NAME:
Ron Brown rbrown@fisdk12.net
SCHOOL:
Friendswood Jr. High
Art1, Art2, and Art Portfolio. I also coach girls volleyball, basketball, track and field and coed-soccer.
SCHOOL PHONE:
281-482-7818
Flexibility, creativity gives edge to Friendswood Coach
By ANTHONY JONES
As a teacher and coach at Friendswood Junior High, Ron Brown, finds a
comfortable balance between the creativity of art and sports.
“I use the same thought process for developing skills and individual
growth in all areas,” said Brown, explaining that teaching is more or
less a second career that he began seven years ago.
Brown has a degree in art from the University of Houston and has 16
years’ experience as a Advertising and Market Research Manager for
Southwestern Public Service (now Excel Energy). He began teaching
Sunday school in Amarillo. He moved back to the Bay Area and began
working in market research with Opinions Unlimited moving an Amarillo
office to Houston. He took up teaching Sunday school at Methodist
Church in Friendswood just before he decided to try teaching fulltime.
“I was tired of the mergers and not being able to spend any time with my
family, ” said Brown. “I also enjoyed coaching AAU Basketball for 12 years
and knew this experience would be helpful with coaching in a school
setting…. so I made the big switch and it has been quite enjoyable.”
He teaches Art One, Art Two and Art Portfolio, at Friendswood Junior High.
If that is not a full plate, Brown also coaches volleyball, basketball,
track and field and soccer.
In his art classes, he teaches the fundamentals of drawing and painting
as well as three-dimensional art such as shadow boxes, sculpting and
clay pottery on the junior high school level.
“Art allows them (his students) the opportunity for developing another
form of expression,” said Brown.
“I venture to say that I have some students who can create better art than
I can,” Brown added. “We have a show at Friendswood Library and there
are those who have to ask, ‘is this really 7th and 8th grade level.’”
Brown uses five quotes as a basis for teaching and coaching sports. He
begins with the statement: “You are special and you will be successful
in all things you do if you follow these simple quotes.”
· “First master the fundamentals,” Larry Bird.
· “Everyone wants to win, but not everyone is willing to prepare to
Win!” Bob Knight.
· “Success is achieved by those who keep trying with a positive
attitude,” W. C. Stone.
· “The measure of who you are, is what you do with what we have,”
Vince Lombardi.
· “Even the smallest pebble dropped into a pond makes a ripple.
The choices we make today will have a similar impact on our future,”
Ron Brown.
“I start off this grouping of quotes with these words ‘You Are Special,’
because I believe that each student or adult has special gifts they have
been given and it is up to me to find those gifts and help the students or
athletes develop them Brown said.
In Art One, his class starts on basic fundamentals and builds on those
skills to improve the students’ understanding of art and production of
art.
“As the student expands on their fundamental tools and they are
exposed to more forms of art, their art works will improve and they’ll be
graded based on how they incorporate those tools into their own work,”
Brown said.
“Much the same happens when you coach a sport,” he added. “As a
beginner in a sport you need to develop a basic foundation that all new
activities can grow from and develop into new and more complex skills.”
“If you take dribbling in basketball for instance you start off with right
hand and then left hand dribbling off the fingertips and below the waist,”
Brown said. “From there you move on to speed dribbling, behind the
back, between the legs, pivot and on and on.”
“I could expand on each of the quotes, but I think most individuals can
draw their own conclusion as to how they are applied,” he said
Brown says that his background in the arts makes him flexible enough
to understand the player.
“I have to use my creativity to maximize the players potential on a given
team,” he said, leading to many undefeated and district championships.