Brown’s Contributions to the Track Team Will Be Missed

The Cal State Fullerton track team was busy preparing for the start of a new season the other day.

But it wasn’t the same.

It won’t be without Ben Brown.

“You always knew when he was around because you could hear that laugh of his,” sprinter Casie Lozano said. “You could hear that over anything. And you always knew he was on his way to practice because you could hear that old truck he drove for a long time a mile away.”

Brown would amble up smiling, after already working a full day as a computer specialist, and begin helping as an assistant coach. He coached at Fullerton for eight years, working virtually on a volunteer basis.

Brown was killed Feb. 1 when his car skidded on a rain-slick freeway and crashed into a pole. He was on the way to pick up his son in Ontario, where Brown and his family lived.

Funeral services were Monday in San Francisco, his hometown.

The track world remembered Brown as one of the world’s great quarter-milers, a three-time NCAA champion at UCLA in 1973 through 1975, and a gold-medal winner in the 1,600-meter relay in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

At Fullerton, he is remembered for much more.

“The most important thing was the way he kept telling you that you could do something,” Lozano said. “He was always so supportive of your goals and what you wanted to do.

“We’d talk a lot about track, but we’d also talk a lot about life. He would say to me a lot, ‘You’re going to go places. You just have to stick with your dreams.’ ”

Lozano recalled how Brown had time for anyone who wanted to talk about running.

“Pro football players would come to him, and so would people who just ran for fun,” she said. “He didn’t really care whether you had ability or not, but if you had a lot of it, he’d really get excited.”

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Another sprinter, Rufus Richardson, says Brown’s influence on him also carried beyond the track.

“He was the kind of coach who made track a great experience,” he said. “But he helped me in all aspects of my life. I know I have a lot more confidence now after being around him. I have it when I go in for a job interview, or something like that, too, not just in track.”

Brown frequently reminded his sprinters that good arm movement is as important as anything in running.

“In a meet, people would be yelling at the top of their lungs, but I could always hear him yelling to me, ‘Arms, arms,’ ” Richardson said. “I’m sure I’ll still hear that when I run.

“I remember the first time I met him. I guess I was kind of cocky, and maybe he saw that. I remember him saying, ‘So you think you’re a sprinter. Well, after you train with me, you’ll be a sprinter.’ ”

Lozano recalls how Brown would occasionally jump into the starting blocks and run against some of the Titan sprinters.

“He did it not long ago, and he kicked every guy’s butt out here in the 400 meters,” Lozano said.

But Greg Thewes, a sprinter and long jumper, says Brown rarely mentioned his own success as a runner.

“He never tried to be intimidating, even though he had the credentials to be intimidating,” said Thewes. “If you were having a bad day, he’d never jump down your throat. He’d laugh that laugh of his and say something in a joking way, and then slap you on the butt.”

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Thewes says Brown would sometimes drive from Ontario on a Sunday afternoon to work with him when he had to miss practice during the week. “He never let any of us down when we needed him,” he said.

All this for $1,300. That’s what Brown was paid this season for his part-time work. In other years he made as much as $2,500.

“Actually, I asked him to take a pay cut this season, so we could pay one of the other coaches who has been working with us something,” Titan Coach John Elders said. “But that didn’t matter to him. He’d never done it for the money. Track was a big part of his life.”

Brown was living in an apartment near the Fullerton campus eight years ago when some of the athletes saw him working out, and asked him if he’d like to run for their team. Brown smiled and told them he didn’t have any eligibility left.

But he joined them anyway, offering to help Elders.

Elders says he and the athletes have been talking about ways to honor Brown’s memory this season, possibly with a meet dedicated to him, or by wearing black wristbands with his initials during competition.

Their memories and good feelings about him probably are the best memorial of all.

Titan Notes

The baseball series with Fresno State produced good crowds. The Friday night crowd of 2,083 was the second largest since the field opened in 1992. About 30 fans had to be turned away initially because of a fire marshal ruling, but they were admitted later. “We were able to open another gate to increase the number of people we could allow in, so we were able to get them in then,” ticket manager Patty Sexton said. The other crowds were 1,573 Saturday and 1,516 Sunday. The biggest crowd at Titan Field was 2,456 for a game against Long Beach State last season. . . . Two former Titan soccer players were picked in the recent Major League Soccer draft. Striker Eddie Soto was taken in the eighth round by New York, and midfielder Brad Wilson was taken in the 13th round by the L.A. Galaxy.