When Russ Reilly was introduced in 1997 as the new athletic director at Middlebury College after spending 19 years as the basketball coach, he announced: “The first decision I will make as the AD is to fire the men’s basketball coach!”

After a national search, Russ’s successor was selected and he was a familiar face — Jeff Brown. Russ had known him from Jeff’s Hall of Fame playing days at the University of Vermont, his nine years as the assistant coach at UVM, then as a NESCAC coaching rival at Bates College (Russ’s alma mater) for three years.

More than familiar — they were friends.

Russ became a volunteer assistant coach for Jeff, working with the big men, for 13 seasons. When Russ died in 2019, the men’s basketball position was endowed and Jeff became the first “Russell L. Reilly Head Coach of Men’s Basketball at Middlebury College.”

After spending 28 years as the Middlebury men’s coach, Jeff has now retired, at age 65, as of June 30.

So how did those 28 years go?

In a word . . . great!

It took Jeff a few years, but the program went from being competitive at best in Division III to one of the top programs in the country, year after year.

Jeff’s overall record is 457 wins against 248 losses, .648 winning percentage. He coached five all-Americans: Ben Rudin (2009), Ryan Sharry (2011, 2012), Matt St. Amour (2017, of St. Albans, Vt.), Jack Daly (2018), and Alex Sobel (2022, 2023 National Player of the Year in D3).

MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE MEN’S basketball coach Jeff Brown goes up for two points during his days playing college basketball at the University of Vermont. He was captain of the team in 1982 and inducted into the UVM Sports Hall of Fame in 1993.
Credit: UVM Photo

His Middlebury teams won 20 games nine times (playing a 24-game regular schedule), won NESCAC championships four times, and earned inclusion in the NCAA post-season tournaments 12 times, three times making it to the quarterfinals (the Elite 8) and once to the Final 4. The Panthers’ record in NCAA play is 18-12.

In 2011, the Panthers played in Salem, Va., in the National D3 Championship series losing in the semi-finals to the eventual champion, St. Thomas (Minn.) by one basket, 59-57. Their record that year was 28-2. In a five-year period, 2009-2013, Middlebury was 128-18 and averaged 26 wins a season.

Among the individual accolades Jeff Brown has earned are being named NESCAC Coach of the Year five times and the district Coach of the Year twice. In 2023, he was honored with the prestigious College Basketball Officials Association Sam Schoenfeld Sportsmanship Award.

Jeff was inducted into the UVM Sports Hall of Fame in 1993, as “one of the top all-around basketball players in the history of the school.”

During Jeff Brown’s tenure as Panther men’s coach, Middlebury, Vt., has gone from being a hockey town — to a hockey and basketball town.

Jeff grew up in Nyack, about 25 miles north of New York City, in Rockland County, the second of six boys in his family. He was attracted to basketball early. “At age seven, I was playing in a rec league,” he said. “I was hooked. Basketball became the centerpiece of my life.

“I was recruited by Vermont, and some other schools showed interest too, Holy Cross and UMass, but UVM made a solid offer. My friends said, ‘Where is UVM!’ but I had a wonderful experience there.”

Jeff has coached basketball for 43 years. His path to Middlebury had some stops along the way, first as an assistant at Manhattan College, then at his alma mater for nine years (“I coached Rob Hamlin and Joe Calavita from Middlebury High’s 1983 state championship team”).

“I enjoyed coaching from Day 1,” he said.

“Going to Bates as their head coach was not on my radar,” he said. “I was happy as a D1 assistant. But I had developed a rapport with Russ Reilly and I knew of his loyalty to Bates.

“But when I walked the campus at Middlebury with two students, I was knocked out. I had only worked at red brick campuses. And I was so impressed with the athletic department generally. I felt I had a great opportunity to recruit high level athletes to Middlebury.”

The crude calculus of sports evaluates coaching success in wins and losses — it’s black and white, but when you ask people to assess Jeff Brown’s leadership of the Middlebury basketball program, their first words are not about w’s and l’s.

Tim Edwards was a terrific player for Jeff’s teams, the NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year in 2009 and 2010. His dad, Duncan, a lifelong educator, described Jeff as “a great coach but an even better man. My son (like so many sons of Midd) is a better man for having been in his presence ­­­­— there is no truer or lasting measure of success than that.”

“Working with Coach Brown through the recruiting process,” All-American Ryan Sharry (2009-12) said, “was the reason why I chose to go to school in Vermont. I instantly trusted him and was confident he had the program in a great place.

“The main thing that stood out was his composure. No matter the situation, he was always incredibly calm. That steady confidence played a huge role in our ability to mount big comebacks in important games.”

MIDDLEBURY MEN’S BASKETBALL coach Jeff Brown, recently retired, huddles with his team in 2023. One of his NESCAC coaching rivals, Joe Reilly of Wesleyan, called Jeff “one of the top coaches in all of college basketball — any level, and his influence with be missed in the NESCAC, D3 basketball and beyond.”
Credit: Will Costello

Sam Rubinstein, Jeff’s lead assistant for the past three years (and he has been retained by new head coach Matt Goldsmith) said he has learned from Jeff “how professionals treat people. He treats people the same, regardless of status. He’s a great listener. His superpower is his belief in his players. He doesn’t micromanage people. He allows players to be who they are.

“When I travel for Middlebury, wear the logo, I am immediately treated with respect. That’s about Jeff. He is respected at all levels of the game.”

Alex Woolf of Cornwall wrote for Sports Illustrated for 36 years and was the pre-eminent college basketball writer in the country. He goes to a lot of Middlebury games. He had this to say about Jeff Brown’s coaching: “He had a faith and understanding that the game belonged to his players. He played a lot of them and empowered them.

“When the program ‘turned the corner’ in the late 2000s, it was because Jeff let his players create a winning culture. He knew only they could do that.”

Jeff has no grand plans for his retirement. He and his wife of 39 years, Renee, have three grown daughters — Vanessa, Michele, and Nicole — and six grandchildren. They will continue to live in Middlebury. “I look forward,” he says, “to watching Middlebury basketball games in Pepin,

“. . . and watching my grandkids grow up.”

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Karl Lindholm, Ph.D., is the Emeritus Dean of Advising and retired Assistant Professor of American Studies at Middlebury College. He can be contacted at [email protected].