Time to Get Out for LSU’s Brown

BATON ROUGE, La. — Dale Brown, assailing college sports as riddled with greed and no longer a place for amateurs, is retiring as Louisiana State’s basketball coach after the season.

“When I entered coaching 43 years ago, athletics was a component of education,” he said Thursday. “Today it’s about making money and winning big. There is a professional intensity creeping into intercollegiate sports.”

The news conference was packed with players, former players and supporters, some sobbing loudly. Athletic Director Joe Dean was in tears.

Shaquille O’Neal, the Laker star and most prominent player to play for Brown, said in a statement:

“Coach Brown taught me a lot about the game of basketball and life. He’s had a tremendous impact on my career and the success I’ve had. Dale was great for college basketball, and I wish him the best of luck.”

Brown, who has been called “Billy Graham in tennis shoes” and Mr. Motivator, has long been given to high-flying rhetoric and grandiose analogies. On Thursday, he cited Walt Whitman, Nelson Mandela, Jonas Salk, Martin Luther King and Pope John Paul I and II.

Brown, 61, is in his 25th season at LSU. He took over the basketball program in 1972 at a school that traditionally cared only for football and built it into one of the most successful in the Southeastern Conference.

He led the Tigers to the NCAA tournament 13 times and to the Final Four twice. He is the winningest coach in LSU history (445-287) and the second winningest in the SEC.

With Brown as coach, LSU appeared in 10 consecutive NCAA tournaments and 15 consecutive national tournaments before falling into a three-year tailspin.

Earlier this season, there was speculation Brown would be forced out if he did not produce a winner this year. At that time, Brown said he planned on serving the last two years of his contract and wanted a chance to rebuild the team.

The Tigers are 7-6 before conference play, which begins this weekend. Brown’s teams have gone 35-48 over their last three seasons and have failed to finish above fifth place in the SEC West.

“Some will think I was pressured into my decision, but they couldn’t be more wrong,” Brown said.

The lack of commitment by athletes to education has grown, said Brown, who has lost a string of players early to the NBA, including O’Neal, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Stanley Roberts, Randy Livingston and Ronnie Henderson.