City of Basketball Love

Matt Allibone (@bad2theallibone)
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Mike Brown left coaching 38 years ago because he wanted to be present as a father. 

He stuck with it the last few years partially because of the joy it gave him as a father. 

He’s always been centered by family. So it makes sense the longtime Garnet Valley boys’ coach is retiring for the same reason. 

Brown recently announced his retirement after 13 seasons leading the Jaguars. The 67-year-old compiled a 206-127 record with 10 District 1 and five state playoff appearances at Garnet Valley. He led the Jaguars to a Central League title in 2021. 

While Brown’s advancing age is one reason for his retirement, he said he was influenced by the impending departure of his son, Ryan, who has served as his assistant for the past 12 years.

“He’s been my right-hand man,” Brown said. “He’s always been the one to say, ‘Dad, come back. I’ll do it another year.’ But he had a hard time getting to practice with his job this year. I thought that was a message from above. He’s the reason I kept going so long because he loves it just as much as I do.” 

He added his energy and patience are no longer what they once were. But those who watched him rebuild Garnet Valley over the past 13 years believe those have always been his best qualities. 

Brown’s record and list of accomplishments with the Jaguars look impressive enough at first glance. But they only scratch the surface of what he accomplished at the Delaware County school. 

The Jaguars were coming off three straight one-win seasons when Brown was hired in 2012. Garnet Valley has always been one of the smallest District 1 schools in Pennsylvania’s largest classification. Brown said there isn’t a public basketball court anywhere in the district. 

At the time, Brown was an accomplished but somewhat unconventional candidate for the job. A former player at Cardinal O’Hara and Lycoming College, he had a successful run as Archbishop Carroll’s head coach (96-69 record) from 1981 to 1987, but had stepped down to watch his four kids play youth sports. 

He hadn’t coached at the high school level for 25 years, but was a resident of the Garnet Valley School District and was encouraged by friends to apply for the job. 

The Jaguars went from one win to nine his first season. They won 10 the next year. In his fourth season, they started a streak of 10 consecutive winning seasons. 

“I’m biased, but I think he’s as good a coach as there is. And I’m not just talking high school,” Ryan Brown said. “If he hadn’t taken a break to raise me and my siblings, I think he would’ve been a Big Five coach or at Widener or West Chester. He took a program that was in the dumps and made it competitive. I think if you were there for the entire process, what he did at Garnet Valley is unrivaled in this area. It’s pretty miraculous.” 

Despite the long layoff between high school coaching stints, Mike Brown said his principles didn’t change much. But his situation was different than it was at Archbishop Carroll — and that led to questions from some in the community. 

The first step of his plan was to establish a relationship with the district’s middle school programs to make sure top players didn’t leave for local private schools. At the time, Ryan had recently finished his high school at Salesianum School in Delaware (where he played with Donte DiVincenzo). 

“Parents would sometimes ask why players should stay at Garnet Valley when I didn’t,” Ryan Brown said. “I would tell them: ‘My dad wasn’t the coach then or I would have been a Jaguar.’”

Mike Brown gestures while coaching a game during the 2023-24 season. His son, Ryan, is standing to his left; Brandon Starr is seated directly next to Ryan. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

In 2012, basketball was a third or even fourth sport for most of the kids in Garnet Valley’s program. Brown decided the best way to get players experience was to schedule as many open gyms and summer league games as possible. The more opportunities he provided, the more kids in the program began to click with the sport and each other. 

One of those kids was Brandon Starr, a seventh grader in 2012 who wasn’t sure if he wanted to play basketball or focus on lacrosse. Starr ended up becoming a first-team All-Central League player on Brown’s first two district playoff teams. 

Starr went on to play for University of the Sciences and joined Brown’s coaching staff after he graduated college. 

“He wrote my path for me,” Starr said. “He really changed the dynamic where a lot of kids (at Garnet Valley) wanted to stick with basketball. He preaches that we’re here for basketball and to win, but he also preaches to be a good person. We’re here for a goal, but we also always had nice kids. That’s a good lesson for life in general.” 

Mike Brown described himself as an “old school” coach who could get upset easily and sometimes be too demanding. He credited Ryan with bringing a more “modern” and balanced approach to the program. 

Ryan disagreed with him slightly and said his dad knew which kids he could be tough on and which ones needed a different form of encouragement. 

He said Brown understood that putting in the time with his players was more important than any gameplan or inbounds play he could draw up. He estimated that Garnet Valley sometimes had played over 100 games together by the end of a season due to all of their summer league and preseason contests. 

“I would always tell our kids, ‘(Mike) doesn’t ask you to do more than you’re capable of,’” Ryan Brown said. “He knew how to make them laugh, push their buttons, be a disciplinarian, build them back up. We had some very talented kids, but rarely anyone over 6-foot-5 or who could dunk outside of an open fast break. Our big advantage was the sheer will and time my father put in and demanded of our players.” 

After winning the Central League in 2021, Garnet Valley won state playoff games the next two seasons and battled eventual 6A champion Central York in a nine-point defeat last season. This year’s team went 19-8 and lost to Father Judge in the first round of states. Senior Jake Sniras set the program scoring record with a career total of 1,787 points. 

But Ryan Brown said his favorite memory was the night his father reached 200 wins at the school. He estimated 35 former players sent in a video clip thanking Brown for his influence on them. 

Brown still plans to stay around basketball, but with a younger age group. He has seven grandkids and one is just starting to play organized hoops. 

The man who left coaching to watch his kids play sports is doing the same for the next generation. 

“We had a lot of good kids who worked hard and were respectful,” Mike Brown said. “I didn’t change much, but I gave the kids fair warning and they put up with me. We had a lot of fun and it all worked out.”