I never thought I would play Division II basketball.

Not because I thought I was above it. It simply never crossed my mind.

My entire basketball life had been built around playing at the highest level I could reach. I had been an All-Big East guard at West Virginia University, averaged around 20 points per game and believed my next step would eventually be the NBA.

Then everything changed.

After my situation at WVU, I transferred to Middle Tennessee State. My brother was with the Tennessee Titans at the time, so being close to him made sense.

But transferring was completely different back then. There was no transfer portal. There wasn’t this culture where players changed schools and immediately became one of the biggest recruiting targets on the market. In most situations, you transferred and had to sit out a year. That also meant losing another year of your basketball life.

I stayed at Middle Tennessee for about a month.

I had a baby on the way, and eventually I started thinking differently. I didn’t want to sit around another year waiting to play college basketball. I wanted to finish my college career, get into professional basketball and start making money.

Looking back now, I probably should have gone overseas the day WVU released me. With the player I was at that time, I could have gone overseas and started making great money immediately. But I wasn’t ready to let college basketball go.

So I came up with another plan.

I wanted to play Division II basketball close to Pittsburgh so I could play ASAP. I was transferring down so I didn’t have to sit out.

That meant the PSAC.

And there was really only one school I wanted to call. California University of Pennsylvania.

 

One Conversation Was Enough

I contacted Cal U because it was close to home. I had no idea that phone call was going to introduce me to one of the most genuine coaches I would ever meet.

Coach Bill Brown and I hit it off immediately. There was no recruiting act. No fake promises. No coach trying to tell me everything he thought I wanted to hear.

Coach Brown was just Coach Brown. Real. Talking to him felt more like talking to your cool uncle than talking to a college basketball coach. And after some of the experiences I had already gone through in college basketball, that meant everything to me.

I had become accustomed to coaches who made relationships feel transactional. Can you score? Can you help us win? Can you make me look good?

Coach Brown was different. He wanted to know me.

We could talk about basketball, but we could also talk about life. We had real conversations about things I was dealing with personally, how I viewed basketball, mistakes I had made, obstacles I had faced and what I wanted my life to become. I felt comfortable telling him things I wouldn’t tell most coaches. He listened.

And when Coach Brown gave you his opinion, he wasn’t giving you some carefully prepared coach answer. He kept it real. Sometimes brutally real. And somehow he’d have you laughing your ass off while doing it. He might have been the funniest coach I ever played for.

It took me one conversation to realize: This is where I need to be.

 

Neither One of Us Took the Opportunity for Granted

Our relationship was unique because we both understood what had brought us together.

Coach Brown had built an incredible career at Cal U, but he hadn’t often had an All-Big East guard who had averaged around 20 points per game transferring into his program. He made me feel like he was honored and fortunate to coach me.

What he probably didn’t fully understand was that I felt just as fortunate to play for him.

I had already experienced major college basketball. I had played in the Big East. I had played for coaches with big names and competed against some of the best players in the country.

But Coach Brown gave me something I needed more at that point in my life: somebody I could trust. I loved his wife, Christy, too. There was something about being around them that felt genuine. This wasn’t just basketball anymore.

I wanted to win for this man.

I remember telling Coach Brown that I was going to win him a PSAC championship and take us to the NCAA Tournament. And I meant every word of it. I was determined. After everything that had happened in my basketball career, this wasn’t about proving that I could score.

Everybody already knew I could play.

I wanted to repay Coach Brown for believing in me. Unfortunately, I never got that opportunity.

 

Ten Games — Then It Was Over

My season at Cal U lasted only 10 games. Then I was ruled ineligible. The NCAA determined that I had transferred too many times.

What frustrated me was simple: If I wasn’t eligible, why was I ruled eligible in the first place?

Part of the issue involved an individual workout I had participated in while I was at Middle Tennessee. My understanding was that a tape connected to that workout eventually made its way to another PSAC school, and the situation was reported. Just like that, my season was over.

I was crushed. Not simply because I couldn’t play. I felt like I had let Coach Brown down. I had told this man we were going to win. I believed we were going to win.

Instead, after 10 games, basketball was taken away from me again.

At that point, I was done waiting. I left Cal U and went overseas to begin my professional basketball career.

But I never left my relationship with Coach Brown behind.

 

His Resume Was Bigger Than I Realized

When you’re a player, you don’t always appreciate a coach’s entire journey. You just know the man standing in front of you.

As I got older, I understood even more how accomplished Coach Brown really was.

Before Cal U, he had coached at Ohio, Kent State, Arkansas, Sacramento State, Tennessee and Kenyon. At Arkansas, he worked under legendary coach Eddie Sutton during a period when the Razorbacks were consistently nationally ranked and reaching NCAA Tournaments. At Kenyon, he recruited a young point guard named Shaka Smart.

Think about that.

Long before Shaka Smart became one of the biggest names in college basketball coaching, Bill Brown saw something in him. After Smart graduated, Coach Brown brought him to Cal U and gave him an opportunity to begin his coaching career as an assistant.

That’s what Coach Brown did. He saw things in people.

At Cal U, he became the winningest coach in program history.

He won PSAC championships, reached NCAA Tournaments and led the Vulcans to the Elite Eight in 2008. He was a five-time PSAC West Coach of the Year, a two-time NABC Regional Coach of the Year and received the NABC Guardians of the Game Pillar Award for Advocacy.

But none of those accomplishments are what I remember first.

I remember the conversations. I remember laughing. I remember how comfortable I felt around him. I remember knowing he cared about Drew Schifino the person and not just Drew Schifino the basketball player.

 

He Thought He Let Me Down

Coach Brown and I stayed in contact after I left Cal U. I saw him several times after he retired. And there was something he told me that always stuck with me.

He felt bad about what happened with my eligibility. He felt like somehow he had let me down.

I never looked at it that way. Not once. If anything, he helped me during a period when I needed somebody like him.

My basketball career was chaotic at that point. I had gone from being a major college player at WVU to transferring to Middle Tennessee, then leaving there and ending up at a Division II school I never imagined I would attend. There were a lot of things going through my head.

Then God placed Bill Brown in my life.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to spend four years with him. Maybe I wasn’t even supposed to spend one full season with him. Maybe those few months and those 10 games were enough for our paths to cross for the reason they needed to.

Because more than 20 years later, I barely remember the statistics from those games.

I remember him.

 

“We’re Better Together”

Coach Brown passed away on February 15, 2023, at 71 years old.

Reading what people said about him afterward confirmed something I already knew.

My experience wasn’t unique.

People described him as warm, witty, charismatic, competitive, kindhearted and genuine. Shaka Smart described Coach Brown as having a “rare and glorious spirit.” That was him.

His teams used to break their huddles by saying: “We’re Better Together.”

That wasn’t just some basketball slogan Coach Brown invented. That was how he lived. Players mattered to him. Assistant coaches mattered. Families mattered. People mattered. Coach Brown once said that his goal was to impact players not only through basketball, but through life skills and teaching them how to communicate with and treat people.

I can personally tell you he accomplished that goal. Because I was one of those players.

 

The Coach I Needed at Exactly the Right Time

Basketball has introduced me to hundreds of coaches.

Some helped me. Some disappointed me. Some relationships lasted. Others ended the second I could no longer help somebody win basketball games.

Coach Bill Brown was different.

He wanted me to win basketball games for him. Of course he did. He was a competitor. But more importantly, he wanted me to win at life.

There’s a huge difference.

I wish I could have fulfilled that promise I made to him. I wish I could have won that PSAC championship for Coach Brown. I wish we could have made that NCAA Tournament run together.

For years, part of me probably looked at Cal U as another chapter of my basketball career that didn’t go the way I planned.

I don’t look at it that way anymore. I got something more valuable out of California University of Pennsylvania than another basketball accomplishment. I got to know Bill Brown. A coach. A mentor. A man I could talk to about anything. And one of the most genuine human beings basketball ever put in my path.

Coach Brown thought he let me down.

He never did. He showed up in my life at exactly the time I needed someone like him.

And sometimes God’s purpose for putting somebody in your life isn’t measured by how long they stay. It’s measured by what they leave with you after they’re gone.

Coach Brown left me with plenty.

Rest in peace, Coach.

We’re Better Together.