Selfless and caring. Genuine and classy. Calm, cool and collected.
All those adjectives are what former players and assistant coaches remember about Ron Brown. Not the record-amount of wins he established at Centralia High School, nor the lengthy list of accomplishments that took place on or off the court. Yet there’s one that sticks out more than most.
And it was a feature that made him a constant force in their lives. “It is as simple as his smile,” former player and current Tumwater baseball coach Lyle Overbay said. “It didn’t matter where he was at in his life, he was so happy to see you.
It was like a little kid in a candy store every time you saw him. “And it didn’t matter who it was.” Coach Brown, the stalwart of excellence for over five decades for the Tigers boys basketball program that reached the mountaintop twice, passed away peacefully in his sleep on Friday morning.
He was 90 years old. “He was a special guy, one of my best friends,” longtime assistant coach Larry Mollerstuen said. “He will be sorely missed.
He was sharp up until the end.” Brown battled through heart problems later in his life, a contributing factor to him retiring from coaching in 2017 after amassing 722 career wins, third-most all-time in Washington State. The court at Centralia was named in his honor in 2008.
A history teacher at the high school, Brown was inducted into the Washington State Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2006. In 1999, h.