Texas Tech University Athletics
Lance Brown Joins Texas Tech Baseball Staff
April 09, 2005 | Baseball
April 9, 2005
LUBBOCK, Texas - Texas Tech Head Baseball Coach Larry Hays announced today that former TCU head coach Lance Brown will join the staff immediately as the volunteer pitching coach.
"Lance is a very good friend of mine and one of the best pitching coaches around," said Hays. "We are fortunate to have him come and join our program and I really think our kids are going to gain from his experience. Lance was one of the best pitchers to ever play in the Southwest Conference and he is an even better coach."
Current volunteer assistant Brandon Roberson and director of baseball operations Bobby Sherrard will remain on the staff but will both move into new positions. The exact titles of these positions will be announced at later time once final details have been negotiated.
Brown comes to Texas Tech after spending 17 seasons at the helm of the Horned Frog baseball program where he remains the school's all-time winningest head coach with a record of 517-471. Brown played a large role in the success of TCU baseball, first as an all-America player who pitched the Horned Frogs to the 1963 Southwest Conference championship, then later as a coach. Thirty-one years after he earned the '63 Southwest Conference Player of the Year honors by posting an 11-1 record (8-1 in the SWC), he guided the Frogs to the 1994 SWC title as the head coach, making him one of only two men to win both the SWC Player and Coach of the Year honors. Brown remains tied for the school mark for pitching victories in a season and ranks third in strikeouts in a single season with 109.
When Brown took over as TCU's head baseball coach in May 1986, he inherited a program that was making its fourth coaching change in 11 years. During that same timespan, the program had only five winning seasons and its best finish in the Southwest Conference had been sixth place.
In 1994, en route to a school-record 38 wins, the Frog diamond men won their first Southwest Conference regular season title since 1972 and first outright crown since 1956. They received an NCAA Regional tournament berth for the first time since 1956, where they recorded the school's first NCAA Tournament win, a 11-3 triumph over current C-USA foe Memphis in Stillwater, Okla.
Well-respected by his coaching peers, Brown was selected as the 1994 Regional Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association. He was named the 1994 SWC Coach of the Year, his second such honor in his career. He also was the 1991 SWC Coach of the Year. Preceding his arrival at TCU, Brown served as the pitching coach at Rice University from 1983-86. In Brown's first season on the Rice staff, the Owls led the nation in team earned run average with a 2.60 mark. Four pitchers from that staff were signed to professional contracts and three were named all-Southwest Conference.
Brown also holds an impressive list of coaching credentials at the high school level. He coached at Arlington's Sam Houston High School from 1967-69, Irving MacArthur High School from 1969-76, and Newman Smith High School in Carrollton from 1976-83.
Brown coached seven major league products in his stint as the Frogs head coach, including pitcher Scott Atchison, who made his major league debut as a Seattle Mariner in the 2004 season. Glenn Dishman (San Diego Padres and Detroit Tigers), Tim Mauser (San Diego Padres), Fred Benavides (Montreal Expos), Chris Eddy (Oakland Athletics), John Briscoe (Oakland Athletics) and Jeff Zimmerman (Texas Rangers) have all gone on to careers at the major league level. In 1999, Zimmerman was named to the American League All-Star team in his rookie season. Playing a key role on that year's American League West-champion Texas Rangers, Zimmerman eventually finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
In addition, 40 Horned Frogs were drafted by Major League organizations during Brown's stint as head coach, including five in the 2003 MLB Draft. In all, Brown coached 52 all-conference selections during his TCU career, including Royce Huffman, the 1999 WAC Most Valuable Player, and Clayton Jerome, the 2003 Conference USA Pitcher of the Year. Six Brown-coached players - Scott Malone, Tim Grieve, Adam Robson, Darren Tawwater, Terry Trofholz and Jerome - received second- or third-team all-America honors, while third baseman Royce Huffman was a first-team All-America selection in the 1999.
A 1960 graduate of West Plains High School in West Plains, Missouri, Brown earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Education from TCU in 1967. He spent three seasons in the Chicago Cubs organization while finishing his degree at TCU. Brown's wife, Molly, graduated from TCU with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
The TCU Athletic Media Relations Office contributed to this release
