Denver lacrosse coach Matt Brown has Pioneers on brink of NCAA Final Four | Paul Klee

Matt Brown is Denver.

He’s a man who’s not from here but might as well be, daydreams about fly fishing the Eagle River, frequents Jerusalem Restaurant on Evans, and, if it were up to him, would stay here forever.

It was August 2002 when “Brownie” arrived at Centennial Towers on Buchtel Blvd. He was a Denver freshman who forgot bedsheets. Back in Burnaby, B.C., Mom dropped a set in the mail.

“Unfortunately, she mailed them to the wrong university,” he says.

Two decades later, Brown, the University of Denver lacrosse coach, has the Pioneers in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament, one win shy of their first Final Four berth since 2017.

No. 5 Denver meets No. 4 Syracuse at 10 a.m. Sunday in Towson, Md. It’s on ESPNU.

“If you ask the offensive guys,” says graduate student JJ Sillstrop, “‘Brownie’ is the reason we’re here.”

And the reason Brown is still here — in his 22nd season with the Denver lacrosse program?

“I fell in love,” he says.

First, with a woman. He met his wife, Jewel, as a senior at DU. Their first date was at Jerusalem Restaurant, Jeru’s as it’s known in the 'hood. They now have three girls who attend St. Anne’s Episcopal a few blocks from the DU campus. When Mackenzie, Peyton and Sydney are not in school, you’ll find them at Grandma (Rita) and Grandpa’s (Lyle) house near Wash Park. Dad refers to Rita as “my guardian angel,” a veteran move from an appreciative son-in-law.

Second, “I fell in love with Colorado,” he says.

Four years as a Pioneers lacrosse player has turned into two decades of Pioneers livelihood.

Until last week, Brown would have been “the man who took over for Bill Tierney,” the college lacrosse icon who elevated DU's program from a cool idea to a western power. The 2015 Pios — coached by ‘Coach T,’ assisted by Brownie — became the first lacrosse program off the eastern seaboard to win an NCAA title. Following Coach T would be like following John Elway.

“Everything that ‘Brownie’ does, he does for Coach T,” says redshirt freshman Cody Malawsky.

Then last week happened. Denver beat Michigan 16-11 for its first NCAA Tournament win since 2018. Tierney was the color analyst alongside play-by-play man Tyler Maun on 104.3 FM.

During a postgame interview with Brown, Tierney choked up: “The Matt Brown era has begun.”

Brown had to pause for a moment to gather his own emotions.

“Yeah, that meant a lot,” he says. “It really did.”

“Coach T and I talk every day. We talk every day about this place, this program,” Brown adds. “He brought a championship mindset to this school and program. It’s my job to continue it.”

And it figures that Denver’s opponent in a national quarterfinal is Syracuse, an iconic brand in the lacrosse game even if the Orange are not what they used to be. Denver has been to a Final Four more recently (2015) than Syracuse (2013). But Brown’s first lacrosse memories concern Syracuse legends Paul and Gary Gait, a pair of British Columbia products like himself.

“When I was young all I knew about college lacrosse was Syracuse,” Brown says.

Gary Gait now is the coach at Syracuse and Brown’s adversary on Sunday.

"This is a big moment for our program,” Brown says. “We’ve got aspirations and dreams of what Denver can be in the college lacrosse world. This is going to be a big moment for us.”

I see parallels between Denver’s powerful hockey program and its lacrosse brothers — namely, a sense of ownership between old Pioneers and new. They don’t tolerate slippage.

Take Malawsky, who, like Brown, arrived as a college freshman from British Columbia.

“When I first came on campus I was kind of a nervous kid,” Malawsky says. “But I walked into the locker room and it was knuckles everywhere. Every guy loves every guy.”

The Pios go by nicknames: Richie Connell, who starred at Mullen, is “Big Country”; Mic Kelly goes by “Gump”; Malawsky answers to “Mouse.”

“That kind of support from all the other guys — that’s kind of unusual, isn’t it?” Mouse says.

It would be — if the coach hadn’t spent a couple decades helping to cultivate the locker room.

There is real value to continuity when the continuers consider the operation to be home.

“I never, ever wanted to go anywhere else,” Brown says. “I’ve lived here at the University of Denver longer than I lived in Burnaby. And that’s a tough one for my mum to swallow. Her boy left home and never came back.”