Former Standout Brown Finds Niche as Coach at Stony Brook

With the Crimson facing No. 18 Washington in the biggest game in Harvard softball history, there was one player the Crimson coaching staff could trust to face down the Huskies.

“In some ways on the mound, [Rachel Brown] was a security blanket for us—we knew Rachel would keep us in every game,” Harvard coach Jenny Allard says. “That was a great feeling to have: Every time you showed up and Rachel was on the mound, you knew you were going to be in the game.”

As a co-captain and two-time Ivy League Pitcher of the Year, Brown had led the Crimson to its second consecutive Ivy League title and now to an NCAA regional final, further than any Ancient Eight team since 1996.

Brown pitched the complete game and held the Huskies to one run in the first three innings. But Harvard’s offense was unable to get on the board and succumbed to a 4-0 shutout.

“I have no regrets about my senior season,” Brown says. “I think my senior class was on a mission, and each year we wanted to improve. In our final regional tournament we had a really great showing for Harvard softball.”

The loss to the Huskies was Brown’s final game and ended one of the most decorated Crimson softball careers of all time. For the rest of the senior class, it was the end of the most successful four years in Harvard history.

“You have got a lot of pride as a coach to see how players grow over their career,” Allard says. “It’s not what they accomplished in one particular year. The success that last year’s team had in getting to a regional final wasn’t just one year’s success, it was four years’. It was because Rachel Brown got better over four years…all those seniors got better over four years.”

THE GRADUATE

However, for Rachel, the Washington game was not to be the end of her softball career. The game she had played her entire life and had such success with was something she was not quite ready to part with.

Instead of retiring, Rachel became an assistant coach with the Stony Brook Seawolves.

“I wasn’t quite ready to give the sport up,” Brown says. “It had been such a huge part of my life, and so this [position] seemed like a great opportunity to kind of stay involved, and it’s also a great opportunity while I’m working on my master's as well.”

Amidst her job as assistant coach, Brown is pursuing a Master's in Higher Education Administration through the School of Professional Development at Stony Brook.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE POND

Before the coaching job opened up, Brown had chosen an unusual path for the standard Harvard graduate. Immediately after graduation, she packed up her bags and headed to Sweden for four months to play for the Skövde Saints.

“It was an incredible experience,” Brown says. “I got to be a kind of player-coach because the sport is really underdeveloped there. So it was both fun, and it was an incredible opportunity.”

Under Brown’s leadership the Saints had a very successful season, winning the European B Cup in Ostrava, Czech Republic. The team went 8-1, with Rachel pitching every game and reclaiming a spot for the side in the 2013 European A Cup.

From that success, the team returned to Swedish League play where it had snuck into the playoffs as the four seed with a 7-9 record. Up against longtime rivals Sundsvall, the momentum from European competition easily saw Skövde through.

And so it ended up that the last competitive game Brown pitched was game four of the Swedish Softball League Championship Series  against Leksand. One final dominant performance gave Skövde the win and Brown something she never thought she would win growing up: a Swedish national softball championship.

“The competition level was not nearly as high [as during my collegiate career], and I got to work with some players who had just recently started playing the sport,” Brown says. “But it reminded me why I really love the sport, and I got to give back.”

ON THE SIDELINES

From there, Brown headed to Stony Brook to transition into the next phase of her softball career as a coach.

“What really interested me the most about Rachel was that she knows what it takes to excel academically, athletically, and personally in a challenging university environment,” says Stony Brook coach Megan Bryant. “We strive for excellence in all three of those components here at Stony Brook, and it is important that our coaches share that vision for the student-athletes in our program.”

According to Allard, Brown was the kind of player who would make a good coach. She had an attention to detail and a knack for amendment which suited her for life on the sidelines.

“Rachel and I spent a lot of time in the bullpen together. I was her pitching coach on the staff,” Allard says. “Rachel was a very crafty pitcher. She knew the motions. She knew when stuff was working, and when it wasn’t. If something wasn’t going well, she really could make adjustments very quickly to her motion and her technique, which is very difficult because the pitching motion is so complex.”

Over the past year, Brown has become a popular and integral member of the Stony Brook program, focusing her efforts on the three pitchers she works with primarily.

One time in the fall, when the other coaches were away on recruiting visits, Brown had the team to herself. In what she called one of the most fun experiences of her year as a coach, she organized a home-run derby between the pitchers and catchers and the rest of the squad. To everyone’s amazement and Rachel’s secret delight, it was to be the pitchers and catchers who came out on top.

“Rachel has been a terrific addition not only to our softball program, but also to the Stony Brook Athletic Department and the University community,” Bryant says. “She comes to work each day with a smile on her face and her sleeves rolled up.  It is a bit of ‘baptism by fire’ to go from college player to Division I coach in a matter of months, but Rachel is up to the task.”

SWITCH HITTING

The switch from player to coach does not happen overnight, and Brown’s experience was no exception.

“I am learning a lot this year because as a player, there are a lot of things that happen behind the scenes that you don’t see,” Brown says. “As a player, a coach tells you do certain things and you do them. But as a coach, you have to really think about practice plans or certain technical skills, and you also have to do a lot of problem solving. As a pitcher, I was very focused on what I was doing; but as a coach, I have to think of all three of the pitchers that I work with and really help them to improve.”

Game situations, too, are a completely different ballgame. Not being able to directly affect the outcome can be somewhat taxing for the rookie coach.

“I’m a little more stressed out than I was as a player,” Brown says. “I call pitches, but I have no control over what the end result is, and that has been a little bit challenging. I’m really lucky to work with a great coaching staff, and all the athletes are really great players, so it’s been a pretty smooth transition.”

With Brown as part of the family, Stony Brook has enjoyed a successful season and will be headed to the America East Championship playoffs next weekend. Indeed, before a recent trio of losses against Binghamton, the Seawolves were sporting an unbeaten 12-0 home record.

HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE

Brown is excited about the upcoming postseason and the success of her new team. However, she says the school she called home for four years will always have a special place in her heart.

“Rachel was a very vested player,” Allard says. “She really cared about her teammates. She really cared about the program, even to this day. I just got an e-mail from Rachel yesterday, and she stays connected to everybody. She has stayed with Harvard softball through this year.”

After four years at Harvard, Brown developed a real bond with the program.

“I am very regularly in contact with [the players],” Brown adds, laughing. “I joke that I am still living vicariously through them. I follow all the games and talk to all the players. I’m also in contact with my coaches now that I can appreciate a lot more what they have done now that I am going through the same thing.”

Indeed, it is that very bond which ultimately inspired her decision to become a coach.

Coaching was a natural progression for Brown. It not only kept her involved with the game she loves, but also handed her the opportunity to create for others the experience that she and her teammates had cherished.

“Looking back, when I think about Harvard, I think about Harvard softball,” Brown says. “It was really the defining experience of my college career. That was a big part of the reason why I wanted to stay involved in college athletics because I know how great the experience of college sports is, and so if I can create that experience for other student athletes here, then I will consider my job a huge success.”