Jeff Chaney
Sports Scene
MOUNT PLEASANT – Damon Brown doesn’t have to think twice when asked who is the best coach in his household.
“Definitely my wife,” he answered. “I got into coaching because of her.”
Damon Brown just won the girls’ Class D state championship, leading his Sacred Heart Academy team to an exciting 56-53 win over Forest Park in the state title game at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center, so his wife has to be pretty special.
Brown is the husband of Keisha Brown, the former boys’ coach at Sacred Heart, who later moved on to coach the Alma College women’s team.
Keisha Brown passed away on April 10 after a seven-year battle with cancer. She was 41 years old and is survived by Damon and their 8-year-old daughter Angel.
“What really made her special is she really cared,” Damon Brown said of his wife. “It was never about Xs and Os with her; she was generally concerned about her athletes outside of basketball. Yes, the Xs and Os were important, but she really cared about people, and it was neat to see a lot of her boys come back for that final service to be with her, because she did mean a lot to them.”
Mrs. Brown was a great player as well, playing for Tulane University and later for a professional team in Finland.
In 2001, after her playing career, she moved to Michigan from Louisiana to be with her husband, who was already here.
Then her coaching career started to take off, and her husband’s coaching career began.
“She was coaching AAU and started coaching the girls’ junior varsity team at Sacred Heart in 2002,” Damon said. “At the end of that season, the boys’ varsity position opened up, and Nancy English, who was the principal at that time, hired her as the boys’ coach.
“At that time, I was officiating and on the road three nights a week, and we wanted to spend more time together, so I got into coaching,” he added. “I encouraged her to apply for the boys’ job, because I knew she could bring something to that position, but she was doubting herself, if she could coach the boys. That’s when she said to me ‘I will apply for the boys’ job if you take my junior varsity job.’ I did, and that’s how it began.”
Damon Brown assisted his wife in her new job as the boys’ coach. “It was funny when she first got the job, there were three men on the bench with her, and the officials used to come to us to introduce themselves before the game,” he remembered. “At that time, we told them the head coach was on the end bench and pointed at her.”
As her career progressed, she would need no more introductions.
From 2003 to 2009, when she took the job at Alma, Mrs. Brown led the Sacred Heart boys’ team to five straight conference titles, four district titles, three regional titles, and one state runner-up finish.
She was named the Saginaw News’ Boys Coach of the Year in 2006.
She was also the athletic director at Sacred Heart from 2006-2009.
In 2008, Damon Brown became the coach of the Sacred Heart girls varsity team and incorporated what he learned from his wife into his coaching style.
“She definitely rubbed off on me,” he said. “What I learned from her, it was about the relationships with kids — she did that and was successful, and I took that into my coaching.
“She was a competitor, being a former college and professional player. She had a fire in her, that she wasn’t going to lose, and she did that with cancer, fighting it hard until the end.”
Damon also remembers his wife as being a selfless person, always putting other people ahead of her. “During the quarterfinals for my team this year, the Cancer Treatment Center of America that was treating her wanted her to call them back about her treatment, and she refused,” he said. “I asked why, and she said this week was about you and the girls, and there is no cancer this week. That was the type of person she was, always putting people ahead of herself.”
Kristina Lilly, who is Damon Brown’s assistant coach and a physical therapist who worked with Keisha Brown during her fight against cancer, remembers those moments, too. “This is a huge loss,” she said. “She had the ability to touch so many people’s lives. I am personally saddened not to have her in my life anymore, but she touched my life in so many ways.
“I think one thing about her, and why she meant so much to people, she had the ability to relate,” Lilly continued. “She had the ability to have a genuine relationship with everybody she came in contact with. She meant the world to my three brothers, who all played for her. That made her versatile enough to coach the boys and the women, she could have relationships with so many. And that was evident at her funeral, because there is not many times you will see 20-year-old boys bawling for a 40-year-old woman at her funeral. She touched a huge spectrum of people in the community.”
Damon Brown didn’t know how many, until she was gone.
“What I tell people, you go from the highest of highs, winning a state title, and then the lowest of lows, having to bury your wife,” he said. “It’s been a tough month, but I have been amazed of how many people she touched. As a husband, you don’t realize how many people your wife touches. We had over 900 at the service Mount Pleasant, and another 500 in Morgan City back in Louisiana.”
Lilly was one of the 900 in Mount Pleasant. “She fought this very hard for the past seven years,” Lilly said. “She was super strong throughout, and let it never define her. I think it made her stronger and made her an incredible inspiration to me and other people.
“She was busy but never showed that she was tired. She never showed anything was getting the best of her. She was always positive and had something great to say, and that is why she meant so much to so many people.”
Former student and junior varsity player Lizzy Albaugh said that Mrs. Brown meant a lot to her, even though she didn’t play for her. “One thing I remember about Keisha, I would be having a rough time in school, and she knew I was down,” she explained. “She would come to me and say what’s up, and I would say I’m down and she said you stay up, don’t let anything get you down. And here is a woman with breast cancer at that time, telling me to keep myself up. She was definitely a fighter.”
Mrs. Brown was so strong and had the foresight that she started the Angel Wings Fund, named after her daughter to help families of those who have died from cancer.
“She waas very passionate about that,” Damon Brown said. “When she was first diagnosed in 2007, I remember her looking at me and saying ‘What about Angel?’
“Then we found out there was not a lot of resources out there for the children. She made it her life’s goal to help families, especially children, to achieve their goals And she also wanted to make awareness in the community about cancer. Now here we are, and this all started because she was worried about the children losing their parents.”
As for Angel?
“She is doing great,” said Damon, who was married to Angel’s mom for 10 years. “She is tough like her mom. She is back in her routine, and Sacred Heart has been great for her, because she likes going to school.”