Doug Brown: like Sinatra, he did it his way

But the comparison is apropos in that both Brown and the movie character just loved to run.

You could set off a pretty good debate by claiming that Brown is Montana's greatest distance runner ever. If he isn't, he's right up there.

The Red Lodge product first tried track as a seventh grader, running the half mile - the longest race allowed for junior high runners back then - in a single meet at Belfry. Naturally, he won, but he couldn't remember his time.

He ran in another meet as an eighth grader, again at Belfry. When he ran 2:21, the Red Lodge High School coach at the time, George Scott, was more than interested in having him run at the prep level.

Scott later moved to Missoula and coached track for years at Sentinel High School.

"He was a great motivator," Brown said of Scott. "He kept stats on every event and he had the school records posted for every event."

When Brown joined the team the long-standing school record for the mile was in the 4:45 area. Brown decided to go after it. He broke it as a freshman, running 4:42 while placing second at the interscholastic meet in Missoula.

"That kind of boosted my spirits a little bit," Brown recalled. "I thought maybe I had found something I could do well."

Indeed he had.

While he had played football, basketball and some baseball growing up, track ended up being his sport of choice, or perhaps destiny. But he did earn three letters in football and two in basketball during his high school days.

As a sophomore Brown improved his mile run time to 4:34 and won the state title. In those days the mile was the longest race allowed for high school athletes. His half-mile times dropped from 2:07 as a freshman to 1:58 as a senior.

As a junior Brown set a new state mark in the mile with a time barely over 4:25. He lowered the mark to 4:16 as a senior, and was invited to the Golden West Invitational Meet in California the following summer.

All he did there was set a national two-mile record of 9:16.

"I always trained long and raced short," Brown said of the preparation that allowed him to step up in competitive distance without too much difficulty.

The fact that his dad was an avid fisherman gave Brown the opportunity to do a lot of training in the hills and mountains around Red Lodge.

"He would take me to the high lakes up on the Hell Roaring Plateau," Brown said. "We would hike, and sometimes I would run back . . . to where we'd left the car, . . . sometimes as much as two miles.

"Other times my dad would drive down to the Parkside Camp and I'd run off the plateau and down the road, which was (about) seven miles."

It was hard work in the high altitude, but by that time, Brown "just loved to run." He would run to school and back, the grocery store, or wherever. He said a lot of it was the times he grew up in when the assault was being made on the four-minute mile.

"Roger Bannister had just broken the four-minute mile," Brown remembered. "That was exciting news. It was in the newsreels . . . when we'd go to the movie. I can remember watching footage of Bannister and John Landy running that historic race."

After watching the newsreel, it was only natural that Brown ran home as fast as he could.

Brown continues to be amazed at the accomplishments of distance runners over the years since that 1954 milestone. One key, he said, has been improving running surfaces, all better than the dirt, grass or cinders he ran on back then.

Red Lodge didn't have a cross country team, but after a football game in Baker when he was a sophomore Scott dropped him off in Billings to run in a cross country meet against Class AA runners. It was his first cross country meet ever, and he came in second.

"I enjoyed cross country," Brown said, "but I didn't feel as competitive or driven . . . as I did on the track. There was something about being on the track that was just a lot more exciting."

There were a number of reasons Brown ended up running at the University of Montana despite being recruited by numerous schools all over the country.

One was his familiarity with Missoula, having run in the state interscholastic meet all through high school when the Garden City had a lock on the event. An admittedly poor snare drummer, Brown also had traveled to Missoula for band festivals.

It was during one such festival when he was a high school senior that he was given a unique opportunity.

It happened to fall on the same weekend as the annual Grizzly-Bobcat dual track meet. Having watched UM star runner Gary Wojtowick in earlier meets, Brown asked veteran UM coach Harry Adams if he could enter the mile run unattached.

Adams contacted Montana AAU representative Dave Rivenes in Miles City and got permission. Brown was not allowed to wear his high school colors and, of course, could not count in the scoring.

Brown stunned the crowd by beating Wojtowick in the mile with a time of 4:15.7. He followed that up by winning the two-mile run in about 9:40.

Adams was another reason Brown chose to run in his home state.

"When he came to Red Lodge on his recruiting trip that summer of my senior year, I was up on the roof with my dad shingling," Brown recollected. "My mom invited him in, and then he came out and talked to me for a minute from the yard and asked if I would come uptown to see him at a motel where he was staying."

Brown wasn't sure why, but his mom had been pushing him to run at BYU in Utah. But Brown remembers his mom saying about Adams, "He's as comfortable as an old shoe."

Brown already felt comfortable with Adams, having visited with him numerous times over the years in Missoula.

Oddly enough, Oregon coach and eventual Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman had something to do with Brown's decision to attend UM. Brown made a recruiting visit to Eugene, and Bowerman - who told Brown he was the most highly recruited track athlete in the nation at the time - helped him score comparisons between competing schools in key areas such as the coach's training philosophy and the campus environment.

When the score was tallied, UM won by a single point over Oregon.

"He said, 'Doug, I think you should go to the University of Montana,'" Brown recalled. "And I said, 'I think I should, too.'"

While Brown was at UM Adams retired and former Griz track standout Harley Lewis took over as head coach. Although Brown has had a solid relationship with Lewis over time, the changeover was difficult for him.

Adams had allowed Brown to continue using his high school training methods as long as they worked. Lewis saw it differently.

"Harley was young and brash and had a totally different technique of coaching," Brown said. "(Harry) gave me a lot of freedom. That really set the tone in my mind."

Lewis wanted Brown to be a team leader and motivate the younger athletes, something Brown didn't feel suited for. Looking back, Brown realized Lewis was simply trying to assert himself as a young coach, sort of feeling his way along.

"I had a difficult time training under Harley," Brown noted. "I wasn't happy with him. I felt like I was under a lot of pressure.

"I rebelled a number of times," Brown added. "I'd just hitchhike home and train at home for a couple of days. My mom always sent me back."

Brown wound up his UM career as a five-time NCAA All-American. In 1965 he won the NCAA three- and six-mile races, both in record time. Winning conference track and cross country titles became a forgone conclusion for him.

Through all of it, his biggest thrill came while winning the 1965 NCAA three-mile run in a photo finish over John Lawson of Kansas.

"He had shadowed me the whole race," Brown remembered, "and then with about 330 yards to go he grabbed the lead . . . and opened up a gap (on the backstretch).

"I had to talk to myself," Brown laughed, "and gather myself for the sprint."

Brown caught Lawson on the corner coming into the home stretch, and the two ran stride for stride to the finish line.

Using a tip he'd received from Adams years earlier, Brown turned one shoulder into the tape rather then leaning forward and lunging like so many runners do. It was enough to give him the win.

Brown majored in health and physical education at UM and then went to the University of Wyoming for graduate studies. But he and Vernetta had just gotten married and things didn't work out, although Brown ran on and helped coach the Cowboy cross country team in the fall of 1967.

The Cowboys actually won the U.S. Track and Field Federation cross country title that year.

After one semester at Wyoming the Browns moved to Billings. Doug started as a substitute teacher in 1968 and then worked into a full-time job in a junior high school there.

Brown stayed at the junior high level for 18 years, teaching English, physical education, reading, geography and some journalism classes.

From 1986 to 1998 Brown taught at Billings Senior High School where he also helped coach track for a couple of years.

Brown tried to continue running after he finished college, but problems with his Achilles tendons cut those efforts short.

"It was just overuse," Brown said. "I did too much speed work on the grass. I used to run hills a lot."

After he retired from teaching Doug and Vernetta moved to Red Lodge.

"I just love Red Lodge," Brown said. "I just feel so at ease here. I never was comfortable living in Billings. Too hectic."

Brown works as a maintenance supervisor for the 400 Ranch, a gated community of 74 units about seven miles south of town, from April to October. He said fall is for football and fishing. Actually, he said all year is for fishing.

"I use a chain saw a lot," Brown explained, noting that on any given day he could be driving a tractor or a dump truck. "I have a small crew, usually four of us.

"It's good work. I really enjoy it," Brown went on. "It's nice, clean work, and I don't have anybody looking over my shoulder."

Doug and Vernetta are tremendously proud of their children.

Their oldest, Lisa, is an attorney in Oakland, Calif. Laura assists a dental surgeon in Layton, Utah and is working on becoming a registered nurse.

Deidra is a massage therapist and a yoga instructor at the YMCA in Billings. Son Trathan works with the developmentally handicapped for Beartooth Industries in Red Lodge.

The youngest, Douglas Mathew, Brown boasts is one of the nation's top bassoonists. He's now a junior at Juilliard in New York City, and recently had a tryout with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra.

In 1993 Brown was an inaugural inductee into the newly established Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame at UM, something he called "a wonderful experience." Adams also was inducted, posthumously.

Brown invited Scott, his high school coach, to be his guest. Scott had successfully nominated Brown for the Montana High School Hall of Fame.

There were other people special to Brown inducted that year in Missoula.

"Jiggs Dahlberg, and Naseby (Rhinehart) and Harry (Adams) will always be right there in the forefront of my memories," Brown said. "They meant a great deal to me. When you're that age, you're very impressionable, and those were guys who had been through so much, years and years and years of ups and downs in their programs.

"What a wealth of experience they brought to all the kids that they coached and taught," Brown added. "I can't think of a better setting for a young person, a young athlete, than what we had then."