Rancho Cucamonga, Ca – Chaffey College has hired veteran coach and former standout college basketball player Timi Brown to lead the school’s athletic department. Brown, who most recently served as head women’s basketball coach at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, officially started her position on July 8.
Men’s Basketball Coach Jeff Klein, who served as interim athletic director for five years, will return to his coaching role.
“Dr. Timi Brown wants our students to win – whether they’re on the field, in the pool, on the court or in the classroom,” said Chaffey College Superintendent/President Henry Shannon. “I have great confidence that she will bring much success to Panther athletics as a whole and to each of our scholar athletes.”
In more than 25 years, Brown has served as a women’s basketball coach from the high school level all the way to NCAA Division I’s Odessa College in Texas. She plans to use her vast experience to build on the success of the Panthers’ 14 athletic teams, but knows it will take time and teamwork.
“I’m just ready to be all in, and collaborate with people on campus and in the community to ultimately make this the best athletic department in the state. That’s our goal. We want to do it big, do it right, and we’ll get there,” she said.
Brown, a Long Beach resident, fell in love with basketball at 7-years-old while playing the sport in her Nevada childhood neighborhood. She pursued an undergraduate degree in exercise physiology at the University of Arizona where she became the all-time leading scorer for the Wildcats women’s basketball team, a record that stood for several years after she left.
She began envisioning a future in coaching her junior year in college while sitting out part of the season due to injuries.
“I would always sit by the coaches so I could hear what they were saying to our team,” she said. “I took a lot in and was able to see things from a coach’s perspective versus the player’s perspective,” she said.
That idea grew the more coaches she met, particularly during summer basketball camps. After graduating, she immediately began her career as head coach at San Pasqual High School in San Diego, leading the team to two southern section conference championships. She continued her education at the University of Northern Colorado, earning a master’s degree in athletic administration.
Brown took her first college head coaching position at Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey in 1999, taking the team to a southern section Coast Conference championship and producing a conference player of the year. She led teams to victory as head women’s basketball coach and assistant athletic director at Odessa College in 2001 and at Mesa State College in Colorado as head coach in 2004. Brown also brought her team success as head coach at Glendale College in Arizona.
She earned a doctorate in educational leadership in 2014 from Argosy University. In the last two decades, she has taught, wrote curriculum and developed programs in sports management, intercollegiate athletics and leadership, among other areas. Brown is a nationally-certified strength and conditioning coach, health and fitness instructor and distance education instructor.
