Navigate to News section

Larry Brown Returns to the Sideline

The Jewish Coaches Association gets its most famous member yet

by
Marc Tracy
April 24, 2012
Larry Brown in 2009, coaching the Charlotte Bobcats.(Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Larry Brown in 2009, coaching the Charlotte Bobcats.(Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

The Jewish Coaches Association—the group of Jewish college basketball coaches that convenes annually at the Final Four—has lost one of its most prominent members … and gained an even more prominent one. Seth Greenberg, who had an overall winning record with the Virginia Tech Hokies but only got them one NCAA Tournament berth (in 2007, when they lost in the second round), has been let go. He is still the head coach of the U.S. men’s team for the Maccabiah Games in Israel next year.

Meanwhile, Southern Methodist University, the Dallas school that hasn’t made the Big Dance since ’93 but is poised at least to make the leap to the major Big East Conference next year, will now be coached by Larry Brown. He is legitimately one of the greatest coaches of all time. His last year coaching college, in 1988 at Kansas, he was named Coach of the Year and won the national championship. In the NBA, where he led several teams, he also earned Coach of the Year honors (for the Philadelphia 76ers) and won a championship—the only coach to do so at both levels—leading that wonderfully idiosyncratic Detroit Pistons team with fellow North Carolina alum Sheed.

I’ve posted this before, but here is Brown, of UNC, bringing his Brooklyn beef with Art Heyman down to Tobacco Road. Go Mustangs!

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.