Staff Writer 

After spending three years traveling between Boston and New York working for AT&T, Brett Brown had a revelation.

“I realized it was not my passion, putting on a suit each day,” he said. “I was 25 years old, single and had some money. I decided to travel.”

It was 1986, three years after Brown completed his studies at Boston University and seven years after he graduated from South Portland High School, where he said his father taught him to love basketball. Brown said the most important thing his father – the former head basketball coach for high school teams in Oakland and Rockland – taught him was “caring for yourself and the proper ways to do things.”

Sometimes, coaching didn’t stop after basketball practice. 

“I was the son of a coach, it was very combative,” he said. “After practice you go home and around the dinner table you have more of an option to voice your opinions, which was always something that had to be extremely respectful. Having a coach for your father creates a lot of discipline and at times produced frustration, but we shared in my own high school career.”

At Boston University, Brown played for former head basketball coach Rick Petino, who now coaches at the University of Louisville. Brown said the renowned college coach helped him gain “the ability to endure a high physical tolerance threshold” on the court. 

“You just practice ridiculously hard,” he said. “It’s intense and physically demanding but afterwards you really feel like you could go through anything. It hardens you and gives you the ability to just bring it. It was a very memorable experience.”

Brown stayed true to his basketball heritage while working in the business world; he said he always made sure to join a local adult league and stay involved in the sport however he could. Once he realized the “nine-to-five” lifestyle wasn’t for him, Brown said he jumped on the first flight he could find to Australia. 

“I’d always had a fascination with that part of the world,” he said. “I had made some money working in business and had some investments that were good to me. There wasn’t a job there for me, I was a glorified traveler. There was no method to it.”

 Brown said he met his future wife on the Great Barrier Reef during his initial stay, which he spent fishing, traveling and camping throughout Australia and parts of New Zealand. Both of the countries exceeded all of his expectations, Brown said.

“It’s an English-speaking, safe place with an island mentality,” he said. “The geography of New Zealand is more appealing to me than any other place I’ve been. The mountains are more majestic than the mountains in Maine, but the wilderness and the native feel – the link to the ocean with fishing – is comparable to the natural feel of Maine.”

It didn’t take long for Brown to get involved with local basketball teams; he said he coached basketball camps in Australia and New Zealand and continued to play in adult leagues. 

“I love the competition and like staying in shape,” he said. “It’s an important part of who I am but it’s more for enjoyment than anything.”

A chance opportunity to help coach an Australian professional team forced Brown to consider making the shift from an intrepid Australian traveler to a full-time resident. He said the thought of being apart from his wife for a job elsewhere made the decision an easy one.

“She made me want to pursue working in Australia to stay there with her,” he said. “My thought was ‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ and that’s what I did.”

Brown went on to assist the Australian Olympic Basketball team in the 1994 games in Lillehammer, Norway, relying heavily on lessons his father and Petino taught him about respect and teamwork, he said.

“Camaraderie is important, it’s not track and field, it’s not tennis,” he said.

Brown said he also learned it takes more than height to make a professional basketball player.

“You have to be athletic, you don’t have to be tall,” he said. “There aren’t many players at the professional level that I wouldn’t say don’t have a base of athleticism. You need to have talent and a capacity to learn and take things in.”

Several years after the Olympic Games in Norway, Brown was presented with an opportunity to return to the U.S. during an international basketball camp he said included some of the best Australian and New Zealand professional players as well as NBA players.

“I met R. C. Buford, who is now the general manager for the [San Antonio] Spurs and he told me a position was available for the following season,” Brown said. “It was almost like a sabbatical.”

Transitioning from the Australian professional basketball league to the NBA was an eye-opening experience for Brown, who said he considered himself a guest in the presence of the Spurs’ Head Coach Greg Popovich.

“The talent difference is quite significant,” Brown said. “The NBA is the best league in the world, and it’s also America’s sport.”

In 1999, Brown returned to Australia where he was the head coach of the Sydney Kings professional team for  three years. In 2002, he said another position with the Spurs opened up. As a 42-year-old with two children, Brown said it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

“At that stage it was as much a lifestyle decision as it was a business decision,” he said. “Now I’m in my eighth year and I haven’t looked back since. I’ve been around great players.”

Brown said he’s confident players like Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili will help the Spurs 2009 season, as long as they can stay healthy.

“We’ve taken a hit with Manu’s injury but you never know, we’ve got a lot of experience,” he said. “We feel like we can be competitive.”

Brown said it was depressing to hear his children’s’ “extreme Aussie accents” fade away after moving to the states and living in San Antonio made him miss the ocean, but he still makes a point to remember his home state – where his father currently coaches the Cheverus basketball team.

“The thing that always stuck out to me is my love of the state of Maine,” he said. “It’s always a little point of discussion. I always love coming back. In all my travels, it’s still my favorite place.”

Staff writer Nate Jones may be contacted at 282-4337, ext. 233.