high schools in the Cassia County School District #151. Its official title is Burley Senior High School and it has only had its 2100 Park Ave. add ...

for three seasons. He returned to north Idaho to coach at

Moscow High School Moscow High School (MHS) is a four-year public high school in Moscow, Idaho, United States. The flagship school of the Moscow School District, it serves grades 9–12 and its principal since 2013 is Erik Perryman with Brett Clevenger serving as v ...

in 1935, taking over the Bears' program from Gale Mix.

Idaho

After six years at MHS, Brown was hired across town as the freshman football coach at the

in 1941. Brown moved up to the varsity as an assistant to head coach Francis Schmidt in 1942, but the football program went on hiatus prior to the 1943 season. In the meantime, he became acting head basketball coach in December 1942 and acting athletic director in 1943, when Guy Wicks and George Greene joined the

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. Brown led the UI basketball team to the northern division title of the

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in his fourth and final season in 1946. The

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal Kingdom, Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century. The ...

met southern division winner

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in a three-game series in

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; Idaho lost game one in a near-riot, won game two, but lost the third. After Schmidt's death in September 1944, Brown was the interim head coach for the abbreviated 1945 football season and was named head coach in March 1946. The Vandals posted one win in each of the two seasons for an overall 2-15 record and Brown resigned at the end of November. After a dozen years residing in Moscow and six years as a collegiate coach, Brown returned to the

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

level in 1947 back in southwestern Idaho at

Nampa High School Nampa High School is a four-year public secondary school in Nampa, Idaho, the oldest of three high schools operated by the Nampa School District #131. The school colors are red white and blue and the mascot is a bulldog. Athletics Nampa compet ...

, where his teams won titles in football and basketball during his nine seasons with the Bulldogs. His 1950 basketball team won the state championship.

College of Idaho

In 1956, Brown was hired at the

in Caldwell as athletic director, and also served as the head coach for basketball and baseball. When head football coach

Ed Troxel Edward Ross Troxel (November 20, 1925 – January 22, 2001) was a high school and college football coach in Colorado, Idaho, and eastern Washington. His most notable coaching stops were at Borah High School in Boise, the University of I ...

resigned in 1958 to go to the new

Borah High School Borah High School is a three-year public secondary school in Boise, Idaho, one of four traditional high schools in the Boise School District. It serves students in grades in the southwest portion of the district. It is named after a prominent ...

in Boise, Brown took over as head football coach of the Coyotes. He stepped down as head basketball coach in 1961, and as football coach and athletic director following the 1964 football season. Brown died in his sleep at age 64 of an apparent heart attack in June 1965 at his home in Caldwell, a week before his official retirement date. He and his wife LaVerne (1898–1961) are buried at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens in Caldwell.

Head coaching record

College football

College basketball

collegeofidaho.edu
- athletics - men's basketball - coaching records - accessed April 15, 2012

References

External links

*
Gem of the Mountains
' University of Idaho yearbook, 1942, Vandal coaches, p. 64 {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, James A. 1900 births 1965 deaths Basketball coaches from Idaho College of Idaho Coyotes baseball coaches College of Idaho Coyotes football coaches College of Idaho Coyotes men's basketball coaches Idaho Vandals athletic directors Idaho Vandals baseball coaches Idaho Vandals baseball players Idaho Vandals football coaches Idaho Vandals football players Idaho Vandals men's basketball coaches High school basketball coaches in Idaho High school football coaches in Idaho People from Star, Idaho Players of American football from Idaho People from Caldwell, Idaho