AT POOLSIDE: Penn's Brown ends remarkable career in style

Jeff Brown ended his career with the Quakers with arms raised in exaltation as he stood on top of the victors stand one final time. The senior co-captain left the sport of swimming a winner this past weekend, but only after the final chapter of his career took an unexpected route. The Eastern Championships, held last weekend in Princeton, were supposed to be Brown's time to add three more titles to the four he already owned, but an unexpected defeat on Friday night in the 200-yard freestyle altered the complexion of the meet. After winning the 500-yard freestyle with ease on Thursday night, Brown's third-place finish in the 200-yard free on Friday left Quakers coaches, teammates and spectators standing in near silence. Beaten by a foe he had floated by in the 500, the hoard of titles with Brown's name practically already inscribed had just been cut by one-third. "I figured in a shorter race like the 200 that it would just happen like it had with the 500," Brown said. "And it didn't happen, and I had big expectations. I was forced to reconcile my expectations with what had happened. I had an up and I had a down, and the key was to respond well Saturday night in the 200-fly." The loss set the stage for a triumphant closure to Brown's career when he returned Saturday night to show the league why "he far surpasses any swimmer we ever had in many ways," according to the Quakers' 14-year coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert. In his morning qualifying swim, Brown darted out to a quick lead during the first 100 yards, and then coasted to the finish. Even with his untaxing effort, Brown qualified as one of only four swimmers to finish in under 1:51. As he walked to his starting block Saturday to the roar of the Penn faithful, Brown looked focused and ready while his expected rival, J.P. Norvell of Princeton, shouted to him from the lane next to him, "Let's do this right here, right now." One minute, 47.09 seconds later, Brown had gotten it on to a tune of a pool record and a sixth-career Easterns title. "I realized that when I was relaxed I did really well," Brown said. "In the 500 I was very relaxed. The 200-free I got into what I needed to do first 50, second 50, third 50, and I got so into that, that I was scared that what I wanted to happen wouldn't happen. It backfired on me. "So Saturday night I was really relaxed. If that came off as intense or focussed, it wasn't. By not being so focused on the specifics of the race? I think I did myself a big favor. I learned something profound in the last hour of my swimming career. It's not a topic that you can sit down and write a paragraph on how to win, it's such a broad thing, but I took a big chunk out of what it was to win and how to win. This year I just relaxed. The real dividends paid off in the second hundred. It came down to me having a body-length lead and it was a hundred butterfly, and I held on to it. It was a victory over self-doubt, over the 200-loss." Before the night was over, Brown had also won the Phil Moriarty Award as the meet's highest individual point scorer and the Harold S. Ulen Award as highest four-year, cumulative point scorer. "Jeffrey winning those awards makes us all very proud, and the University of Pennsylvania should be very proud," Lawlor-Gilbert said. "In the past I probably would have been pretty reserved, pretty humble about it, and for a long time I really didn't respect that award," Brown said. "If I couldn't get enough out of the swim outright, then a high point award wasn't going to make swimming great. "This year I didn't worry about the ethical implications of it, just go out there and let the emotions flow. If people think you are a cocky guy, this isn't about them. This year I let the emotions go." Brown leaves the Quakers program as a four-time All-League and Academic All-League selection. Brown leaves his career at peace with how the final weekend of his season culminated. "Beforehand I would have said, yeah, I want to win three events, but in retrospect I realize that down period made the end even better," he said. "To have it turn out the way it did, I was able to walk away a winner in a bigger sense, I was ineffably happy."

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