Dale Brown, who coached some of the most successful basketball teams in LSU history, as well as one of the Tigers’ most famous players in Shaquille O’Neal, has died. He was 90.
Brown, whose death Friday was announced by LSU, was just over a week away from what would have been his 91st birthday. On Wednesday, Brown was announced as the 2027 recipient of the John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award.
“We have lost the most loving and most loved man any of us has ever known,” Brown’s family said in a statement. “Dale Brown always put others first. He always led with the heart. He was always a great humanitarian before anything else. Dale long ago fell in love with Louisiana. And the people of Louisiana loved him right back. We are forever grateful for that.”
Brown was named AP Coach of the Year in 1981, was a four-time SEC Coach of the Year and has the most wins of a coach in program history. The panache with which his teams played and the rate at which they won packed LSU’s dome-shaped Pete Maravich Assembly Center with crowds so wild that the stadium took on the nickname, “Deaf Dome.”
The highlights of his 25 years as LSU’s coach included two trips to the NCAA Final Four with his 1981 and 1986 teams.
He coached O’Neal for three seasons, from the 1989-90 campaign until the charismatic, 7-foot-1 superstar entered the 1992 NBA draft and was selected first overall by Orlando. LSU earned bids to the NCAA Tournament during all three of O’Neal’s seasons, the first with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, then known as Chris Jackson, also an All-American, but did not advance past the second round.
The final years of Brown’s career were marred by an NCAA investigation over alleged recruiting tactics that now are permitted.
During the 1996-97 season, the NCAA concluded that a booster had paid one of Brown’s former players, Lester Earl, about $5,000 while he played for the Tigers.
Brown retired in 1997 and LSU was placed on probation in 1998.
Still, Brown remained popular in Louisiana, where his enthusiastic, gregarious and expressive manner had long captivated fans. Many LSU fans also appeared to subscribe to a storyline — espoused in no small part by Brown — that he was unfairly singled out and persecuted by the NCAA.
Brown later was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and LSU’s home basketball court was named for him in 2022 (and also subsequently for late women’s coach Sue Gunter in 2024).
When Brown’s name was unveiled on the court during a halftime ceremony, Brown credited his former players and assistant coaches, many of whom were in attendance that night.
“The best potential of me is we,” Brown said. “This is an example.”
The late former Temple coach John Chaney called Brown “one of the true statesmen of college basketball,” according to a profile of Brown on LSU’s website.
That same profile also quoted Hall of Fame UCLA coach John Wooden saying he will “always remember Dale for his enthusiasm.”
“There are those who say he is a put-on — they just can’t believe that he can be what he professes,” Wooden said then. “But I never questioned that. He amazed me because there is a lot more depth to the man. He was much more than a basketball coach.”
Brown was a native of Minot, North Dakota, and was a three-sport varsity athlete in basketball, football and track at Minot State.
After college, he spent a little more than half a decade as a high school coach in North Dakota and California before taking college assistant posts Utah State in 1966 and Washington State in 1971.
When he was hired by LSU in 1972, few Tigers fans had previously heard of him. His name recognition and popularity began surging after LSU knocked off then-third-ranked Memphis State in the home opener of Brown’s first season.
Brown went on to coach an LSU squad forecast to finish last in the SEC to a 9-9 league record, resulting in his first SEC Coach of the Year honor.
Brown went on to post a career 448-301 record at LSU. Following his retirement, Brown became a motivational speaker, a basketball analyst for television broadcasts and started the charitable Dale Brown Foundation, which aims to promote educational opportunities for students who have physical disabilities or come from families who’ve struggled financially.