Men's Basketball Head Coach Bill Brown Wins 200th Game at Wittenberg

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio - Landmark wins like the one that Wittenberg University Men's Basketball Head Coach Bill Brown (pictured at left) earned Saturday night against North Coast Athletic Conference rival Hiram are nice. Championships come and go. But it's the people that Brown says he has met along the way - student-athletes, community members, university officials, fellow coaches, etc. - that come to mind first when reflecting upon winning 200 games in nine years at his alma mater.

"I so enjoy the guys who I get to be around every day," said Brown, a native of West Liberty, Ohio and a 1973 Wittenberg University graduate. "I don't base the success of this programs solely on wins and losses. I look at it from the aspect of what do the student-athletes who played for me do after they leave Wittenberg and how they continue to interact with the program and its current members even after they graduate.

"Two hundred wins is nice, but what I like best is the people."

The 103-66 win over Hiram improved the 2001-02 Wittenberg team to 20-3 overall and, coupled with a loss by Wooster earlier in the day, put the Tigers in sole possession of first place in the NCAC at 13-1. Wittenberg has not had a losing season since 1955-56, and under Brown the Tigers have put together nine consecutive outstanding seasons. His teams have won at least 18 games every year, they have claimed four NCAC regular season titles and one NCAC tournament crown, and the Tigers have made the NCAA Division III Championship tournament five times.

Among the highlights during the last nine years were a 26-0 start in 1993-94 en route to a third-place finish in the nation and last year's 24-4 record that included an NCAC regular season championship and an NCAA Division III Sweet Sixteen appearance. Brown won his 100th game at Wittenberg on March 6, 1997 in the first round of the NCAA tournament against John Carroll University. A significant career milestone arrived when he won his 200th career game on Nov. 24, 1999 against Wilmington. He won 60 games in his career before arriving at Wittenberg in 1993.

All today's world wins are expected of college basketball coaches, especially at a place like Wittenberg, which has six national semifinal appearances to its credit and has had five coaches go straight from the school to Division I coaching positions since 1962. Brown says he has enjoyed carrying on such an impressive tradition, and it has been a privilege to be a part of the program both as a student-athlete in the early 1970s and now as a coach.

"Wittenberg has such a great basketball tradition," said Brown, who has a phenomenal winning percentage of .800 at Wittenberg (200-50). "It just happens to be me sitting in this seat right now. It could just as easily be someone else. It makes me proud to be a part of a program with such a great tradition.

"I get to work with athletes who are out on the court because they like Wittenberg and the game of basketball."

Brown's next milestone victory figures to come sometime in the 2003-04 season. With a career mark of 260-149, he needs 40 more wins to reach the 300-win plateau, a figure that just 50 active Division III coaches have previously reached. But making it into such select company is hardly the most important thing to Brown.

He's more interested in upholding the Wittenberg men's basketball tradition. And that means more than just defeating opponents on the court.

Much more.