Ivan "Pick" Brown Tribute
Ivan "Pick" Brown, a talented point guard, and very popular/personable young man, from Monsignor Bonner High (class of 1986), was shot to death June 4, 2004.
"Pick" also played for St. Joseph's. Services: Saturday, June 12, 9 to 11 a.m., St. Francis DeSales, 47th and Springfield. Mass to follow.
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Remembrances
Eric "Woody" Burke, Bonner asst.: "Pick had worked out Rasheed Jones and Jackie Glacken over the past 2 years. A few times he WALKED from his home in SW Philly to Bonner to see games. He was extremely proud of playing for Bonner basketball and playing in the Catholic league."
Danny Summers, Msgr. Bonner (1988): "I was only a sophomore when he was a senior at Bonner, but he was surely a catalyst to helping our crew win the championship our senior year. I would be one of the first guys in the gym after school and he always made me play him one on one. I quickly realized that I was only going to score if he let me."
Julius Thompson: "When State Senator Williams called me with the news about Ivan Brown's death, I was in shock. I not only lost a former player, but a young man I considered a SON! Ivan 'Pick' Brown was the best Point Guard I've had the privilege to coach. He had the heart of a Lion and was the most unselfish player to wear a Blazer uniform."
Cary Martin, SJU Class of '90: "Perhaps my favorite memory is watching the news with Pick and his friends in my apartment in December, 1987, hours after he had hit the game-winning shot against Villanova at DuPont. The interviewer asked Pick what he was thinking when he took the last shot. In classic Pick fashion, he flashed a wide grin and replied, 'When it kissed the glass, I kissed myself.' That was Pick. Unique. Personable. Memorable. Fun to be around. And gone far too soon."
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Ted Silary's Obituary (Daily News, June 8, 2004)
Ivan "Pick" Brown was officially long gone from Hawk Hill, but was still a part of the Saint Joseph's University basketball family. A few times in each of the past couple of seasons, Brown called coach Phil Martelli looking for tickets.
"It's just another example of the senseless stuff that goes on," Martelli said. "You see the reports all the time in the paper, or on TV... But then it's a name you KNOW, and it brings it all home. Tragic."
In '86, Brown averaged 14.7 points, 7.2 assists and 3.5 steals for the 20-10 Friars and was named a first team Daily News All-City selection.
The personable Brown, very much a character, was picked for the All-Scholastic team photo at Boathouse Row. The idea was to put the five kids in a boat on the water. Brown said he was afraid of the water and wasn't going in. "I'll get in the boat, but we're staying on the DOCK," he said, emphatically, and smiling broadly. The picture ran in the paper. Five kids in a boat. On a dock.
After sitting out one season under Proposition 48, Brown became an important player in 1987-88. His highlight came when his last-second, running, 15-footer provided a 53-52 win over Villanova.
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Ted Silary's Profile (January 28, 1986)
Brown still accounts for 30-odd points a game for the Friars, but no longer is scoring, say, 14 and dealing eight assists worth 16 more a given. Brown is the quintessential modern-day lead guard. He runs the team in perfect fashion at one end and he runs his opposite number into the floor at the other. He does everything, asks for nothing.
"He's exactly the way you'd want a player to be," coach John Miller said. "Ivan has to try to take at least 15 shots a game. Just by him penetrating and shooting, it means the defense has to play all of us."
Brown said he learned to appreciate defense in his days with the Blazers, coached by former Bulletin sports writer Julius Thompson. "The way I see it, a team leader has to play defense as well as offense. The better defense I play, the more I can inspire my teammates."