Olympic Medalist Natasha Brown Added to @MIZ_TrackField Coaching Staff
8/5/2016 10:00:00 AM | Track & Field
Brown returns to Mizzou following 16 years as Head Coach of Drake Track and Field
COLUMBIA, Mo. – The Mizzou Track and Field program welcomes home one of its own with the addition of two-time U.S. Olympian and six-time Mizzou All-American Natasha Brown to the coaching staff, announced Friday by Head Coach Brett Halter. Brown, who has been the Head Coach of the Drake University women's track and field program since 2000 and the men's head coach since 2003, will be Mizzou's Associate Head Coach and oversee the women's sprints, hurdles and relays.
"I'm excited to get back to Columbia," Brown said. "It will be fun to come back and see how it has changed over the years and really get invested back into the program. Having made 16 different national teams, I'm not going to say I have all the answers, but I clearly have some. I'm excited to pour that experience in and really help train the current student-athletes at Mizzou."
In 16 seasons as Drake's Track and Field/Cross Country head coach, Brown guided 39 individual Missouri Valley Conference champions, 60 NCAA Qualifiers and one NCAA All-American. Drake student-athletes set 40 program records under Brown's reign. In the classroom, both the men's and women's teams have earned the All-Academic Team Award from the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association in each of the past five seasons. Before taking the helm at Drake, Brown was a Mizzou assistant coach from 1993-2000 and a volunteer assistant coach at Northwestern State from 1992-1993.
Brown was a member of 16 U.S. national teams in her career, highlighted by a silver medal performance as a member of the 4x400m relay team at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. Brown made her second Olympics appearance four years later at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, also as a member of the U.S. 4x400m relay team.
Following a silver medal performance in the 400m dash at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, Brown was ranked second in the world in the 400m dash. She was also a member of the 4x400m relay team which won the gold medal at the 1993 World Championships with a time of 3:16:71, the second-fastest time ever by an American team at the time. At the 1997 World Indoor Championships, Brown ran a leg on the 4x400m relay team which set an American indoor record of 3:27.66 en route to the silver medal.
Originally from Des Moines, Iowa, Brown became a household name at the Drake Relays, competing in 16 Relays and winning the women's special 400m in 1990, 1993 and 1998. Brown was inducted into the Drake Relays Hall of Fame in 1995.
"We are thrilled to welcome home Natasha and her family," said Coach Halter. "Natasha is a terrific coach, an amazing athlete and is one of the finest human beings I have ever met. As a program, department, university and community, we got better today. Natasha adds a wealth of coaching and athletic experience to our program from her time as a head coach and professional athlete. She embodies our value based coaching principles and I am looking forward to sharing with her and our staff the opportunities that lie ahead as we continue to move our program toward academic and athletic championship success."
While a member of the Mizzou Track and Field team from 1985-89, Brown, formerly Natasha Kaiser, became one of the most decorated student-athletes in school history. Brown won the 400m dash Indoor National Championship in 1989 with a time of 51.92 seconds, which still stands as a school record. In all, Brown held eight indoor or outdoor program records. Brown earned NCAA All-American honors in the 400m dash six times while donning the black and gold, placing in the top-eight four times during the outdoor season (1986-89) and twice during the indoor season (1988-89).
Brown also won five individual Big 8 conference titles as a Tiger, capturing the 1986 200m and 400m outdoor titles, the 1988 300-yard dash indoor title, and 1989 200m and 4x400m relay titles. In 1989, Brown was named the Big Eight Female Athlete of the Year. Mizzou's top team-award, the Natasha Kaiser-Brown Award, is given annually to the most outstanding performer on the women's team.
"When I was in college, I had tremendous professors who really cared about my academic success," said Brown. "Their involvement was at a pretty high level as far as making sure you were taken care of and you were learning what you needed to learn. The community itself is a very comforting community."
Joining Brown at Mizzou will be her husband, Brian, who was hired as Mizzou Assistant Athletics Director of Mizzou Made. Natasha and Brian have three children, a daughter, Elexandria, and two sons, Quinton and Kristian.
For all the latest on Mizzou Track & Field, stay tuned to MUTigers.com and follow the team on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (MIZ_TrackField).
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— MIZZOU Track & Field (@MIZ_TrackField) August 5, 2016
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