The comfort zone no longer appealed to Phil Brown.
He celebrated his 20th year with the Australian Institute of Sport and decided to make a change. He discussed it with his family and became an assistant coach for the Oregon women’s basketball team.
“I was looking for a new challenge,” Brown said. “I think my time was up – 20 years is a long time in that job and it’s real fast lane. It was 14 hour days – 6, 7 days a week … I needed a change.”
Opportunities for advancement in Australia were limited:
The Women’s National Basketball League in Australia is a step down in salary. Going to Oregon and learning the U.S. college system presented an ideal choice.
“When you make a decision and then suddenly you look at all the things that you have to do – buy, selling your house, closing out all your bank accounts and ceasing medical coverage and all these sort of different things you don’t really think of at the time,” Brown said.
His three children: Mitchell, 10, Nathan, 8, and Shannon, 5, settled into elementary school. They participate in soccer and basketball. Shannon performs gymnastics.
Brown’s past and present collide Friday.
The current Oregon assistant meets his former team Friday night when the Ducks host the Australian Institute of Sport in a 5 p.m. exhibition game at McArthur Court. Ellie Manou, who has verbally committed to Oregon, is a member of the AIS team.
“The program is in excellent shape,” Brown said of AIS. “In Australia, our development program and the AIS program is now well-recognized throughout the world and highly respected through the world. When I first started there, no one in Europe or U.S. college system or South America really knew the Australian Institute of Sport. Now it’s well-known.”
Brown helped organize AIS’s eight-game, nine-day tour. AIS is playing five games in the Northwest and three games in Los Angeles. AIS’s tour stops at three mid-majors and two Division II schools. They visit three Pacific-10 Conference schools including USC, Washington and Oregon.
AIS offers a challenging opponent capable of beating Division I programs. During ex-Duck Natasha Ruckwardt’s AIS tenure from 1993-to-1994, they beat a USC team featuring Tina Thompson and Lisa Leslie and a ranked Stanford team coached by Tara VanDerveer.
“We need something that’s going to challenge us in all areas,” Oregon head coach Bev Smith said. “The AIS is a perfect situation because they’re a very good team, a very young team. They do some things that will help us see where we are in our preparation.”
Brown’s current focus is helping revive an Oregon program that went 14-15 in 2005-06. In the future, should he decide to be a head coach again, he’d likely return to Australia. If he had the opportunity to coach Australia’s National Basketball Team, a full-time position, it would get his attention, he says.
Making the change
Brown’s adjustment to the United States required an understanding of a new basketball environment. Players appear on billboards and Smith is on the radio after games and has a weekly television show.
“The U.S. college system is pretty exciting and to play here at Mac Court and coach here and have that type of support for the team that you’re involved with just doesn’t happen in Australia,” Brown said.
His biggest shock came with recruiting and its importance to maintaining a successful college program. His emphasis on fundamentals and individual development contrasted with high school and AAU coaches’ focus on winning.
“They hardly practice,” Brown said. “It’s all about winning and showcasing your skills to the college coaches and getting that elusive Division I full-ride scholarship.”
The lack of practice and teaching, he says, shows on the court.
“Even though I see some kids that are very talented athletically, they do one or two things exceptionally well,” Brown said. “They are very deficient in a number of other areas of the game of basketball.”
Developing basketball players
Australia’s developmental program starts identifying the best women’s basketball players at age 13 and watches them until they are 17. The best players are offered a scholarship to AIS. There are 12 scholarships available and they cover room and board, tuition and other fees.
AIS participates in the Women’s National Basketball League, the pro league in Australia. The talent level is comparable to the SEC or ACC and the best teams are comparable to a Connecticut, Brown said.
“When they graduate from the AIS, they have a pretty good foundation of fundamental skills,” Brown said of his pupils. “They could go left and right hand. They could all shoot the three-point shot. They could all put it on the floor. They could all defend smaller players or bigger players. They really had a solid set of skills and strength and conditioning.”
His list of former pupils is extensive. Lauren Jackson, Penny Taylor and Kristi Harrower are a few of the many and a lot of them have gone on to play professionally, both in the WNBA and overseas. Former Oregon players Natasha Ruckwardt (formerly O’Brien), Sally Crowe, Renae Fegent and Gabrielle Richards have learned from him.
“He constructively gave you the feedback and criticism that you needed but he did it in such a way that you had to respect him,” said Ruckwardt, who is the Director of Operations for the women’s basketball team.
He follows most of his former players online. Last summer Brown and his family visited Seattle to watch Jackson play and meet her for dinner.
Brown saw Jackson at age 13, then 6-feet-3-inches, and two inches shy of her current 6-feet-5-inches.
“She had great hands and was a competitor and she just had a good feel for the game,” Brown said. “You can’t teach most of that stuff.”
Jackson, the 2003 WNBA MVP, played on Brown’s championship AIS team in the 1998-99 season. Jackson and Taylor formed a potent tandem to close the season at 16-5.
The pair joined 10 other players who at one point went through AIS to form the Australian National Team. Australia surprised the world at the FIBA World Championships with a gold medal performance.
Taylor, the tournament MVP, scored 28 points and Jackson had 16 in Australia’s 91-74 rout of Russia in the gold medal game.
Basketball is growing similar to the way soccer has captured the attention of countries and nations across the world, Brown says.
“It’s a cultural game. They’ve grown up with it,” said Brown, noting the play of international stars Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. “I think they appreciate the international flavor that’s coming to U.S. pro sports, particularly in basketball, the men’s and women’s, because they’ve had such a positive impact.”
Reuniting in Eugene
Oregon forward Eleanor Haring spent two years under Brown’s guidance in Australia. The first season in 2001-02, she suffered from patella tendinitis. It restricted her time on the court and she averaged 1.5 points and 0.5 assists in 11 games. She improved her second year in 2002-03 with averages of 3 points, 1.9 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 20 games.
Brown noticed Haring’s potential early on: the rangy build, good hops, movement on the court and 6-foot-1-inch frame.
All she needed to was learn the game. Haring’s hometown of Perth is comparable to South Dakota in terms of talent, says Brown, with few great basketball players coming out of West Australia. After AIS, she left for Oregon on a scholarship.
“She could have gone back to Perth and played on their pro team there, but I really felt that she needed to come somewhere to get like a second apprenticeship where she’d be in a structured environment, get some good coaching, continue to up skill, get some playing opportunities and the U.S. college system is just wonderful for that,” Brown said.
Haring developed into a consistent scorer with a three-year average of 7.4 points and 3.4 rebounds. She exploded for 20 points in Oregon’s season finale last year in th
e Pacific-10 Conference Tournament.
“She just cut loose and was fantastic,” Brown said. “We hope she brings that same endeavor this year.”
Another nimble footed post, Richards, anchored Oregon in the post in 2005-06 and appeared on the verge of a breakout season. She put together averages of 10.3 points and 6.7 rebounds based on a variety of low-post moves and mid-range jumper. When Richards decided to leave in early September, it shocked Brown, who said he went all the emotions: anger, disappointment, acceptance.
“We thought she could be a significant part of where we wanted to go this season and then you try to understand her position and try to figure out where a young ladies at in her life and being a long way from home,” Brown said.
Joining the Oregon program
Brown and assistant coach Selena Ho joined Oregon in the spring of 2005 when Allison and Mike McNeill decided to return to Canada.
“It was like I had entered the twilight zone,” Haring said. “I had kind of finished that phase at the AIS.”
His strong attention to detail separates him from other coaches, Haring said.
“He really helps you mature as a basketball player because he knows the game of basketball inside out and he really focuses on the little things that make you better,” Haring said.
Brown is helping Oregon move to a quicker, more up-tempo style of play.
“Internationally, we’re seeing the game being played more up-tempo both in offense and in defense,” said Patrick Hunt, a longtime coaching associate in Australia. “I’m sure that’s influenced Phil’s style.”
[email protected]