MERRY HILL — One of the deans of coaching in eastern North Carolina will take over the Lawrence Academy football program.
The school announced earlier this week that Robert Brown, who retired from full-time teaching and coaching just under a year ago, has been named to lead the Warriors into the first season in the Big East Conference.
“I am looking forward to the opportunity of coaching the young men at Lawrence Academy,” Brown said. “My goal is to prepare them to win a state championship and to help them develop into fine young men.”
Brown, who lives in Edenton, has quite a bit of experience with both, having been an integral part of two state championships during his nearly three decades at Bertie High School. He also spent three years leading the Columbia High School Wildcats, including taking them to a league title.
“We went to Columbia and turned around a struggling program,” Brown remembers. “We went from 1-9 to beating North Edgecombe for the first time in school history.”
Brown then went on to Bertie High School where he served in a variety of posts while helping the Falcons win state titles in 1995 and 2000.
Following his coaching career, which included football, wrestling, basketball, tennis, baseball and softball, he was named the school’s athletic director.
Brown retired from all of those posts in July of last year, but made it clear at the time he’d be interested in returning to coaching once he took care of some nagging, but not serious health issues.
He was courted by several programs, but in the end chose to take over the reins of a Lawrence Academy program that will be moving to the Big East Conference in the fall.
Brown graduated from Franklin High School in Virginia before earning a degree at Old Dominion University. It was there he met one of the people he said had the most influence over his coaching career.
He credited his coaching style for the man he worked under in college — Paul Webb, who was the basketball coach at Old Dominion.
“I learned about practice and organization from Paul Webb,” Brown said. “I don’t think he had an idea how much he taught me and what I learned from him. Coaching translates, even if it is a different sport. It’s all about teaching. Good teachers make good coaches and good coaches make good teachers.”
In addition to his coaching legacy over 30-plus seasons, Brown is known in Bertie and Chowan counties as an excellent teacher. While he remains retired, he may or may not help in the classroom at Lawrence if called upon to do so.
Brown is a longtime resident of Edenton, where he lives with his wife of 40 years, Linda. The couple have two adult children — Bobby, the wrestling coach at John A. Holmes High School, and Christina, a teacher at Elizabeth City Middle School. The Browns have three grandchildren.
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