In the fall of 1978, back when Dewick-MacPhie Dining Center moonlighted as a pub several nights a week, when housing issues forced 300 unlucky Tufts underclassmen to shuttle back and forth every day from their residence at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Harvard Square and when the University President, nutritionist Jean Mayer, gave speeches with a sharp French accent, a handsome, shaggy-haired sophomore known to his friends as Scotty Brown once scored 35 points in a home game against Bowdoin, carrying the Jumbos to a 92-78 win.
The details of how Brown scored these points are not included in the Athletics Department's archives, but odds are they came from a flurry of long-distance jump shots from the wings and baseline of Cousens Gymnasium. These types of shots would today count for three points, but back then, before the nationwide institution of the 3-point line in 1986, a shot from way back, or "downtown," earned the same two points as a dunk did.
No matter: For Downtown Scotty Brown, now U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.) in the midst of a tight race for re-election, drilling a silky left-handed jump shot while wearing a Tufts basketball jersey was as routine as tapping in a lay-up.
'I could let my hair down'
Brown (LA '81) chose to attend Tufts largely because of the University's proximity to his home in nearby Wakefield, Mass. Wakefield was a 10- to 15-minute drive from campus - close enough for Brown, upon receiving an emergency call, to quickly get home to protect his mother and sister from stepfathers who were often drunk and violent, according to his memoir "Against All Odds" (2011).
Brown publically revealed the difficulties of his childhood for the first time in his book, which was published the year after the Tufts grad rose to national prominence by beating out Massachusetts Attorney General and democrat Martha Coakley for the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy. He was the first Republican to win a Senate seat in liberal-leaning Massachusetts since 1972.
In his book, Brown recounts growing up in a poor, single-parent home, moving 17 times before his 18th birthday and defending his family from a slew of abusive stepfathers since he was only six years old.
Through this troubling time Brown found solace on the basketball court, where he earned the "Downtown Scotty Brown" moniker as a star at Wakefield High School. Brown was recruited to play basketball and received full financial aid to attend Tufts. Along with majoring in history and minoring in political science, Brown pursued a range of extracurricular activities on campus after moving into Wren Hall as a freshman.
"One of the things I loved about Tufts was that I could kind of let my hair down, and not just be an athlete, but explore any type of musical talents I had and have a good social life," Brown told the Daily over the phone last week.
These musical talents included playing the role of Hero in the musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," Brown said, as well as singing in the Jazz Choir.
"[The choir was] an a cappella group, basically," he said. "Not like the Bubs, a step below that, but it was a coed group and we'd go out and do shows in Greater Boston. It was a lot of fun."
Brown was so passionate about the Choir that, although he was unable to participate during his senior year, he expected to continue his musical career and "[make] millions on the album I hope to cut with the group," he told the Daily in an article published Feb. 27, 1981.
Though Brown's musical career did not pan out, he has found more success in another activity he began to engage in as a Jumbo - politics.
Brown filled his first political seat at Tufts, when he was elected as a Tufts Community Union (TCU) senator. The role of the TCU Senate apparently hasn't changed much in three decades, as Brown remembered arguing about how to better allocate the Student Activities Fee and provide improved campus safety, issues that remain relevant on campus today.
"Back then, they were talking about increasing student fees and not using them on things we wanted," Brown said. "I wanted to make sure we got a good value for our student activity dollars. They would hold events and no one would show up."
Brown was a junior for the campus' first-ever Spring Fling in 1980, the result of a TCU budget surplus. Over 30 years later, the Senator was able to recall the name of the first Spring Fling headliner: Pousette Dart Band.
"That was one of the things we were talking about. We wanted to do things that were more outdoorsy and community-oriented," Brown said. "[Spring Fling] brought the entire Tufts community together."
When he wasn't in class, singing, playing basketball or at a TCU Senate meeting, Brown held jobs, as part of his work-study program, at the Dewick-MacPhie Pub and at Cousens Gym, and was a proud brother at Zeta Psi fraternity, where he recalls fondly hanging out on Thursday nights for "chico" parties in the basement.
"Back then, it was a well-rounded group of guys. You had athletes, engineers, brainiacs, all different types. That's why I joined," he said.
Not the best student in the class, but a hard worker
University Professor Sol Gittleman, who taught the same "Introduction to Yiddish Culture" course during Brown's time at Tufts that he still teaches today, said he remembers a 20-year-old Brown often dropping by his office hours to catch up on work he missed due to athletic conflicts.
"He was a decent student, a good student, a regular attendant," Gittleman said. "I tell the ballplayers, if you miss class, I want to know about it. He and I spent time together because he missed a few lectures."
Having grown up in Wakefield, a town without a sizable Jewish population, Brown had his first interaction with Jewish culture through Gittleman's course, which Brown, like many current Tufts students, referred to as "YidLit."
"Being able to take YidLit and understand the challenges of the state of the state of Israel and the Jewish people, it was eye-opening," Brown said. "[Gittleman] had, and still has, a wonderful, folksy way of teaching and challenging us at the same time."
Professor of English and American History Howard Malchow recalled Brown as a hard worker and engaging personality in his Victorian History class.
"He was the kind of student you like to teach, a pleasant person to talk to," Malchow said. "He was a popular guy as an undergrad, because he was a captain of the basketball team, but in class he was a serious student."
Near the end of Brown's college career, as he mulled over pursuing a modeling career to help pay his way through graduate school, he stopped by Gittleman's office to ask for advice, according to Gittleman.
"He's a good-looking guy, handsome, and I do recall we had some kind of conversation about his modeling," Gittleman said. "He wasn't a rich kid, and the chance came up to make some money modeling. No one had ever asked him to do that before."
Though he received full financial aid, Brown was still hurting financially throughout his college career. Besides his work-study jobs, the future Senator would sometimes accept $10 from his resident advisor to clean vomit off of the Wren Hall steps, according to his book.
Brown's modeling career ended up being a smashing success, of course. The U.S. Senator won a nationwide contest to pose nude for a spread in Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1982, which launched a decade-long career as a model that helped Brown pay his way through Boston College Law School and support his mother and sister.
Scoring from 'downtown'
Brown made an impact on Tufts' basketball team from the moment he arrived in the fall of 1977. The young lefty was named a starter during his first year, immediately impressing coaches with his unshakeable belief in his long-range jumper, according to the team's then-head coach John White (LA '74).
"From the moment he came on campus, he felt like he belonged, like he could compete with the upperclassmen," White said. "For someone who struggled so much off the court, he had a terrific confidence."
Brown averaged 9.9 points over 93 games at Tufts, according to statistics compiled by the Athletics Department. He had 923 career points and shot at just over 50 percent from the field, which places him at No. 14 on Tufts' all-time field goal percentage list. The U.S. Senator's highlights included matching his 35 points against Bowdoin with another 35-point performance at Brandeis in his senior year, a game capped by a last-second shot to beat the Judges from 30 feet away, according to an article published in the Daily on Feb. 17, 1981.
"Of course I remember [the game-winner]," Brown said last week. "We had some battles with the Judges for sure. They were one of our rivals back then."
White described Brown as a tough, scrappy player who inspired teammates with his hustle. He led the team in charges all four years of his career, White said, and was always prepared to sacrifice his body for the sake of the team, or to take a big shot in a key moment. Though White described Brown as less athletically gifted than some other players on the team, Brown became co-captain of the team as a senior, and missed just three games during his college career. He accomplished all of this as a long-distance shooter playing before the nationwide institution of the 3-point-line.
"If we had had the 3-point shot, not only would Scott have been better, but it would have opened up everything for our players inside," White said.
Regardless, the men's basketball team went 59-37 in the four years that Brown was on campus, and boasted a 3-1 record against historically dominant Williams, according to the Athletics Department's archives - a rivalry renewed when Brown beat out Coakley, a Williams grad, for the Senate seat in 2010.
The team was often nationally ranked, White said, and was comprised of players from such a large multi-cultural spectrum that the team was sometimes known as "Team U.N.," Brown said.
"We were black, white, Asian, Latino - gosh, I think there were a couple folks from the Middle East," Brown said. "And a lot of challenges went along with it, especially when we were on the road traveling. But it brought us together tighter as a unit."
Brown's experience growing up in a single-parent home without a father figure resonated with many other players on the team, according to White.
"He found out that other people had problems too," White said. "A lot of the kids on our team from the inner city came from single-parent homes, had similar backgrounds. Basketball became a vehicle for all of those kids to win together and sometimes cry together."
Three decades later
A lot has changed in Brown's life over the past 30 years. He has gone from TCU Senator to U.S. Senator, long-range shooter in Cousens Gym to long shot in earning a place in Congress as a Republican senator from Massachusetts.
Since his graduation in 1981, Brown said that he has been back on the Tufts campus a few times. He has played in alumni basketball games and was married in Goddard Chapel. Whenever he is in town, Brown enjoys driving by campus, and he hopes to check out the new Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center in the near future.
Today's Tufts students, many of whom tend to lean left on the political spectrum, might not flood the polls on Tuesday in support of their fellow Jumbo. Still, the republican who once donned a Tufts jersey and harbored dreams of making it big with our Jazz choir will always have a soft spot for our university.
- with Hannah Fingerhut
