Basketball fans are going to see broadcasts get a little worse sooner rather than later. That’s because Hubie Brown, the legendary former coach who has turned into a stalwart on ESPN’s coverage of the league, will only call one more game before he retires at 91 years old.
“We are going to give Hubie one last shot on a game,” ESPN president Burke Magnus told Jimmy Traina of Sports Illustrated. “He deserves that. We think the world of him. I think it is absolutely remarkable the level in which he still calls games at age 90-plus. I don’t mean to be purposely mysterious here but we are going to honor Hubie during the regular season at some point to be determined and send him off in style.”
That he is still capable of working at 91 is remarkable, but Brown is still sharp as a tack and as good as it gets calling basketball games, and while no one has deserved retirement more, it’s always a tough day when someone as highly-regarded as him calls it a career. There is, still, no one better at seeing something, pointing it out, and explaining why it’s a big deal than Brown, and he has terrific chemistry with his broadcast partners.
We’re all going to miss Hubie, and to celebrate the end of his time in the booth, we wanted to celebrate him by having some fun and looking at everything he’s seen over his extraordinary life. You see, Hubie was born on Sept. 25, 1933, which means he has been around for, quite literally, every single game that the NBA has played — the league was founded in June of 1946, when he was 12 years old. That got us wondering: How old was he during some of the biggest moments in world, American, and NBA history over the last century or so? Let’s dive in.
Start of WWII: 5 years old (Sept. 1, 1939)
End of WWII: 11 years old (Sept. 2, 1945)
The first NBA game: 13 years old (Nov. 1, 1946)
Jackie Robinson breaks baseball’s color barrier: 13 years old (April 15, 1947)
The first NBA Draft: 16 years old (April 25, 1950)
Bill Russell plays in his first NBA game: 23 years old (Dec. 22, 1956)
Wilt Chamberlain plays in his first NBA game: 26 years old (Oct. 24, 1959)
John F. Kennedy Assassination: 30 years old (Nov. 22, 1963)
Super Bowl I: 34 years old (Jan. 15, 1967)
First moon landing: 36 years old (July 20, 1969)
End of the Vietnam War: 41 years old (April 30, 1975)
Hubie Brown’s first game as an NBA head coach with the Atlanta Hawks: 42 years old (Oct. 21, 1976)
The first time Larry Bird and Magic Johnson played in the NBA Finals: 51 years old (May 27, 1984)
First NBA Draft Lottery: 52 years old (May 12, 1985)
End of the Cold War: 56 years old (Dec. 3, 1989)
Michael Jordan retires for the first time: 60 years old (Oct. 26, 1993)
9/11: 67 years old (Sept. 11, 2001)
Michael Jordan plays in his final NBA game: 69 years old (April 16, 2003)
LeBron James plays in his first NBA game: 70 years old (Oct. 29, 2003)
Hubie Brown coaches his final game before resigning from the Memphis Grizzlies: 71 years old (Nov. 25, 2004)
Kobe Bryant plays in his final NBA game: 82 years old (April 13, 2016)
