Public memorial for former Lobo Greg Brown scheduled in the Pit

Greg Brown will get one more sendoff, fittingly in the arena he made so many memories in as a New Mexico basketball legend.

Fans, friends and family of the former Albuquerque High and UNM basketball star are invited to a public Celebration of Life event Saturday in the Pit.

The former point guard died in a single-vehicle car crash west of Albuquerque last month. He was 51.

Saturday’s ceremony will run from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Parking and entry to the event are free. Fans are asked to enter through the northeast entrance of the Pit. UNM suggests parking in the lot on the west side of University Stadium (football stadium) and walking across the street to the Pit.

Brown was a homegrown star who seemed to take on a bit of an everyman status among fans thanks, in part, to not only being local but standing just 5-foot-7, proving to be fearless in a sport dominated by men usually far taller.

“He really adored Albuquerque,” said his daughter, Amaya Brown, the former Cibola High star who played collegiately at Florida State and UNM. “He was just one of the greatest Lobos to ever do it.”

Greg Brown is believed to be just the third sports figure to be honored with a public memorial in the Pit, joining former UNM men’s basketball coach Bob King and boxing Hall of Famer Johnny Tapia.

All three, rightfully, are members of the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame, Brown being inducted in 2008 after not only his storied playing career, but years of coaching youth basketball in the area.

Brown, the 5-foot-7 dynamo, led the Bulldogs to the 1990 Class 4A state championship, starred for two seasons at New Mexico Junior College, then etched his name into state basketball lore as one of the best Lobos ever in a two-year career at UNM (1992-93 and 1993-94). He led UNM to the 1994 WAC Championship and earned both the 1994 WAC Player of the Year award and the Frances Pomeroy Naismith Player of the Year, awarded to the best college player in the country under 6 feet tall.

He averaged 19.3 points and 4.4 assists per game that 1994 season and scored a UNM career-high 42 points in a win over UTEP in the Pit.

Brown started 58 of the 59 games he played in a UNM uniform.

A GoFundMe account has been set up by family friends to help with costs for his services.

Brown will also be honored along with two other former Lobos who died unexpectedly and far too young in the past few months at an exhibition game in the Pit on Tuesday, July 16.

The game will match The Enchantment, a team consisting mostly of players with New Mexico ties that is competing in this month’s winner-take-all $1 million TBT basketball tournament, and a Lobo alumni roster of former players that is expected to include the likes of Tony Snell, Alex Kirk, Kendall Williams and more.

That game will serve as a memorial of sorts for Brown and former Lobos Drew Gordon, who died May 30 in a car crash in Oregon at the age of 33, and Ruben Douglas, who died in April in Costa Rica due to an infection at the age of 44.