Jim Brown has a simple explanation for his remarkable run of success as Ohio State University's golf coach.
"Getting good players helps out and we've been blessed with a bunch of good players over the years," Brown said.

And he feels like he has another good bunch now, a young, talented group that he thinks has the potential to make his twilight years at OSU as gratifying as his first 33, which have produced an incredible 30 NCAA Tournament appearances.

Not that Brown, 64, has set his retirement date yet, but he knows that day can't be too far off and he has a couple of goals he would like to meet before that happens.

"I'll probably be here until they kick me out," he said, undoubtedly only partially joking. "I still enjoy it. I'd like to go another couple of years, get an assistant the university would hire (as his replacement), get him trained and understanding what Ohio State golf is all about, so it would be a nice, smooth transition. And I'd like to leave when we've got good players."

The most recent of Ohio State's 17 Big Ten championships came in 2004 and the Buckeyes' last top-10 finish in the NCAAs came in 1998 when they were sixth, marking their 11th top-10 finish under Brown. OSU won the national championship in 1979.

"I'd like to get us in the upper echelon again, both in the Big Ten and on the national scene, and stay there," Brown said. "We have some talent and we're pretty young, that's the exciting thing about it. We have three freshmen in our top eight and only two seniors."

Brown, a native of Martins Ferry, Ohio, near Pittsburgh, has spent most of his adult life associated with Ohio State in one way or another. He played both basketball and golf for the Buckeyes, rooming with Tom Weiskopf, and as a freshman he was a teammate of Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek on the basketball court.

Brown began his coaching career in 1969 at Rollins College, but it didn't take him very long to migrate back to Ohio, and ultimately to Columbus. He moved to Kent State in 1969, then took over the OSU program in 1974.
"It's everybody's dream job to coach at their alma mater," Brown said. "It's just really special to coach at your alma mater. I just tried to go year-by-year and after 33 years I'm still here."

Brown began building the OSU program primarily with Ohio athletes. The current roster consists of nine golfers from Ohio, one from Indiana and another from Spain. When Brown arrived, although the program was down, he was able to build on a strong tradition that included such former golfers as Weiskopf and Jack Nicklaus, who won the NCAA individual title in 1961.

"We feel like we're the state university and I would hope all the kids in Ohio would want to come to Ohio State," Brown said. "We try to recruit the best players we can, starting with Ohio and working from there. We've gone all around the country for players, but we fight kids going south for the weather. We've had kids from California nad Florida and other places, but they seem to have to have a tie with the university to come here, either they lived here or their parents went to Ohio State."

Brown's recruiting is bolstered his success, of course, by Nicklaus and Weiskopf and by OSU's outstanding facilities. The school recently completed a $4 million renovation of its flagship Scarlet Course (there is also a Gray Course) that was redesigned by Nicklaus. The 7,455-yard, par-71 course -- originally built in 1938 -- is rated as the best collegiate facility in the nation by Golf Digest.
Ohio State has also had 17 golfers earn their PGA card.

"People figure we must have something going on here," Brown said.
Brown believes he can pinpoint the moment Ohio State started its ascension under his leadership. It came just a few years after his arrival when the Buckeyes won a prestigious tournament in Memphis.
"Memphis put us on the map," Brown said. "There was a great field there, all the best teams in the country, and it kind of kick started us, got us going in the right direction. We started to get a lot of good players from around the country."

Playing in the Memphis tourney was part of Brown's grand scheme that involved jumping into a van or station wagon and hitting the road to go against some of the top programs in the nation.
When he started, Brown tried to emulate some of the most successful college coaches of that time, including Stan Wood at USC; Dave Williams of Houston; Dick McGuire at New Mexico State; Sam Boinoff of Purdue; and Jesse Haddock of Wake Forest.

"Those guys were like the John Woodens of college golf," Brown said. "We had to get out and play those good teams because our kids were in awe of them. So we started traveling a lot and playing them and the kids found out there wasn't that much difference."

One of the best players Brown has ever coached is John Cook, who won the U.S. Amateur Championship in 1978, was the runnerup in 1979, was a three-time All-American and has earned more thatn $12 million on the PGA Tour. Brown also coached Chris Perry (over $9 million in career earnings), Ted Tryba ($5.5 million) and Chris Smith ($3.3 million).

Naturally, Brown has seen a number of changes in collegiate golf during his tenure stretching over four decades, including vast improvement in equipment, the impact of foreign players, much more funding, and a change in training philosophy.

"I don't think they can make a course long enough for these kids, and they're all in a lot better shape," he said. "I call that the Tiger Woods effect. He always worked out, now almost everybody on the Tour does it, and the kids see that. We run three days a week and do cardio work two days. For a long time, we never even thought about that; all we did was hit balls."

Brown says he has never considered leaving Ohio State.

"I never looked into any other jobs," he said. "When I came here the program was kind of down and some of the good Ohio kids were going to other schools. I really felt I could sell the university. I saw a lot of positives. I just thought if I could get in here, get the right Ohio kids and fill in with others we could do well. And it has worked out pretty good."