Bruins Tell Brown He Is Their Top Choice for Coaching Job

Chancellor Gene Budig stood before some 30,000 persons who gathered Tuesday at the University of Kansas football stadium to pour adulation upon the freshly crowned national champions of college basketball.

” . . . Do we want Larry Brown to stay forever?” Budig said into a microphone.

The crowd bellowed and took up a chant, “Lah-ree! Lah-ree!” as Brown, the beloved Jayhawk coach, rose and raised his arms skyward.

“I believe,” Budig said, “he got the message.”

But within an hour after a raucous welcome-home rally, Brown also received a clear message during a phone call from a representative of the chancellor’s office at UCLA: You are our top choice.

And because of the contact from UCLA, where he coached two seasons from 1979 to ‘81, and because a meeting was set up for later this week at the school to discuss its vacant coaching position, Brown decided not to travel to Los Angeles today.

He was scheduled to accompany his center, Danny Manning, for today’s presentation of the John Wooden Award to Manning as the outstanding college basketball player this season.

Instead, Manning’s father, Ed, an assistant on Brown’s staff, joined his son for today’s ceremony and another Thursday in Atlanta where Danny will receive a similar honor, the Naismith Award.

Brown said that he wanted Ed Manning to share in the experiences with his son.

“They have a special relationship,” Brown said.

But close associates said that Brown didn’t want to risk any detraction from the Mannings’ moments of glory, i.e., speculation about him changing jobs.

But that issue did detract from the grandeur of a whirlwind day. Following a sleepless night, on Tuesday, Brown:

--Appeared on three network programs, beginning at 5:30 a.m.;

--Progressed through a police-escorted bus trip from Kansas City to the pep rally;

--Received an invitation from President Reagan for the team to visit the White House next Monday;

--Heard from a UCLA official, who had received permission from Budig and Frederick to approach Brown and who told him that he was their top choice for the Bruin job;

--Ended up slumped, frazzled, hungry and confused on a couch at his home next to one of his 15-year-old dogs, Cinder.

In front of the gathered masses Brown sang several praises of Kansas, saying later to a friend: “I belong here.”

Introduced as “Maker of Miracles” by Frederick, Brown said everything except the one thing the fans wanted to hear most--that he would stay put.

He said at a news conference afterward such things as, “If I were a player I’d want to play at Kansas,” talked about recruiting anticipations . . . but danced around several questions about the UCLA job or other coaching possibilities with the Carolina Hornets, a Charlotte, N.C., expansion team, or the Clippers of the National Basketball Assn.

Brown has informed his closest acquaintances that he has decided not to re-enter the professional basketball ranks where he coached before and after his UCLA experience.

“I’m more comfortable in college, as a teacher,” Brown said Tuesday night while finally relaxing, turning the incessant phone calls over to his visiting daughter and an assistant coach.

“And all I want is the opportunity to be the best coach I can be and have an opportunity to win every year.”

Many times in the past, he has expressed doubts about that opportunity at Kansas because of the locale, especially after frequently being turned down by top prospects from other areas. Brown has a four-year contract that renews every year with a base salary of $79,000. His total package is believed to be worth about $400,000 annually, including radio, television, camps and a shoe contract.

He also often and openly has stated that leaving UCLA was the biggest mistake he has made in coaching. “I knew three days after I left that I shouldn’t have,” he said Tuesday night.

And so it was that earlier in the day Brown instructed his coaches Tuesday to get the word to recruits that he plans to discuss the UCLA job, all the while interspersing many good reasons for staying at Kansas where he has guided the Jayhawks to the Final Four twice in his five years.

“I’ve had to answer questions about changing jobs every day since I got here,” Brown said. “The last 24 hours I’ve heard six places I’m supposedly going. I love this place, and I’m not going to comment about my job until I’ve sat down with Bob (Frederick) and my family.”