LJ golf annals: Horace and Gordon Brown

Horace Brown (left), CIF golf champ
from La Jolla High in 1979, and
his father, Gordon Brown.
(Photo by Ed Piper)

By Ed Piper

"The San Diego State golf coach came to our home. Horace was in the eighth grade. They wanted to give Horace a scholarship to play golf in college, but they wanted him to go to La Jolla High School.

"'You will not want "Morse" or "Lincoln" on your resume', said the coach," Gordon Brown, Horace's father, recalled. "It was because of discrimination."

Horace Brown went on to become a CIF champion while at La Jolla in 1979, second in 1980. He led the Vikings to the CIF team champion in 1979, and was team captain from 1978 to 1980. His coach at LJHS was Nick Cleary. And Horace, now 55, did receive an athletic scholarship to play golf at SDSU.

"Horace was one of the best junior golfers," Gordon, now 83, related. That's why the Aztec coach wanted him.

Horace was sports editor of the high school newspaper. He wrote material for the La Jolla Light.

Cleary was also the coach when La Jolla won the CIF team titles in 1975 and 1977. The Vikings finished second in 1976.

La Jolla had a powerhouse golf team each year during that period. Prior to Cleary, Coach Gene Edwards' teams won CIF titles in 1968, 1969, and 1971. They were second in 1974.

Before that, Coach George Clarke's team copped a CIF title in 1966.

The elder Brown knows a thing or two about golf himself. He has coached for 55 years, according to his son. "My wife," related Gordon, "had to be a patient person. We were a family of seven. To do the cooking, to do the laundry, to prepare the golf clothing, all of that, she had a lot to do. Plus she would go out and play golf with us when she could."

Was she a good golfer?, a listener asked.

Mr. Brown, in his unique style, feigned impatience. "I just told you we were a family of seven who golfed."

Horace recounted events during his childhood growing up in the harsh segregation of his native South Carolina.

"White women would not accept teaching black children" in the "separate-but-equal" schools before Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, he said. "So they would get teachers from England.

"I was 15 years old. Our (British) teacher told us, 'Now laddies (imitating an English accent), you're going to need to get a job when you grow up. In sports, learn swimming, because that's essential for saving your life. Then learn tennis and golf. It will help you."

Years later, applying for a job at Solar Turbine, Brown found out his British teacher was right. "After 45 minutes, I finally got in for an interview," Brown said. I got the job because I played golf."

All of the couple's sons and daughters went on to play golf. One of Horace's daughters was the first golf coach at Lincoln High.

"I met Jackie Robinson at a golf tournament in Miami Hills in 1960," Gordon Brown said. "He was riding in a golf cart. The young man driving him, who was white, was doing his job. He told Jackie, 'Don't get out of the cart' (to talk to people). Jackie said to him, 'You've told me that two times. If you tell me a third time, I'll rearrange your head on your shoulders 90 degrees.'"

In other words, Robinson, though he agreed with Branch Rickey, who brought him into Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the color line in 1947, that he wouldn't react the first two years he played when he was taunted and called the "n" word, after that he wouldn't suffer any fools. He was not timid or a shrinking violet.

"Golf was Jackie's favorite sport," asserted Brown. "I know. I have the information at home. Before he broke the color line in baseball, Robinson starred in football and track at UCLA.