By Mike London
Salisbury Post
MOUNT ULLA — Friday, October 3, was one of those nights when Johnny Brown wanted to be in two places at the same time.
East Rowan was dedicating its stadium to W.A. Cline, Brown’s high school head football coach. On the other side of the county, Brown’s granddaughter, Olyvia Brown, was on West Rowan’s homecoming court.
“Oh, there wasn’t anyway I wasn’t going to go see Olyvia,” Brown said. “That’s family. I called my teammate Steve Staton and explained why I couldn’t be there with the football team. He understood.”
In a few months — he’s still awaiting the email that will tell him the exact time and date — Johnny Brown will have just one place he needs to be. That will be another big night for the Brown family, as he’s inducted into the North Carolina Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He’ll be part of the Class of 2026.
“I didn’t even know there was a Wrestling Hall of Fame until recently,” Brown said. “David Rothwell called and told me he wanted to nominate me.”
Rothwell, the former Albemarle, Asheboro and Statesville coach and administrator who already has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, made an appearance to make the Hall of Fame announcement at one of West Rowan’s recent matches. The good news was a surprise for Brown, who was in the gym to watch his son (John) coach the Falcons and to see Olyvia wrestle for West’s girls squad.
“I really like to win,” Johnny said with a laugh. “When John first went over to West as the wrestling coach, they weren’t doing all that well, so I didn’t go to a lot of matches. But then they started winning. I don’t miss many matches now. I will say that “girls wrestling” is not something I ever expected to see, but Olyvia works hard at it and she’s good at it. She lifts weights and is very strong for her size. You still see a lot of girls teams where they only have two girls or maybe four girls and there are 12 weight classes for the girls. But West has a full team. I saw the Panther Creek team not long ago, and that was the best girls team I’ve ever seen. Olyvia won her match, though.”
Brown is being inducted into the Hall mostly for his 30 years of service to wrestling as an official, although he was a strong wrestler in his day and made quality contributions for many years as a coach. Most of his coaching career was spent at Corriher-Lipe Middle School in Landis. He was at Corriher-Lipe for about 15 years and sent some good wrestlers to South Rowan High. He started the wrestling program at Corriher-Lipe and also got the sport started at North Rowan Middle. He also coached some at East Rowan.
“I was only a fair wrestler myself,” Brown said. “I was nowhere near the wrestler that my son John became when he was at East Rowan in the early 1990s. John went to all the camps growing up. He learned the craft, learned everything you could learn about the sport and he became a state champion. I just went out there and wrestled.”
Brown is being modest. Back in the day, he competed well in the wrestling-rich Western North Carolina High School Activities Association.
“I wrestled at 145 pounds,” Brown said. “North Rowan had a guy named Roger Morgan who used to wear me out. I did finish fourth in the WNCHSAA in 1969.”
Brown is listed in the 1968 East Rowan football program as a 5-foot-4, 145-pound linebacker. That was the season that East Rowan integrated with halfback Jerry Sifford, fullback June Sifford and lineman Willie Lowe. It was also the season that East welcomed sophomores CM Yates and Johnny Yarbrough to the squad. It was also the season in which Cline guided the Mustangs to their first ever conference championship.
Rowan football fans can tell you what happened in the fall of 1969. East went 13-0 and won the WNCHSAA championship, something no Rowan team had ever done and something North Piedmont Conference teams — other than Mooresville, the NPC was all rural schools – rarely did.
Johnny Brown was a big part of that season. They nicknamed the fireplug linebacker “Pine Knot” because he was as tough a player as anyone could remember seeing. In the 1969 regular season, East allowed 43 points in 10 games. That’s still the school record.
Teams sometimes allow 43 points in a half now.
Brown went on to college at Western Carolina University. That’s also where his son went to school — and his grandson. Max Brown was a good athlete for the Falcons, competing in football, wrestling and tennis. He’s now a student at WCU.
“Western Carolina is kind of a family habit,” Johnny Brown. “Proud of Max. He’s a good boy.”
Johnny Brown began his career as a football official while he was still a student at Western Carolina in 1973. He retired from officiating football just a few years ago.
“I officiated football games for 50 years,” Brown said. “I’m not saying I did it continuously for 50 years, but I did officiate games over a 50-year period. I got to work a lot with really good men. Randy Allen, Larry Cesario, Sarge Linder, Gary McNeely, Rodney Callaway. Those fellows are gone now.”
Becoming a wrestling official was a natural fit for Brown. The late Bob Mauldin, Mr. Wrestling in the state and the long-time publisher of the groundbreaking N.C. Mat News, a publication that linked all of the state’s coaches in the 1970s, was his booking agent for many years. In the big tournaments, Brown usually worked with the late Jerry Mills, with Cecil Mock or with West Lamoureaux.
“I got to officiate the state tournament six times,” Brown said. “I thought that was a pretty big deal, but then Lamoureaux told me he’d worked more than 30.”
Brown said the match he still thinks about the most was one between South Iredell and Mooresville, with a lot at stake. Brown actually decided that tight match, by enforcing a penalty on a stalling heavyweight. He doesn’t regret it. He did what he felt he had to do.
“Both coaches (South’s Iredell’s Bill Mayhew and Mooresville’s Jim Christy) were friends and men I respected a great deal,” Brown said. “But when you’re the referee, and there’s stalling going on at crunch time, you just can’t allow that. You have to do something.”
John Brown was built slim, like, his mother, but he inherited the Pine Knot’s tenacity. In 1992, he was 3A state champ as a 103-pound sophomore. As a 119-pound senior, he was the Dutch Meyer Award winner as the finest wrestler in Rowan County. Brown went into the state championships in 1994 with a 32-0 record but suffered a shoulder injury that probably denied him a second state title. He learned wrestling from Barry Justus and he learned tennis from Worth Roberts, two East Rowan institutions.
After he graduated from Western Carolina, he went into teaching. At China Grove Middle School in 1998, he became not only a rookie teacher but a wrestling coach and tennis coach. That’s an unusual combination, but Brown was uniquely qualified.
He made the move to West Rowan in 2004. There have been a lot of wrestling championships and a handful of tennis championships for the Falcons during his coaching tenure. He’s been Coach of the Year more times than anyone can count.
The Pine Knot has enjoyed watching John thrive as a coach. He’s enjoyed watching his grandchildren excel in Falcon Blue.
The Pine Knot had another son, later in life. Chance Brown stood out for East Rowan in a number of sports, including tennis, a decade ago.
“I used to go yell at Chance’s tennis matches,” Johnny Brown said. “Then they explained to me that you weren’t supposed to do that.”
You can’t blame Johnny Brown for yelling. He’s been all-in, in everything he ever did, playing, coaching or officiating.
“I’m going into the Wrestling Hall of Fame more for my refereeing than anything else,” he said. “I can honestly tell you that every match I ever officiated, I did it to the very best of my ability.”
