Barron Bremner: Too big for just one school

I wish I had known Barron Bremner, really known him. I got to exchange pleasantries with him on occasion over the years, but I haven't covered a lot of small-college sports, and Bremner devoted himself to that. Among many other things.

But I know and have known many people who knew Bremner well. They always spoke of him in fond, admiring, uplifting terms. Always.

Bremner died Sunday. After my preamble here, the following 2001 story from Gazette sportswriter Bob Hilton will help explain to you who he was if you didn't already know.

When Hilton died in 2006, Bremner wrote a letter to the Gazette praising Bob and his career. What Barron wrote in a short letter said a lot.

Two years later, Bremner wrote a letter to the editor criticizing fans who booed Iowa quarterback Jake Christensen in Kinnick Stadium. Bremner played for the 1957 Iowa Rose Bowl football team, and was a wrestler at Iowa. But he found his calling in Linn County, at Cornell College, then at Coe College, then again at Cornell, and then again at Coe. His callings, actually, were people and community.

Here's Bob Hilton's story from February 2001:

CEDAR RAPIDS -- Barron Bremner isn't a story. He's at least a book, and Wednesday he began the epilogue.

Deeply tanned after a week's getaway on the western shore of Mexico, Bremner confirmed Wednesday that, aware he has "many more sunsets behind me than sunrises in my future," he is retiring as athletics director at Coe College.

"I have been fortunate to have 42 years as a college educator," Bremner said. "It has been a great life for me and for my family."

In bringing Bremner to the podium for his farewell remarks, Coe President James Phifer said he was performing "a duty, not something I welcome at all. Barron Bremner is a legend in sports in Eastern Iowa. He has had a positive effect on the lives of thousands of students, scores of colleagues."

Phifer announced that John Chandler, a 15-year member of the Coe athletic staff, will succeed Bremner July 1 on a one-year interim appointment.

Bremner has been at either Coe or Cornell College since his 1959 graduation from the University of Iowa, where he was a heavyweight wrestler and a reserve tackle on the football team.

In 1971, he came to Coe as athletic director, head wrestling coach, assistant football coach, and full professor and chairman of physical education. Bremner returned to Cornell in 1978 as athletic director, head wrestling coach and special assistant to the president.

Bremner suffered two devastating setbacks personally. In 1990, his wife Bette died of a brain aneurysm. Two years later, daughter Beth died in Houston, Texas, after childbirth.

In March 1993, just before his return to Coe, Bremner was inducted into the NCAA Division III Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame.

Asked to recall career highlights, Bremner cited his launching of women's athletic programs at both Coe and Cornell; coaching both schools' wrestling programs to dominance; hiring Marcus Jackson as Coe's head basketball coach in 1971.

Also, presiding over the most successful era in Coe athletics history (22 championship trophies in nine sports 1971-78); taking Coe into the Iowa Conference after 80 years in the Midwest Conference; fueling a rise in Coe student participation in athletics to 33.5 percent (373 of 1,114 during the 1999-2000 academic year), and establishing the Coe Athletic Hall of Fame (in 1974) and the All-American Wall.

When Jackson left three years after arriving, he had taken Coe through a 24-0 season to the NCAA small-college Final Four.

"He trusted you to be a professional and he gave you room to be a professional. He was also a good person," Jackson said. "Sunup to sundown, he set a good example. It's easy to give your all for a man like that."

"I don't recall ever meeting a person who knew Barron and was not positively influenced by him," said Cornell athletic director and football coach Steve Miller, who was a 1961 Rams freshman when he met Bremner . "He has the right way about him, a great natural capacity to encourage and enable people to realize their potential."

BREMNER FILE

Hometown: Knob Lick, Mo.

Years at Coe: 1971-78, director of athletics, chair of physical education department, professor of physical education, head wrestling coach, assistant football coach; 1993-present, director of athletics and assistant to the president

Years at Cornell: 1959-71, wrestling coach, assistant football coach, assistant professor of physical education; 1978-93, vice president of institutional advancement, special assistant to the president, director of athletics, head wrestling coach

Career highlights: Member of Iowa's 1957 Big Ten champion and Rose Bowl football team ... member of the Big Ten champion wrestling team ... 4th in Big Ten championships as a heavyweight ... elected to NCAA Division III National Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame in 1993 ... 196-39-3 career record as wrestling coach ... coached Coe and Cornell to 18 conference titles ... 2-time president of the NCAA Division III National Wrestling Coaches Association.