Johnny Brown Joins Men's Staff

CEDAR CITY, Utah, Sept. 24 – Southern Utah University has added former University of New Mexico standout Johnny Brown to its men’s basketball coaching staff, SUU Head Coach Roger Reid announced today.

Brown, a 14-year veteran of the college coaching ranks, comes to SUU from New Mexico  Junior College where he spent the last season as an assistant. He has also worked at the Division I level, serving on the staffs at Fresno State, Montana State, Northern Iowa, and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi during his career.

“We’re excited to have Johnny Brown join our staff,” Reid said. “He’s a good coach with a lot of good on-the-floor experience as well as an experienced recruiter with a lot of good contacts. He’s got a network of contacts all across the west after growing up in California and working at Fresno State, in Texas, in Oklahoma and in New Mexico.”

“Being a first-team all-WAC performer at New Mexico, he will also be very helpful with the big guys in the program,” Reid went on to say. “Now, with the addition of Johnny along with Ron Carling and Austin Ainge I’m elated about the quality of the staff we’ve put together here at Southern Utah.”

Brown helped Fresno State to NIT bids in 1996, ’97 and ’98 but left the Bulldogs to help establish the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi program, which played its first season in 1999-2000. He also helped coach Eastern Oklahoma to a regional final appearance in 2001-02 and a semi-final appearance in 2003-04.

A former first-team all-Western Athletic Conference selection and three-time all-star in the World Basketball League, Brown played five years in the professional ranks before joining the coaching fraternity. He has coached 12 current or former professional players, including Melvin Ely of the Charlotte Bobcats and the Houston Rockets’ Rafer Alston.             

Coach Brown is a 1986 graduate of New Mexico, with a degree in university studies, sociology and speech communication