We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Brown is next because Providence > Cleveland.
The Cleveland Browns were at their best when Paul Brown was their coach and Jim Brown was their running back.
Similarly, one of the greatest seasons in the history of the Brown Bears was led by Phil Brown, who captained the 1973-74 Bears.
That season, Brown notched a school-record 17 wins, finishing second in the Ivy League and pulling off a rare home sweep of Penn (the Quakers’ only Ivy loss that season) and Princeton during one of the conference’s greatest eras.
The Bears had momentum from the 1972-73 season, when they went 10-4 in Ivy play, good for third in the league, on the strength of Phil Brown, Eddie Morris and Vaughn Clarke, with Gerald Alaimo as coach. That nucleus returned the following season, with Brown leading the way via his 15.1 points and 12.7 rebounds per game.
The Bears felt Phil Brown’s loss for years after he graduated in 1975, winning just 17 games the next three seasons under Alaimo and setting the stage for a program comeback under Mike Cisinger that would culminate in the 1986 Ivy championship.