Chan Brown experienced a lot of success and created a lot of memories during his two decades at Parkview High School. He also accumulated quite a collection of orange-and-blue clothing and accessories.
So when Brown left Lilburn to become the new head baseball coach at Gainesville High School — where the colors are red and black — and when the family moved to a new house in Jefferson, he had to find something to do with his old ensembles.
Brown chuckled and said, “I gave nine of those big garbage bags away of Parkview stuff to the people in the community. They were happy I was giving all that stuff away. They got some good stuff.”
There were jerseys and hats and stirrups and jackets, all vestiges from the 21 great seasons, where his teams went 579-173, won 15 region championships, six state championships in the highest division and three national championships.
“We had a basement full of awards and accolades and state championship posters and everything else,” he said. “There are obviously a lot of memories when you’re taking that stuff down.”
Credit: JASON GETZ / JGETZ@AJC.COM
Credit: JASON GETZ / JGETZ@AJC.COM
The individual accolades came, too. During his tenure Brown was named National Coach of the Year by the likes of the American Baseball Coaches Association, Perfect Game, Baseball America and USA Today. MaxPreps named him Coach of the Decade.
And many of his players were drafted — 17 of them, including Braves first baseman Matt Olson. Even more went on to college, including his oldest son Cade Brown, who was rated as the No. 1 third baseman in the state and signed with the University of Georgia.
All the success and all the player development explain why Gainesville was willing to lure Brown away and try to restore the greatness to its program. The Red Elephants haven’t been a force on the state level in a couple of decades after winning three consecutive titles from 1996-99 and going back-to-back in 2001-02.
“That’s a tradition that we’re trying to embrace right now to build a new culture of what it was and what it needs to be,” Brown said. “It’s going to take some time, to be honest. We’ve got to change the culture and change the knowledge of the game, so there’s a lot of bits and pieces that we’ve got to chip away at to get Gainesville baseball back on the map like it needs to be.”
Brown and his staff started with the small things, such as getting players to show up each day and be prepared to work hard.
“And we have to increase the knowledge of the game, the understanding of the game,” he said. “A big piece here is getting them to the weight room. It’s like building blocks from the ground up, showing up wholeheartedly every day ready to work.”
Credit: Photo courtesy of Chan Brown
Credit: Photo courtesy of Chan Brown
The revitalization effort at Gainesville isn’t going to happen overnight. After the first game Brown asked how many players had at least 30 at-bats last season, and only three hands were raised. The inexperience — there are only three seniors on the roster — is painful at times, and the team started the season 2-10 against an aggressive schedule.
“I had one of my really good mentors, Deon Williams from McNair High School, tell me you don’t lose, you learn,” Brown said. “You only lose if you don’t learn, so we’re trying to use that as our motto.”
Brown has been blessed with many powerful mentors in his career, none greater than Hall of Fame baseball coach Hugh Buchanan, who won three state championships during his tenure. Buchanan handed the program off to Brown, who had been his longtime assistant, with the instructions to “take what’s good and make it great.”
“Coach Buchanan was just such a man of integrity and he knew the game and he knew how to teach kids how to respect it,” Brown said. “He helped me so much as a person and a coach.” Buchanan’s influence is such that Brown named his youngest son Beckett Troy Brown, since “Troy” was Buchanan’s first name.
There are pieces in place at Gainesville, including Beckett, a sophomore infielder and pitcher. Others expected to contribute are juniors Dawson Vaughn and Cohen Miller and sophomores Asher Stephens and Daniel Rico.
“We’re playing a lot of kids right now and trying to find out who can do what,” Brown said. “That’s going to help us from a depth standpoint.”
Before he moved over, Brown received a commitment to make improvements to Ivey Watson Baseball Complex, the program’s off-campus baseball field, and the addition of hitting bays and cages.
Brown also reinvented the booster club, to mirror what he had at Parkview.
“The biggest thing for this place to take off and be what I think it can be, it’s just going to need a buy-in from everybody — the administration, the community, the players, the parents. If they’ll do that, I think the direction of this program will move forward quicker than they thought it would take.”
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