R.I.P.: Irv Brown, Denver Sports Radio Pioneer, Coach

Irv Brown

Irv Brown, an iconic Denver radio host whose decades-long Colorado sports career spanned from standout athlete, to high school and college coach, to six-time NCAA Final Four basketball official, died Sunday morning.

He was 83, according to The Denver Post.

His death was confirmed by Joe Williams, his longtime radio partner. A cause of death was not immediately known, but his health had declined in recent months, Williams said. The Greeley Tribune first reported the news.

“When you think about sports and Colorado, I don’t think there’s ever been anyone — in the entire spectrum of sports, starting in junior high, through high school, college and the pros — I don’t think there’s ever been a person in Colorado who touched as many lives as Irv did,” Williams told The Denver Post.

Brown was born March 3, 1935, in Denver. He graduated from Denver’s North High School in 1953, where he was a standout athlete in basketball and baseball, earning seven varsity letters. He attended Colorado State College — what is now the University of Northern Colorado — where he played baseball and was center fielder for the 1957 team that competed in the College World Series.

Irv Brown 2016

After, he began his coaching career, which included coaching football, basketball and baseball at Arvada High School, where his 1964 baseball team won the Class AAA state title over Grand Junction, 5-3.

Eventually, he became a basketball official, building relationships with icons in the sport, including Bobby Knight, launching a career that included officiating six Final Fours from 1969 to 1977. “Officiating college basketball was the most challenging thing I did,” Brown once said. “But I also had a lot of fun.”

He began his media career as a sports reporter on KHOW 630 AM in 1974. He was also a color analyst during the early days of a then-nascent network called ESPN.

Brown worked for 42 years in radio, hiring eventual partner, Williams, in 1981 at KWBZ to sell a show that Brown and former Denver Post sports columnist Woody Paige hosted. The pair later formed “The Irv and Joe Show,” which aired on numerous radio stations through more than a quarter century, including KKFN 104.3 The Fan. It most recently broadcast on Mile High Sports radio 1340 AM.

Brown is credited with inspiring the careers of numerous broadcasters in the Denver market. On the day current Broncos play-by-play announcer Dave Logan was cut from the team, he called Brown.

He retired in 2016.