By: VOICE-TRIBUNE Photos by: the Brown Family
We’re thrilled to announce VOICE-TRIBUNE sports writer Russ Brown was recently inducted into the Indiana Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association Hall of Fame on April 7, 2024.
Brown, who has worked in the journalism industry for 65 years, was joined by his family to commemorate this prestigious honor during a ceremo-ny at Valle Vista Golf Club in Greenwood, Indiana.
“I had been looking forward to the induction ceremony since I was notified last September and it was even more fun than I anticipated because I got to see so many of my media peers that I had lost contact with over the years or hadn’t seen in quite awhile,” Brown said. “And, of course, having all my family and a number of friends on hand to share the moment was very gratifying.”
Russ’ career began as a junior high school student in Salem, Indiana when he started as a newspaper carrier for The Indianapolis Star in the morning and The Louisville Times in the afternoon. As a senior, he was sports editor of his high school publication, The Salem Cub while also covering sports for the weekly Salem Leader before graduating.
Before his 30-year stint at The Courier-Journal, Brown took on two other full-time roles at the Seymour Tribune, Columbus Republic. An avid sports fan, Brown quickly became The Courier-Journal’s Indiana sports editor and columnist, covering high school sports across the river and leading a team of correspondents and photographers. He covered Indiana’s Bob Knight as an IU and Big Ten beat writer.
“I will always be grateful to the late former VOICE-TRIBUNE columnist Earl Cox for giving me a chance to join the C-J’s award-winning sports staff and showing confidence in me by giving me an important beat and title soon after my arrival as the youngest person on the 23-member staff. I thanked him for that opportunity often. Under his guidance, our sports section was consistently recognized as one of the best in the country.”
“The first 14 years of my C-J career was spent dealing with Knight — or “The General,” as he was known — which was not an easy task,” said Brown. “I endured many profanity-laced threats in calls to my home, and I am pretty sure I am the only sportswriter in America that has been shot at by a Hall of Fame basketball coach, or any coach for that matter. Briefly, that happened in 1980 when Dan Rather and 60 Minutes were on hand for a game filming a profile of the volatile coach.”
“As I was leaving the interview room following a game in Assembly Hall, the Hoosiers’ arena in Bloomington, I passed Knight, who was standing by the door talking to a reporter from the Chicago Sun Times. He didn’t say a word, but when I got about 10-15 yards down the hall he yelled, ‘Hey Russ.’ I turned around and Knight raised a gun and fired at me. Fortunately it was a starter’s pistol loaded with blanks. I said, ‘you missed’ and he replied, ‘wait til you shake your head.’ Then he shouted, ‘hey, I just shot Russ Brown. I’ve been trying to get that little bastard for a long time.’ The incident made national news and is still noted in stories about his many other crazy escapades. Interestingly, neither of us ever mentioned it, but I always chalked it up to a sick joke from the demented mind of a classic bully.”
During his career, Brown has covered six UofL and IU NCAA Championship teams and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famers Knight, Rick Pitino and Denny Crum and written for USA Today, including a photo/story spread on a fishing trip with Crum to Venezuela. He co-founded the Louisville Sports Report magazine, and published health, fitness and sports mag-azines in Louisville and Indianapolis. Brown has also covered Indianapolis 500 races, Final Fours, Cincinnati Reds games, IHSAA State Finals events in several sports, Indiana-Kentucky All-Star Games and Indianapolis’ 1987 Pan Am Games.
Brown continues to cover college basketball and football for KentuckyToday.com, along with his co-writing role for our new VOICE-TRIBUNE column with Louis-ville journalist and close friend Bill Doolittle. In addition to articles about UofL sports for the magazine, his work has expanded to include coverage of Louisville City FC and Racing FC soccer, and several arts and features topics.
We’re so excited to count Russ Brown on our list of treasured writers. Congrats to our friend for his sportswriting Hall of Fame Award celebrating his years of excellence in sports journalism
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