He’s one of those coaches who roams the sideline with a fashion sense from a bygone generation: dress shirt and slacks while wearing a ball cap.
And he chirps with the best of them.
“Bruce, it’s a trap!”
“Hey, we only have five guys. … Who else is supposed to be out there?”
“Oh, man, we’re better than this!”
“Make sure you ice up your owies!”
At age 61, Chris Brown can pretty much do and say what he wishes at tiny West Grand in Kremmling. Not that one of Colorado high school coaching icons would abuse his privilege.
Consider his credentials. Brown has won 295 games and could this season become only the third Colorado coach to win 300 games. He is on track to become the all-time winningest coach in Colorado, as he trails only Pat Panek (306) and Ken Soper (305).
And Brown has done it with a quiet modesty.
“Has it been a wonderful life?” he asked. “Yeah, it has been pretty good.”
It still is. Into his 39th year as a head coach, Brown has overseen four state title winners, three runner-up finishes, 14 appearances in the semifinals, 20 league championships and a state-record 66 regular-season consecutive victories from 1990-97. But this year’s Mustangs (1-1), competing in 8-man, aren’t like his top West Grand teams of the 1990s, which competed in Class 1A 11-man ball.
“All I had to do was get the bus times right and stay out of way so we could win the game,” Brown said.
His 2014 group has only one senior. They need leadership.
“Everybody thinks it’s so great when you win a state title, and it is, but a year like this is when you really coach,” Brown said. “There are a lot of fires to put out.”
As a five-time state champion coach at Stratton, Greg King laughs at the notion of Brown not being in firm command.
“(The Mustangs) won more games on special teams than anyone I knew, won on more fake punts and different things that I’ve ever seen in my life,” King said. “He has always known what he’s doing.”
West Grand sophomore two-way lineman Travis Etler calls Brown “a great coach who works us hard.” And he knows he and his teammates have more to give. “We just need to put forth a little more effort,” he said.
It’s sort of what Brown, a native of Kalamazoo, Mich., who graduated from high school in Beaverton, Ore., tried to do once he grew into adulthood. Work hard and see where it took you. After graduation from Northern Colorado in 1974, he briefly tried out for the Kansas City Chiefs as a receiver and returner. Very briefly.
“I knew my limitations,” Brown said. “And I had a lot of them.”
Working as a golf professional in California didn’t pan out. “And I don’t play anymore,” he said. “I’ve got bad hips. I couldn’t be good anymore.”
At that point Brown decided to be a coach. He followed the legendary Lloyd Gaskill as coach of Limon’s Badgers … that is, after two other coaches initially took the job before pulling out. Brown took over in July 1976, opened his career against Machebeuf and Panek, stayed for three years, spent a year heading up the Walsenburg program, then gave West Grand and Kremmling a shot.
The rest is history, and still being recorded.
Brown said he and his wife “wanted to see what living here was about. I had some chances to go somewhere else, but for one reason or another, we just decided not to move. It’s a good place to raise kids in Kremmling.”
And a good place to keep your sense of humor and keep things fresh. Jhan Pedersen, who keeps statistics for the Mustangs, was a former assistant for Brown and had two sons play for him. He recalled when West Grand was strong and Brown didn’t put anybody back deep when receiving punts. “He wanted them to go on long drives,” Pedersen said.
West Grand’s current players see the championship banners in the halls at school and yearn to add to them.
“We’d like to get him one more (title),” said the team’s lone senior, Will Guess, a running back and tight end.
For Brown, who’s retired from teaching but is also the athletic director and assistant track coach, his career won’t be defined by winning 300 games or passing Soper and Panek. Making a difference in young people’s lives is what keeps him going.
Said King, “They’ll probably bury him at the 50-yard line.”
But before that time gets close, Brown said: “If they let me, I’d like to go four to five more years. I didn’t think it would last this long, but I love teaching and I love coaching. As long as I can be around kids and be a positive influence, I’d like to keep doing it.”
Neil H. Devlin: ndevlin@denverpost.com or
Colorado coaches’ corner
Here are the five winningest high school football coaches in Colorado history:
1. Pat Panek, Denver East, Machebeuf, 1939-77, 306 victories
2. Ken Soper, Dolores County, 1965-2011, 305
3. Chris Brown, Limon, Walsenburg, West Grand, 1976-present, 295
4. Scott Yates, Kent Denver, 1981-present, 283
5. Fred Tesone, Cherry Creek, 1962-89, 272
Neil H. Devlin, The Denver Post
