If statues honoring the previous DuSable Excessive College’s most revered alumni have been erected in entrance of 4900 S. Wabash Ave., “Candy” Charlie Brown could be standing in bronze alongside Nat King Cole, Mayor Harold Washington and Sweetwater Clifton, the primary Black participant to signal a contract to play within the NBA.

Like Clifton, Brown was a basketball participant. However he was that and an entire lot extra.

Brown was a star on the DuSable crew that misplaced to Mount Vernon within the 1954 state title recreation remembered because the “most controversial” recreation in IHSA match historical past, the stellar sidekick of famous person Elgin Baylor on the Seattle College crew that completed second within the 1958 NCAA Event, an esteemed highschool referee, and co-founder and guiding mild of the Windy Metropolis Senior Basketball League.

“If all of it ended tomorrow I’ll have loved greater than any NBA All-Star ever did,” Brown wrote in a 2008 letter to Invoice Frey, one of many multitude of shut associates he made by way of the Windy Metropolis Senior League and its summer season nationwide match, the Windy Metropolis Shootout.

Brown died Friday, Aug. 26, at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, the place he was taken after a fall two days earlier at Peterson Park Well being Care Heart. After dwelling on the South Facet for nearly all of his grownup life, he was taken to the middle on the North Facet in late July due to extreme respiratory issues and different well being points. He was 86.

Born in Canton, Miss., on Feb. 24, 1936, Brown got here to Chicago earlier than he began elementary faculty at Betsy Ross on the South Facet.

He made his first look within the public eye throughout his junior yr at DuSable when he was among the best gamers on coach Artwork Scher’s crew that reached the primary spherical of the 1953 state match earlier than dropping to eventual state champion Lyons and ending with a 27-3 document.

The next season Scher left to teach Sullivan. Jim Brown changed Scher at DuSable, inheriting a solid of standouts that additionally included Paxton Lumpkin, Shellie McMillon, Karl Dennis and McKinley Cowson and midyear graduates Curley Johnson and Bobby Jackson.

“We felt that we have been on the verge of one thing nice,” Brown advised the Chicago Solar-Occasions in 2004. “The youngsters took delight in the truth that they have been Black and had a Black coach. A brand new period started within the metropolis with Black youngsters starting to dominate the sport.”

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Indicative of that dominance was DuSable’s regular-season showdown with Roosevelt, one other Chicago powerhouse made up of all white gamers. Brown scored 34 factors to guide DuSable to a double-overtime victory that determined the Chicago Public League championships and would have long-term ramifications.

Looking for to turn out to be the primary CPL and first all-Black crew to win the state championship, unbeaten DuSable routed Bowen, Quincy and Edwardsville within the match to set the stage for the title recreation in opposition to Mount Vernon.

Not solely that, “DuSable would have been the primary all-Black crew in america to win a highschool state basketball championship,” in keeping with Bruce Firchau, chairman of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Affiliation and Museum.

DuSable led by 4 factors with 4 minutes to play earlier than Mount Vernon rallied to win 76-70.

Calls by referees have been an element. Three baskets by Brown on lengthy pictures have been waived off due to touring calls, and Lumpkin was referred to as for charging on two events after making pictures. Within the remaining three minutes, Brown, Lumpkin and Dennis fouled out.

In response to longtime Solar-Occasions prep author Taylor Bell, “It was, by most accounts, probably the most controversial championship recreation within the historical past of the Illinois highschool basketball match.”

“I maintain no bitterness,” Brown later mirrored. “I realized extra from that one loss than all of the wins. It taught me methods to take care of realities in our society and learn to settle for them. I realized methods to take care of what life is all about.”

Brown went on to play faculty basketball on the freshman crew at Indiana — NCAA guidelines on the time prevented freshmen from taking part in varsity — and he spent the primary half of his sophomore season as a big contributor for the varsity squad earlier than leaving.

Brown was recruited by Seattle coach John Castellani and, after sitting out a season in compliance with NCAA switch guidelines, performed a robust supporting position to Baylor when the crew superior to the 1958 nationwide championship recreation earlier than dropping to Kentucky.

Within the West Area championship recreation in opposition to California, Brown scored the basket that despatched the competition into time beyond regulation. With 10 seconds remaining in time beyond regulation, he scored the basket that sealed the 66-62 victory.

When Baylor left for the NBA the subsequent season, Brown turned the highest participant on a crew that completed with a 23-6 document. He was chosen to a number of All-America groups.

Brown was chosen by the Cincinnati Royals because the 74th general choose within the 1959 NBA draft throughout an period during which a lot of the league’s eight groups had unwritten quotas on the variety of Black gamers on their rosters.

However Brown selected to not attempt to play within the NBA. He returned to Chicago after serving within the U.S. Military and performed semi-pro basketball, in addition to labored as a social employee for the YMCA on the West Facet, the place he was dedicated to bringing collectively members of rival gangs to resolve their variations.

In 1975, he started a second basketball profession as a referee, officiating two highschool championship video games: King’s 79-71 victory over Rockford Guilford in 1993, and in 1994 when Peoria Guide edged Carbondale 61-60. He additionally labored a number of metropolis championship contests.

Brown took nice delight in his work.

“I wasn’t going to let what occurred to me occur to these younger males,” he as soon as mirrored, wanting again on the controversial 1954 loss to Mount Vernon. “They mentioned the officers cheated (DuSable) however I’d by no means use that phrase. I say: ‘They made some errors.’”

One other significant chapter in Brown’s life started within the Eighties when he was contacted by legal professional Mickey Rotman, a former Roosevelt participant who went on to turn out to be president of the Chicago Public Excessive College Alumni Affiliation. Rotman proposed he and the opposite members of the Roosevelt crew that misplaced to DuSable maintain a reunion recreation to boost cash for each faculties.

Brown welcomed the concept. A cocktail party on the East Financial institution Membership preceded the sport and the previous rivals bonded. The reunion recreation led to word-of-mouth pickup video games after which to the gamers’ participation in nationwide tournaments for gamers over age 50.

“We are able to do that domestically,” Brown advised his skeptical fellow gamers.

The primary Windy Metropolis Shootout was held in the summertime of 1991 and within the winter of 1995 the Windy Senior Basketball League was born. (The league was revived in 2022 after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19.)

Brown performed within the league — headquartered at Washington Park with satellite tv for pc venues totally on the South Facet — for nearly 20 years and till the pandemic served as its de facto commissioner.

Among the many former NBA gamers who’ve performed within the league are Ricky Inexperienced, Flynn Robinson, Mickey Johnson, Harvey Catchings and Sonny Parker. Additionally on the VIP checklist are a number of notables from different walks of life comparable to Secretary of State Jesse White and former State’s Lawyer Dick Devine.

“We now have had our lives enriched by the experiences now we have had and it’s all as a consequence of Charlie,” the late Barry Holt, one of many league’s founding fathers, wrote in a Windy Metropolis Shootout program piece. “Charlie touched our lives in methods we’d not suppose have been doable.”

Trying again just a few years in the past, Brown reminisced: “We began with a crew of fellows and now now we have an enormous household. I’ve gotten extra out of basketball after 50 than I probably might have imagined.

“I used to be in the midst of the social change our nation was going by way of in 1954. I do know what the distinction is earlier than, throughout and after that. I’m having fun with the residuals. You don’t need to be an Uncle Tom, you don’t need to be a Malcom X, you don’t need to be a Martin Luther King. Simply be your self and discover one of the best strategy for the scenario you’re in.

“We’re all one household. All people has to take a look at it that method.”

Visitation can be Thursday from midday to 7 p.m. and at 10 a.m. on Friday at Travis Funeral House in Riverdale. Funeral providers can be held at 11 a.m. at Shekinah Chapel in Riverdale.

Brown is survived by his daughter Rosalind, granddaughters Ryann and Grace, and grandsons Rawlin and Justin. Previous him in dying have been his brothers Reginald, Leroy and Herb. He was divorced however he and his former spouse, Shirley, remained shut associates till her dying.

Neil Milbert is a contract reporter who coated sports activities for the Chicago Tribune for 46 years.