The all-time winningest coach in program history, California University of Pennsylvania head men’s basketball coach Bill Brown has announced that he will retire following the end of the season.
Brown currently holds a 365-207 record and a .638 winning percentage during his 20-year tenure with the Vulcans. He is the winningest active coach in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) and ranks fifth in league history in victories, while also being just one of six coaches with at least 350 wins in the PSAC.
“I’ve been fortunate to see the transition of the university during my time and there have been lots of high marks,” said Brown. “I’ll miss the college atmosphere and it’s going to be tough, but its time.”
Overall, Brown has served as a head coach for 30 years and boasts a 490-334 career record (.595) with previous stints at Sacramento State (1986-87) and Kenyon (Ohio) (1989-96). He enters the weekend No. 18 among active head coaches in NCAA Division II in career wins.
Brown has led the Vulcans to six NCAA Tournament appearances, highlighted by an Elite Eight appearance during the 2007-08 season. The Vulcans also captured the PSAC Championship that year, the first time since the 1998-99 campaign, and recorded the third-winningest season in school history at 28-6 behind an 11-1 mark in league play.
A native of Toledo, Ohio, Brown has helped guide Cal U to the PSAC Tournament 14 times over the last two decades and earned at least a share of first place in the PSAC West standings eight times before the league expanded by four schools starting in 2008. The Vulcans have totaled at least 23 wins eight times during his tenure and have finished below .500 only twice.
“Coach Brown has been a pillar of the athletic department during my tenure at the university,” said Athletic Director Dr. Karen Hjerpe, who joined the department in 1993. “He has brought great leadership to our programs and has been instrumental in alumni involvement for the men’s basketball program.”
Brown has mentored 40 All-PSAC West selections, including 22 first-team honorees, while at Cal U. He helped develop two-time National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) All-American Seth Martin, who ranks No. 10 all-time in in school history with 1,459 points and was inducted into the Cal U Athletic Hall of Fame in 2013. Recently, Brown coached Academic All-American Steve Swiech, who earned All-PSAC West honors in each of his years with the program.
“My goal has always been to impact players, not just in the game of basketball, but in life skills and how to treat and communicate with people,” said Brown. “I’ve been here long enough to have former players bring their children back to campus and introduce me as their coach and that’s special.”
Brown was awarded the prestigious NABC Guardians of the Game Pillar Award for Advocacy in the spring of 2012. He has been tabbed PSAC West Coach of the Year five times and received NABC Regional Coach of the Year twice during his tenure with the Vulcans. In 2011 and 2013, Brown served as head coach for a team that was assembled through Global Sports Academy and played several games across Europe.
Prior to his time at Cal U, Brown served as head coach for eight seasons at Kenyon, an NCAA Division III program. The Lords qualified for the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons after posting 20-plus wins in 1994 and 1995. In 1994, Kenyon won its conference tournament and earned the top seed in the NCAA Tournament before finishing the year with a 24-4 record.
Brown recruited Shaka Smart to play for the Lords and after becoming the head coach at Cal U, Brown hired the recently-graduated Smart as an assistant coach with the Vulcans. Smart later led VCU to the Final Four in 2011 and is currently in his first season as head coach at Texas.
Brown started his career as a head coach at Sacramento State and coached the Hornets for two seasons during the program’s transition to NCAA Division I. He followed his time at Sacramento State with a season as an assistant coach at Tennessee.
Brown started his coaching career at Ohio after a successful playing career for the Bobcats. As a player, he was a three-year starter and two-time, all-conference selection for the Bobcats.
After four seasons at Ohio as a coach, Brown served a one-year stint as an assistant at Kent State before accepting the top assistant position at Arkansas with Eddie Sutton, who is one of only 13 coaches in all NCAA divisions with 800-plus career wins. In each of Brown’s five years with the program, the Razorbacks made NCAA Tournament appearances, won two Southwest Conference Championships and remained in the Top 20 rankings.
Brown and his wife Christy reside in California and have two grown children, Aaron and Kerra, and nine grandchildren, including a pair of twins born last spring. His son Aaron played for the Vulcans from 2000-02 and helped the Vulcans post a pair of 23-win seasons.