Entering his 10th season as the Horned Frog skipper, Lance Brown has compiled an overall record of 273-249. That win total ranks him as the second winningest coach in Frog history behind Director of Athletics Frank Windegger. Windegger, who won four conference titles in his tenure, compiled a 298-168 overall record in 14 seasons.
For Brown, TCU baseball and pitching are synonymous. The former Frog hurler was the Southwest Conference "Player of the Year" in 1963. Brown finished the 1963 season with an 11-1 record (8-1 in SWC action) and earned All-SWC honors and All-America honors under second-year head coach Windegger. Brown is tied for the school mark for pitching victories in a season, with 11, and he ranks second in strikeouts in a single season with 109.
Likewise, Brown has played a large role in the success of Texas Christian University baseball. En route to All-American honors in 1963, Brown pitched the Frogs to the 1963 SWC championship. Thirty-one years later, he guided the Frogs to the 1994 SWC title as the head coach.
When Brown took over as the head baseball coach for TCU in May, 1986, he inherited a program that was making its fourth coaching change in 11 years, one which had only five winning seasons and its best finish in the Southwest Conference had been sixth.
The first thing Brown set out to accomplish was not to teach fundamentals; or improve the schedule; or improve the facilities. The first step was to teach the Horned Frogs how to win consistently.
By 1994, Brown had the Frogs doing just that. They not only won consistently, but they did things that had not been done at TCU since Brown had starred as a Horned Frog pitcher in the early 1960s.
En route to a school-record 38 wins, the Frogs won their first Southwest Conference regular season title since 1972 and first outright crown since 1956. They received an NCAA Regional tournament berth for the first time since 1956, where they recorded the school's first NCAA Regional win.
Well respected by his coaching peers, the personable Brown was selected as the 1994 Region Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association. He was named the 1994 SWC Coach of the Year, his second such honor in his career. He also was the 1991 SWC Coach of the Year.
Under his tenure, 19 Horned Frogs have been drafted by Major League organizations.
Lance Brown's Coaching Career Record
1987 24-35 (4-17 SWC)
1988 27-32 (8-13)
1989 37-22 (7-14)
1990 27-32 (4-17)
1991 34-25 (10-11)
1992 25-30 (14-22)
1993 34-22 (5-13)
1994 38-22 (14-4)
1995 27-29 (11-13)