Brooklyn Player Moves to Miami : Eric Brown Succeeds in Goal of Leaving New York Area

Eric Brown has been more than halfway around the world playing basketball since he signed with the fledgling Miami Hurricane basketball program a year ago, and he’s seen nothing to convince him he made a mistake.

Among the goals that Brown, 6-foot-6 and 190 pounds, had when he was recruited out of Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., was to get out of the city.

Although the small forward was recruited by some of the nation’s basketball powers, including Georgetown, Syracuse, St. John’s, UCLA and Virginia, he chose Miami because the program was new and he liked everything about it.

“At St. John’s, when you leave the campus (located in Queens, another borough of New York City), you’re in the city. You can get into a lot of trouble in the city,” Brown said. “Here, it’s tranquil.”

A teammate of Syracuse’s Dwayne Washington when he was a sophomore at Boys and Girls, Brown teamed with The Pearl again last summer at New York’s Empire State Games. Walter Berry of St. John’s and Wendell Alexis of Syracuse also were on that club.

Brown played for the United States in the Albert Schweitzer Tournament in Mannheim, West Germany, last April and also played in games and tournaments in Las Vegas and Hawaii.

The newness of the Miami program presents a lot of problems on the court and probably will produce a lot of losses. But Brown likes it.

“The new program is an opportunity you don’t have at other colleges. It’ll be exciting,” Brown said before one of the Hurricanes’ daily workouts.

Miami, which has not played a game since the program was discontinued in 1971, opens with an exhibition game Nov. 7 and then a regular season game Nov. 22 against The Citadel.

“Because it’s a new program, no one knows how it’s going to turn out,” Brown said. “I think the first year is going to be exciting because we’re going to upset a lot of teams and we’ll lose some we shouldn’t. It’s going to be up and down.

“And people are excited. They’re just dying for basketball to start,” he said.

Brown and his teammates will have plenty of chances for upsets, with Florida, Florida State, Dayton, Duke, Notre Dame and Marquette on the schedule. Whether they will deliver is another question.

It’s also been pointed out there are places in the Miami area where things aren’t nearly as tranquil as he might have hoped. Brown doesn’t care because he hasn’t seen them and doesn’t plan to.

“The campus here is not like a city. It’s like a private place,” he said.

Brown was recruited for about two months before he signed with Miami, and he doesn’t regret his decision for an instant.

“I’d do it all over again,” said the 18-year-old who led Boys and Girls High to a 25-3 record with an 18-point scoring average for all-state honors last year.

Coach Bill Foster is glad because Brown may be the kind of player to build a new program around.

“I’m just tickled to death with his first week of practice. He has very solid work habits; he’s unselfish, he’s coachable and works hard at the little things,” Foster said. “He’s got the skills. We all know that, but with his habits and attitude, he’s going top be a great player.”