Marc Brown knew early on that he wanted to become a college basketball coach like his legendary father, Charlie.
“I was about 30 years old or so and still playing pro ball [in Europe] when I decided I knew what I wanted to do when my playing days were over,” Brown said. “I knew my dream was to coach.”
However, Brown just didn’t think he would eventually replace his father, who spent most of his adult life at one place, New Jersey City University.
Charlie Brown, a Jersey City guy through and through, went from Lincoln High School to the school formerly known as Jersey City State College as a player in the 1960s and had a brilliant career, helping to make the Gothic Knights a perennial power in the New Jersey Athletic Conference.
Brown, who was a long-time teacher and administrator in the Jersey City school system for more than 40 years, became the first African-American head basketball coach in Hudson County high school history when he took over the program at his alma mater and had a ton of success there.
He then moved over to the college ranks at Jersey City State in 1985 and remained there for 25 years, winning an astounding 483 games before retiring four years ago.
The elder Brown had already brought his son onto his staff as an assistant the year prior, so Marc could get accustomed and learn a little bit about coaching, with the idea that he would eventually take over the reins from his father, sort of like a passing of the torch.
So when Charlie decided to step down, it was only natural that Marc should take over.
But it wasn’t an easy transition. The school’s administration asked the elder Brown to stay away from his son’s practices, trying to see if the son could handle things on his own. It was almost as if the administration was rooting for the younger Brown to fail. He was saddled with an interim tag as head coach for almost three years, never rewarding him with the job for his very own until last July.
The Gothic Knights weren’t exactly successful during the younger Brown’s initial seasons, posting a combined record of 37-40 over the three years. The vultures began to hover and people at NJCU began to question whether Marc Brown could handle the rigors of being a head coach.
“I couldn’t care less,” said Marc Brown, who was a standout player at Siena College, becoming the school’s all-time leading scorer, before he headed overseas for a 16-year professional career. “I was just happy to be there. I know I told my Dad and others that it would take four years to get the program going. It was going to take some time to get my feet wet. It would take some time to get my coaching staff in place and get players who wanted to press and run. I had to learn substitution patterns. It was going to take time. I said four years.”
The fourth year of the Marc Brown era began in November with less than stellar results. The Gothic Knights lost six of their first nine games and lost some games in bizarre fashion, like blowing a 29-point lead in a loss to Medgar Evers in early December.
“To be honest, we had some losses early on that were killers,” Brown said. “I knew it was going to be an adjustment, because we had so many new guys on the team. We lost some key ingredients to the team to grades.”
At that point, Brown began to wonder if he had made the right choice in becoming a basketball coach.
“Like any other coach, I started to question myself,” Brown said. “We had leads of double digits or more in practically every game. We had to be doing something wrong.”
The Gothic Knights were fortunate to have two long-time friends and teammates, fellow Jersey City guys in Walik Albright and Keith Williams, on the roster this season, reunited once again.
Albright and Williams attended P.S. 17 together, then went to the now-defunct CREATE Charter, helping that team to win its first-ever NJSIAA Central Jersey Group I state sectional championship in 2007.
Both friends took different routes to end up merely blocks from their childhood homes at NJCU. Williams was a much-coveted player out of CREATE who ended up at Kean University, playing there one year, then took two years off from college basketball, trying to get his academic situation cleared up.
“It was real tough sitting out,” Williams said. “I would come to the games and watch and it was killing me not to play. It really motivated me to do better in school.”
Albright, another Hudson Reporter All-Area performer during his high school days, had first signed a letter of intent to attend Bloomfield College, then went to a prep school called Edison Academy in Middlesex County before enrolling at NJCU.
“A lot of kids want to get away from home,” Albright said. “That wasn’t me. I knew about NJCU and the history the school has. It was really big for me to be close to home.”
The Jersey City kids were together again with Marc Brown’s Gothic Knights, but they experienced the tough times early on.
“I knew the team was going to be good, but we weren’t going well,” Williams said. “I think it was a learning process for us. I think we all had to learn our roles.”
The Gothic Knights started to turn things around right after the Christmas break.
“We won four straight and we got a lot of confidence,” Williams said.
“It hit me in mid-January,” Brown said. “I saw it in practice and then it went into the games. Things just clicked. We started getting good play from our guards. We went to the College of New Jersey and won there. It was a tough road win and I kind of knew then that we had turned things around.”
NJCU won nine straight at one point, then 12 of 13 and gained some steam with every win. They entered the New Jersey Athletic Conference with a ton of confidence.
Last Friday, the Gothic Knights accomplished the unthinkable, winning the NJAC Championship by defeating Montclair State (coached by former St. Peter’s College head coach Ted Fiore), 72-67, to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III tournament this weekend. It was NJCU’s first NJAC title since 2004, the last championship that Charlie Brown enjoyed as coach.
The Gothic Knights will travel to Philadelphia to take on Cabrini College in the opening round. Williams admittedly he never heard of Cabrini College before, but that’s the furthest thing from his mind right now. He’s going to the NCAA tourney.
“I’m just glad for that,” Williams said. “I don’t think any of us had this planned. It’s really a dream come true.”
“I didn’t think this could happen,” Albright said. “It’s a great feeling and it’s great to share it with Keith. We grew up together, went to grammar school together, high school together and now we’re together in college. Now that CREATE has shut down, we have to leave a legacy somehow. It’s not a bad thing, playing together in Jersey City.”
As for the coach, he’s just carrying on the legacy that was started by his legendary father.’
“These kids worked hard all year,” Marc Brown said. “But for me to do this on my Dad’s court, that’s unbelievable. He was here watching it, which makes it more unbelievable.”
Now, the vultures can go away, because Marc Brown is a championship coach, just like his old man.
“I just love doing what I do,” Marc Brown said. “I’m keeping my Dad’s legacy going.”
Just like a son should do when he’s handed the keys to the family business.
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.