Basketball: Karl Brown returns to scene of finest hour

Karl Brown is not one to look back too often in life.

The Leicester Warriors' director of basketball generally prefers to spend his time plotting a bright future.

But this weekend Brown is entitled to revel in the past as he returns to Atlanta to celebrate one of the most memorable chapters in his life.

It is 20 years ago that Brown helped Georgia Tech to reach the Final Four, the ultimate prize in college basketball in the States, for the first time in the school's history.

To mark the occasion the college is re-uniting the team which enjoyed such huge success under the coaching of Bobby Cremins.

"I tend to down play my achievements," said Brown, the former Leicester Riders player and coach, who became the first Englishman to play in the Final Four, which was staged in Denver in 1990.

"But knowing how college basketball is in America it was a great achievement and nobody can take it away from me."

Brown and his fellow players will attend a banquet on Friday evening and will then be honoured at Georgia's home game against North Carolina State the following night, where the present team will wear a retro kit to mark the 1990 side's achievement.

"It is nice being appreciated," Brown said. "It will help to bring back the memories of what we achieved as a team and also what I achieved going through the adversity of being an English player playing in America."

It was hard work, too, as coach Cremins recalled. "Karl came to Georgia Tech from a Florida junior college. Not many players can come from junior college ranks to the high level of basketball played in the Atlantic Coast Conference," he said.

"The transition for Karl was not easy. Georgia Tech is very demanding academically, and the ACC is pressure packed, and you have to be highly focused. I remember telling Karl I didn't think things would work out, and maybe he should consider transferring to another school. It was at this time that Karl really got serious, he didn't want to fail and let his family and friends down."

The arrival of Kenny Anderson in Brown's senior year, however, proved crucial.

"Karl did a complete turn-around and his attitude and behaviour were exceptional," Cremins said.

"He accepted his role to play behind and beside Kenny. I can sum up Karl's senior year in one sentence. Without Karl Brown, Georgia Tech would never have won the ACC Championship and made the 1990 Final Four."

Brown, though, points to a supreme effort from everybody involved with the team.

"We over-achieved," he said. "The secret of our success was that everybody knew their role. We got on well off the court, too, we were like a family. Coach Cremins was the best coach I ever had."

You sense that Brown is trying to instil that kind of approach into the Warriors, whether with the junior sides or the seniors.

The signs are promising, too, with the juniors in National Cup semi-final action on Sunday against Sheffield at Braunstone Leisure Centre.

Brown will be 4,000 miles away at that point and, if the Warriors are not uppermost in his mind, he can surely be forgiven that for once!