Kent Brown Leads Boxers Into Canada Games
by Scott Taylor, Grassroots News MB
He’s already been one of Manitoba’s greatest Olympic boxers, so it only seems right that his next step is to become one of the province’s greatest coaches.
Right now, 39-year-old Kent (The Bullet) Brown is in the midst of the next stage of his life. From Olympian to Canada Games coach, Brown has made it pretty clear that he’s going to give back to the sport that made him a national champion and to many, a national hero.
This week Brown and his assistant coach, Metis professional fighter and highly-regarded amateur coach, Roland Vandal, and the team’s manager Phillip Natividad, get set to take their young boxers to Halifax for Week 2 of the 2011 Canada Winter Games.
The team is solid and includes two 17-year-old First Nations fighters, Jerome (Send You Home) Busch and Kyle Prince. Brown is confident that, if nothing else, this group will learn volumes about the fight game in Canada and that the trip will be a tremendous introduction for those who haven’t had a lit of experience with Olympic style tournament competition.
“It’s a good team and we’ve all been training hard,” said Brown, who is one of the most experienced athletes coaching a Manitoba team at the Games. “I’m really excited about our guys. I think there is reason to believe we’ll have a very successful Games.” Brown knows a lot about success. He is, after all, one of the most successful boxers in Manitoba history.
In fact, he won the first fight of his career via knockout and never looked back. He won more than 90 fights in an 18-year amateur career and was Manitoba provincial champion no fewer than 16 times. He was Canada’s national lightweight champion in 1999 and 2000 and competed at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
In 2002, he won gold at the North American Indigenous Games that just happened to be held in his hometown.
However, what really makes Kent Brown a great coach and a revered role model in the First Nation’s community is his respect for his Inniwak roots and his ability to overcome a difficult upbringing to become a success at everything he does.
A graduate of the University of Manitoba, Brown works as the Director of Human Resources at the Southern First Nations Child and Family Services Authority.
However, he’s also involved in a 20-year plan at his own First Nation, Fisher River Cree Nation, to make the community healthy and fit.
With the support of Fisher River’s Chief David Crate, one of the national leaders in environmental protection and healthy living, Brown has joined forces with the likes of council member Dion McKay and lawyer Harold Cochrane, in a program that Brown says, ”will make our community healthy again.”
“Chief David Crate is a very forward-thinking individual,” Brown said. “He’s the person working to raise the revenue required to create Fisher Bay National Park. He’s the one who does the hands-on work to make Fisher River a drug-free community. It’s a program we can be proud of and, on top of that, I think it’s kind of neat. It would be great, in 20 years, to have a perfectly healthy community.”
Despite his work schedule, his volunteer efforts, his responsibility as a dad – he and his partner have a third child on the way – and his coaching commitments, Brown is also a member of Gen7, a group of indigenous young people who encourage First Nation, Inuk and Metis youth “to live, and encourage others to live, an active and healthy lifestyle through sport and physical activity.” GEN7 also aims to help Aboriginal youth become leaders in their community. Brown is proud of his work with Gen7 and was the man who recruited Mary Spencer, the three-time world champion female boxer, into the Gen 7 fold. Spencer was the first aboriginal woman to qualify for boxing in the Olympic Games.
Brown certainly understands the importance of role models. His was and still is, the great Muhammad Ali, and it was Ali’s words that guided him through his own career:
“Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them-a desire, a dream, a vision,” said Ali. “They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”
Brown has never forgotten those words and while imparting his ring knowledge to his team, Brown also wants to be sure his fighters have the heart to go the distance. He’s confident that the group he’s taking to Halifax has the best of both pre-requisites.
“I’m very, very positive that we’re going to be in amazing shape, ready to go from the moment we arrive,” Brown said of his team. “There are definitely some medals to be won by this time, but they’re all good enough so I don’t know which ones will win medals.
“And don’t forget, some kids are going to get their eyes opened in Halifax. It’s a completely different atmosphere there than competing in a small tournament in Western Canada or even going to the nationals. This is a small Olympics and there will some great young fighters from other provinces. The guys will have to be ready from the opening bell. It’s going to be fun. Some of these kids will have an experience they’ll never forget.”
Click here to read the story in Grassroots News on Page 24.
