EDWARDSVILLE – Sporting success runs in the family for Eric Brown.
A 1983 graduate of Edwardsville High School, Brown excelled in three sports for the EHS, competing in football, wrestling, and track and field.
Brown was inducted into the EHS Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988 and was part of the final induction class until the HOF’s re-incorporation in 2022.
His granddaughters Haeli Tart and Harmoni Tart play basketball for O’Fallon, who defeated Lisle Benet Academy in double overtime to win the Class 4A championship on March 4 at Redbird Arena in Normal.
Each week, the Edwardsville Intelligencer will publish a “Where Are You Now?” Story about former student athletes from Edwardsville High School or Metro-East Lutheran. If there is a former student athlete you would like to know about, please email Scott Marion at [email protected]
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“My granddaughter, Haeli, is a freshman and has started college,” said Brown, son of Edward “Buddy” Brown Jr. and Delores “Suky” Brown. “This is her third state title because her eighth grade basketball team won the state and she was the state champion in the 100-meter hurdles. Harmoni is a senior and attends McKendree University on an (academic) scholarship.”
In football, Brown played for coach Dick Ford. As a senior, he was named 1982 First Team All-State, First Team All-Metro, and Defensive Player of the Year.
“I didn’t have much contact with Coach Ford, but Coach (Craig) Louer was my type,” said Brown, who still lives in Edwardsville. “I admired the confidence he had in me to be a starting linebacker and his leader on defense this year.
“Coach (Tom) Pile had joined the coaching staff and kept seeing stats that I was getting 30+ tackles a game. He started tagging them himself because he didn’t believe it, but in one game I had 37 tackles and he said wherever the ball was, I was there.”
Brown prided himself on being a multi-athlete, even as he struggled with injuries.
“Football was probably my favorite sport and track and field was one of the first sports I did, but I was best at wrestling,” Brown said. “My freshman year in wrestling was eighth grade after I gave up basketball.”
However, knee and shoulder injuries took a toll on Brown’s wrestling career, beginning with his freshman season.
“Fortunately, my training ethic was so intense that I was strong enough to make up for those weaknesses,” Brown said.
During his high school career, Brown wrestled 155 pounds. As a freshman, he was undefeated until injuring his knee, which ended his season.
“Coach (Babe) Stahlhut said, ‘If you can beat me, you’re ready,’ because he was hard to beat,” Brown said. “I managed to lose to the boys in second and fourth place as a senior. It was a very tough state class.”
Despite the postseason disappointment, Brown won three team wrestling MVP awards, six tournament championships, and five tournament MVP awards.
“I got pretty much every individual award you could get, but we never got team awards and that bothered me,” Brown said. “In wrestling, we started winning tournaments and that made me know I could lead a team to a championship.”
In track and field, meanwhile, Brown was a junior Olympic gold medalist in the javelin throw and third in the 100-meter hurdles.
While in high school, he held four hurdle records and was a potential state long jump qualifier as a senior, but had to give up his track season for attending the inaugural Illinois-Missouri All-Star Wrestling Meet.
After graduating from Edwardsville, Brown continued his athletic career at Elmhurst University. In football, he was a running back and linebacker, but a shoulder injury ended his freshman season after eight games.
In wrestling, he was freshman MVP and the first freshman in school history with 20+ wins. He won two major tournaments and finished fifth in the nation.
Injuries forced Brown to drop out of college in his sophomore year to begin his military career.
“I had my shoulder surgery in college and knee surgery in the military, but the technology wasn’t as available as it is today and my shoulder wasn’t the same,” Brown said.
Brown spent 12 years in the military, first in the Army and then in the Air Force, in telecommunications installation and maintenance.
He left the military and took an engineering job at Scott Air Force Base, where he spent the next 22 years until his retirement last June.
Brown and his wife Jakki have been married for 37 years. They have three children – Michael, 41; Moria, 35; and Miah, 26; and eight grandchildren.
Forty years after graduating high school, Brown’s connection to Edwardsville remains strong.
“I still have that Tiger pride, but there have been down moments, too,” Brown said. “As a black man, there is still some prejudice in Edwardsville, just like in the rest of the United States. Even if this prejudice exists, if you have passion for what you want to do, you will succeed.”
Brown is a deacon at the Lighthouse of Hope Church in Belleville. He also plans to run for political office.
“I want to give back to a wonderful community that has produced so many greats,” Brown said.
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