BROWN BORN TO COACH\T.O. students heed his advice.

Byline: Bill Schlotter Daily News Staff Writer

Like all who live the sporting life, Thousand Oaks High School coach-for-all-seasons Chuck Brown can measure his existence in numbers.

Fourteen years, five league titles and two Southern Section championships as head coach of the Lancers girls' basketball team.

Twelve years and seven league titles as the school's freshman football coach. Three softball crowns. A freshman baseball pennant.

A national Little College baseball title.

Thirty-eight years coaching in all, the sum of a life's work.

But those who know the 61-year-old coach know he totals his score in a different way.

Brown counts his victories in the number of young lives touched.

"I can't tell you what a good feeling it is to hear a familiar voice say, 'Hi, coach,' and to turn around and see one of your former players," said Brown, who defies this age of specialization by coaching a different sport each season.

"I've done that ever since I started coaching and teaching," Brown said. "That's the only way I know."

Brown's students admire his work ethic.

"He has tremendous respect from the student body," said Tom Strasburger, Brown's assistant coach for the past eight seasons. "We'll be in the gym or walking across campus or something and kid after kid will be coming up to him and saying, 'Hi coach.' "

Maybe that's because Brown treats his players like his family.

"Chuck's a good man and he's a very humble man," said Westlake girls' basketball coach Len Locher, a Brown adversary. "He's a a very caring person. He's concerned about his athletes."

Brown said he tries to teach his players lessons they can use beyond athletics - lessons about teamwork, discipline and cooperation.

He believes in living those lessons.

"Sometimes, as a coach you're sort of a surrogate parent," Brown said.

As such he has helped many players through troubled times - academic frustrations at school, a death or a divorce in the home.

He helps parents, as well.

"Sometimes a parent will come to you and say, 'Can you talk to my daughter about this. She won't listen to me,' " Brown said.

Brown was graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit and played infield on the school's baseball team.

"My claim to fame is I batted four times against Sandy Koufax one time in college," Brown said. "I struck out two times and grounded out two times. I think he struck out 15 that day."

His first high school coaching job was at Hazel Park High School near Detroit, where he coached football, baseball and basketball.

One of his prize athletes there was former Dodgers pitcher Bob Welch.

Brown stayed at Hazel Park for 18 years, then accepted an offer to move to St. Louis to be assistant men's basketball coach and to start a baseball program at Missouri Baptist College. Six years later, Brown's baseball squad won the National Little College national title.

Soon after, Brown made what he considers his biggest mistake - accepting a friend's offer to join him in a business venture in California.

"He told me I was going to be a manager, but in the end it turned out I was a salesman," Brown said. "It just wasn't me."

So he took a job at Thousand Oaks High School and has been there ever since.

Mild-mannered off the field, Brown is a competitor and demanding taskmaster on it. And he has ways of scolding that require no words.

"His foot stomp," said senior basketball player Nicole Woodruff, with a knowing laugh. "When I hear him stomp his foot, I know I'm in trouble."

Brown also has a way of slamming his hand down with an ear-splitting crack on the empty chair he keeps beside him at basketball games.

Another story is etched in Lancers lore.

After suffering through a dismal first half, Brown took his girls' basketball team into the dressing room for a motivational halftime speech.

His first act was to hurl his keys against a nearby wall to illustrate his disgust.

But to the amazement of all, one of the larger keys dug into the wood and stuck, holding the entire ring off the ground.

"They all just kind of put their heads down and wouldn't look at me," Brown said. "I know they wanted to laugh so badly, but they didn't dare."

There was also the time he punched a chalkboard for emphasis and almost broke his hand.

"I try to refrain from hitting blackboards anymore," he said.

And the time when in his dual role as head basketball coach/bus driver at Missouri Baptist he accidentally left the scene of an away game without two of his players.

"They said, 'Gee coach, I know we didn't play very well, but you didn't have to leave us there.' "

Brown's early dreams had little to do with coaching.

He entered college as a physics major but soon realized that was not his intended career.

He later tried radio broadcasting. But unlike WDTR radio school classmate Casey Kasem, he found that choice unsatisfying as well.

Then he found teaching. And coaching. And happiness.

"I feel that God has a purpose for everybody's life," Brown said. "This is what I'm meant to do and to be."

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

Photo Chuck Brown didn't care for broadcasting or sales but settled in nicely as a career coach. He's also a winner as a counselor. David Crane / Daily News