Staying Power

Brook Brown, Class of ‘99, ended her Tustin High athletic career with 12 varsity letters--four each in volleyball, girls’ basketball and softball.

Named to all-league teams 11 times, including nine first-team honors, Brown was selected by the Golden West League as its female athlete of the year. She has a 3.6 grade-point average and will play volleyball next season at UC Irvine.

She believes strongly in commitment, perseverance, building tradition and learning from every situation.

“She’s an outstanding individual, really focused athletically and academically,” Tustin Athletic Director Al Rosmino said. “She’s a very intense person who works very hard at what she’s doing.”

But there’s a frustrating side to Brown’s reality. She played under eight different varsity coaches, including an interim coach whose name she couldn’t remember.

She won only one league championship, during her junior year in basketball, and didn’t come close to repeating that success as a senior despite having all but one teammate return. Tustin qualified for the playoffs only five times (three in volleyball, two in basketball). The teams Brown loved never developed the sense of tradition she hoped for.

Her high school career was star-crossed--individual successes balanced largely by disappointment. By her account, she missed only three practices during her four years, and one softball game, which conflicted with a basketball playoff game.

Now, four years after entering high school as a taller-than-average 13-year-old (5 feet 11 inches), Brown has answers to such questions as: Why didn’t she transfer? What did she learn? What can her school do to make it better? And of course, why three sports?

“I liked them all equally--and I still do,” said Brown, a 6-2 center on the basketball team, first baseman on the softball team and middle blocker on the volleyball team. “I think it’s different for someone who wants to play one sport, like basketball. You can do whatever it takes to become a good basketball player.

“In my case, I played three sports. You can’t do three travel teams. But I don’t regret not dropping a sport, because I care about being the athlete in general instead of the one-sport person.

“Plus, I’m not burned out.”

She says all high school athletes should play a second sport, just to stay fresh. It helped her remain focused because she didn’t get bored, and she didn’t have an off-season to get lazy.

“It dramatically changed me,” said Brown, who hopes to one day work behind the scenes in broadcast media.

“There’s no way you can stay focused for 365 days. I tried that--I played travel softball when I was 12, played 162 games for the Batbusters. Day after day, there’s no way you can stay positive, focused and love it that much. You’re going to get burned out at some point.”

Actually, Brown did get tired of the Tillers’ lack of development through the years. She blamed it on the high turnover of coaches, that it created a carousel of mediocrity.

All three of her varsity coaches during her sophomore year were new. She had four softball coaches in four years, including an assistant who took over in midseason.

“It never got better the year after we lost a coach,” said Brown, who started at every sport all four years. “The right coach for the players was never hired.”

But she did find value along the way.

“The things you learn from the pursuit of excellence are the things that you’ll take with you as an adult,” she said. “But you have to be committed to trying to win. That’s the goal. Losing isn’t fun at all.”

Brown says the first step toward establishing a winning program is finding the right coach for the situation rather than the right coach for the administration. Involved in the interview process for two coaches (and not happy with either), Brown says she saw an inclination to depend too much on a resume “and not enough on real-world experience.”

“They picked people who knew a lot about the sport, but weren’t experienced in coaching,” she said.

Rosmino, Tustin’s athletic director the last 18 years, said he sympathizes with Brown. Tustin’s girls’ programs haven’t been the same since its boundaries changed in the early 1990s, he said.

“I can appreciate her frustrations,” he said. “There aren’t many Brook Browns left in high school athletics anymore. The first [option] is to run to the better program or not stick to something and persevere. She has stayed through it, worked through it, and it will make her a better adult person. She’ll know how to work through things and make the best of a situation--that’s a lost art.”

But Rosmino, who is looking for another new girls’ basketball coach, said girls’ sports at Tustin haven’t attracted many coaching candidates, and the school rarely has teaching positions available to a coach who might make a long-term commitment.

Brown clearly had that commitment despite her frustration. Every year, her father, Rocky, gave her the option of transferring.

“I wanted [the program] to change, I wanted it to be successful,” Brown said. “If I get involved in something, I want to give 100% no matter what is going on around me. That [feeling] of commitment became stronger after all the disappointment.”