Kansas basketball’s Allen Fieldhouse 60th anniversary: Larry Brown

Allen Fieldhouse turns 60 this season. Kansas had an event that benefitted charity to honor the coaches and players that have played as Jayhawks over the years.

In the history of the Kansas basketball program, there have been eight coaches. Four of them are still alive, Ted Owens, Larry Brown, Roy Williams and Bill Self. All four were in attendance and spoke at the event on Monday evening.  Jay Bilas was the master of ceremonies, even though he played for Duke.

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Brown, the current Southern Methodist head coach, coached at Kansas from 1983-1988. He was named Coach of the Year for the Big Eight Conference in 1986 and again, only by the NCAA, in 1988. During his tenure, Kansas were named Big Eight Champions in 1986 and won the National Championship in 1988.

His overall record at Kansas was 135-44. His record in Allen Fieldhouse was 71-5. Some of the high quality players Brown had the opportunity to coach at Kansas were Danny Manning and Kevin Pritchard.

Here are some of the things Brown talked about on Monday:

He recalled his first game as the Kansas coach with detail.

"“I remember the first game I was fortunate enough to coach. I went up into the stands and met people that had been going to Kansas basketball games since the first year [of Allen Fieldhouse]. They had the same seats and love for the game.”"

Brown offered this sentiment about Allen Fieldhouse:

"“I think if you look up ‘fieldhouse’ in the dictionary, it would probably say ‘Allen’ beside it. It’s just probably exactly what you’d imagine every college arena should be like.”“I tell all my friends that really love our sport, you’ve gotta come to Allen Fieldhouse and watch a game. There’s nothing like it. That’ll never change in my view.”"

He talked highly of Manning.

"“He was the best college player ever, in my mind. You look at national champs and you look at what he did, the things that that team went through. I think he probably could have won three. In ’86 everything went wrong. If Archie would have been healthy, the next year we would have won in my mind, and we finally won in ’88. I always look at it as he should have won three if he had a better coach.”"