Brown was four-time A-10 champ

Catching up WITH ... liz brown

Birthdate: Sept. 24, 1980

Birthplace: Dayton

High school: Alter (1999)

College: University of Dayton (2003)

Major: Finance

Sport: Soccer

Height: 5-foot-2

Positions: Midfield, Forward

Varsity years: 1999-2002

Goals: 12

Assists: 7

Achievements: 2002 leading scorer, A-10 first team; 2001 A-10 all-tourney team

Team highlights: Made UD’s first three NCAA appearances in 1999, 2001, 2002 ... Overall record: 68-20 (.772 pct.) ... Won two Atlantic 10 Conference tournaments ... Won four straight A-10 league titles, had 40-3 record ... Won 15 straight and two NCAA matches in 2001.

The University of Dayton wasn’t even on Liz Brown’s list 11 years ago when she pondered what college she might attend after graduation from Alter High School.

“It was one of those situations where I grew up in the backyard and didn’t realize what it had to offer,” she said recently as she sat behind her desk at the Kettering offices of M.K. Brown & Associates.

“I liked the idea of going away.”

When UD women’s soccer coach Mike Tucker asked her to consider becoming a Flyer, she somewhat reluctantly agreed to make an unofficial visit to attend a game.

All it took was one day on the UD campus to change her mind and set the stage for four exciting years during which she played on UD’s first three NCAA tournament teams and was the Flyers’ leading scorer as a senior.

“It’s one of those places that as soon as you walk on campus you just know,” Brown said. “I went home that night and told my parents that’s where I was going to go. I ended up canceling all of my official visits.

“That’s what UD has to offer. It’s a bubble and it sucks you in. For those four years, that’s exactly what it did. Those four years defined me. It was the most unbelievable experience as far as soccer and school.”

A finance major, Brown is putting her training to good use at a company owned by her father, Martin K. “Bo” Brown, a longtime financial planner.

“Dad didn’t want me to work for him right away,” Liz said, explaining why she spent three years working in Cincinnati for Miller-Valentine before joining her father’s company five years ago. “I loved working for Miller-Valentine, but in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do forever.”

Brown said it wasn’t easy the first two years working for her dad, noting that he did everything for himself.

“Do you know what fixed it?” she said. “We took a personality test.”

The results showed that their personalities couldn’t be more different.

“Once we figured out what our strengths and weaknesses were, it worked,” she said.

Since graduating from UD, Brown has been coaching youth soccer teams in her spare time. She was an assistant coach at Fenwick High School in 2008 when the Falcons won the Division II state championship. She now coaches the U14 and U17 teams for Kettering-based Metro FC.

“There were times I thought maybe I’d like to be a (full-time) soccer coach,” she said, “but long-term I want to be my dad.”

At Alter, Brown played on three teams that made it to the Final Four in the Division II state tournament. The success continued at UD, where the Flyers had a 68-20 record during her career. UD won four straight Atlantic 10 Conference championships and two A-10 tournament titles. As a senior, the feisty 5-foot-2 forward was the team’s leading scorer.

“When I went to Dayton, we had good players,” she said. “I don’t think we were anything to write home about. We were all just good players with a common goal. We got it. We understood it. There are teams there now that have a whole heckuva lot more talent.”

Although UD had All-American Missy Gregg in the lineup during Brown’s first two seasons (1999 and 2000) and put together records of 18-5 and 16-5, Liz says her junior year was the most enjoyable.

Ironically, it did not begin well. Gregg shocked the team during the first week of practice when she announced that she was transferring to a small school in Memphis, Tenn.

“It was horrible,” Brown said. “A (TV) news station showed up for preseason (practice), which never happens in women’s soccer. They were there because Missy Gregg didn’t show up. It was crazy.”

The offense had centered on Gregg, who was a phenomenal scorer, and the 2001 Flyers had difficulty adjusting to her absence. Their record after seven games was 2-5.

UD made a remarkable turnaround and won 15 consecutive games.

They went unbeaten in the Atlantic 10 and defeated Xavier and Richmond in the conference tournament. Brown, who had played 49 games without a goal, scored her first one in the tournament as the Flyers earned another trip to the NCAA tourney.

“It took a few games to figure out how to play without her,” Brown said. “And it also took a few games for us to realize that we could make it happen. We had great leadership from that senior class — Megan McKnight, Sarah Walker and Bridget Bushman.

“Regardless of how far we went, it would have been the best experience I’ve ever had.”

In NCAA tournament matches at Morgantown, W.Va., the Flyers upset Maryland, 1-0, and shut out Miami, 1-0. They were sent to Los Angeles to play fourth-ranked UCLA in the third round and lost 3-1 in a game curiously postponed one day because of a drizzling rain.

Brown thinks UD might have won the game if it had been played in the rain, as many games in the Midwest are, but she said somebody was protecting the higher-seeded UCLA team, which was not accustomed to playing on a wet field.

UD returned to the NCAA tourney the next year with a 17-3 record, and Brown made the All-Atlantic 10 first team.