The Sickos Committee explores Journeyman Coaches - Part 6 - Don Brown - A New England Love Story

At the Sickos Committee, we tend to find ourselves digging through Wikipedia looking for weird and niche information. One of our favorite past times is to look at Journeyman coaches and just go through their stops in their careers while trying to figure out how and why they took this path in their playing and coaching careers. We will do this all throughout the college football off-season, so come along with us on this Wikipedia journey. Also, we will try to map out the path on Google Maps (if at all possible) and track the mileage each coach has journeyed. Follow us on our many deep dives where we try to find “Where in the world is this coach??”

Don Brown - College Playing Career

Brown was born in Spencer, Massachusetts, where he attended David Prouty High School. He went on to play football as a fullback at Norwich University. He played all 4 years at Norwich University in Vermont. 

For the playing Career of Don Brown, you’d have to drive 3 hours and 6 minutes for a total of 175 miles. 

Don Brown’s Coaching Journey Begins

Don traveled south to nearby Hartford, Vermont and was an Assistant Coach at Hartford High School from 1977 - 1982. Don was able to hop across the Connecticut River into New Hampshire and landed his first job in the collegiate ranks at Dartmouth in Hanover, NH as an Assistant Coach. In 1983, Don traveled to Mansfield, PA to become the Defensive Coordinator of the Mansfield Mountaineers or Mounties as they are known as. 

A beveled Mansfield Mountie Logo

After one year, Don went back to Hanover as the Dartmouth DC. In 1987, the Yale Bulldogs pried Don away from Dartmouth and he became the DC there from 1987 - 1992. Don was also the Yale Baseball coach in 1992 and he led Yale to the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League (EIBL) title and a berth in the NCAA Tournament but failed to advance out of the Midwest Regional. In 1993, Don finally landed his first Head Coaching job at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Of course we will bevel the logo of the University who first hired Don Brown as a Head Coach. 

For this leg of the journey, you'd have to drive 19 hours and 35 minutes and 1,183 miles. 

Don Brown - New England Man

After his run as a Head Coach at Plymouth State, he then found himself back in the Ivy League as a Defensive Coordinator at Brown University in 1996. Don then bounced over to be the DC at UMass in Amherst through 1999. In 2000, Don Brown was “shipping up to Boston” to become the Head Coach at Northeastern University. In 2002, Don won the Atlantic 10 Conference Coach of the Year, New England Football Writers Coach of the Year, and American Football Coaches Association Region I Coach of the Year. 

That’s a really nice beveled Northeastern Husky

Don then returned to Amherst to take over the Head Coaching job at UMass for the first time. In 2006, Brown led Massachusetts to the Atlantic 10 conference championship and a finish as runners-up in the national championship. Brown was named the AFCA Region I Coach of the Year, Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year, and New England Football Coach of the Year again. In 2009, Don left UMass to become the DC at Maryland. In 2011, Don appeared to think he was too far South and then he made his way back to UConn to become the DC for the Huskies. In 2013, Don was “shipping up to Boston” but this time to Boston College as the DC. 

In this leg of the Don Brown journey, you’d have to drive 21 hours and 26 minutes and 1,254 miles. 

Don Brown heads to the Midwest, then wayyyyy out West but then back to New England. 

In 2016, Jim Harbaugh and Michigan came calling for Don Brown’s services as Defensive Coordinator. This would be Don’s furthest journey out west in his career to date. Under Brown, Michigan's defense was ranked 2nd (2016), 6th (2017), 8th (2018) and 10th (2019) but dropped to 56th in 2020 and he was let go by Michigan after the 2020 Season. In 2021, Jedd Fisch called Don and asked him to go further West to Tucson, Arizona. Don’s Arizona adventure ended after one year and he went back to the New England area as Head Coach of UMass, where he currently remains the Minutemen’s Head Coach. 

In this leg of Don Brown’s journey, you’d have to drive 78 hours and 5,276 miles. 

Don Brown Journeyman Totals

College Playing Career

• Drive 3 hours and 6 minutes and 175 miles

Coaching Career

• Drive 19 hours and 35 minutes and 1,183 miles

• Drive 21 hours and 26 minutes and 1,254 miles

• Drive 78 hours and 5,276 miles

Journeyman Travel Totals

• Approximately 119 Hours and 7,888 miles.

We pretty much knew Don Brown would not take the lead in the Journeyman Coach totals but we were intrigued on how much he just stayed in the New England area. It is absolutely amazing how often he’d job hop in such a small area. My favorite move in all his jobs was basically 7 minutes away from Hartford High School to Dartmouth. 

Dennis Erickson maintains the lead for Journeyman Coach travel in driving with 261 Hours of driving and 17,040 miles. June Jones maintains the lead with most hours flying and most flight mileage of 63 hours and 28,557 miles. June Jones also maintains the most combined flight & driving with 307 travel hours and 44,906 miles traveled total.