Jason Brown - Men's Tennis Coach - University of Montana Athletics (2024)

Twitter: @UM_Coach_JBrown
Instagram:@iamj.brown

The 2023-24 season will be the seventh at Montana for head coach Jason Brown, whose teams have enjoyed incredible success on the court and in the classroom since taking over forlegendary coach Kris Nord in 2018, being named Big Sky Coach of the Year in his inaugural season.

He enters the season with a 64-50 overall record with the Griz and a 26-16record in Big Sky Conference matches, with a stellar 32-5 record in home matches. He’s led the Grizzlies to the conference tournament in his first two seasons, and led UM to the tournament title match in 2018.

In 2022 Brown led the Grizzlies to arguably the best season in program history, placing the team in the ITA national weekly rankings for the first time ever for eight-straight weeks (ranked as high as No. 62). Senior Ed Pudney was named Big Sky MVP, finished the year with the highest-ever ITA Mountain Region raking at No. 14, and was named the region's most improved senior. Brown and the Grizzlies advanced to the semifinal of the Big Sky tourney that season, going 5-3 in league play and 15-5 overall, with historic wins over both Boise State and Air Force.

In 2021, Brown’s Grizzlies picked up one of the biggest wins in program history, defeating the No. 62 Gonzaga Bulldogs 4-3 in Spokane and built a 3-1 conference record – highlighted by a Brawl of the Wild win over Montana State. Montana missed a trip to the Big Sky tournament that season due to a tiebreaker decision from the conference. Due to COVID 19, only the top two teams from a Big Sky north and south division advanced.

Montana started the2020 COVID-abbreviated season with an 8-3 record, earning a 4-3 upset over Nevada, and capping the slate with seven-straight wins, including a 2-0 start to Big Sky play. At the time, Montana had also won nine of its last 10 doubles points, a feat no Grizzly team in modern history had accomplished.

In 2019 Montana finished sixth in the standings and reached the Big Sky quarterfinals with a 5-5 record in league play and a 5-2 home record. Max Korkh earned first-team all-conference honors under Brown as a junior.

The 2018 Big Sky Coach of the Year, his first season as head coach was historic on many levels. Brown led the Griz to a perfect 7-0 home record and a second-straight appearance in the Big Sky championship match in the team’s 28th-consecutive tournament appearance. UM had three All-Big Sky selections that season, with two first-team all-conference performers and one second-team all-conference doubles team.

For the first time in program history, a Montana doubles pair earned an ITA national ranking (No. 77) in Brown’s inaugural year, and for just the third time a Grizzly finished with an ITA Mountain Region ranking. Senior Yannick Schmidl also became the first Grizzly to earn an ITA Mountain Region year-end award for the Most Improved Senior.

Brown was officially named the 24th head coach in Griz tennis history when his interim tag was removed in July of 2018. He was elevated from assistant to interim head coach in the summer of 2017 when veteran head coach Kris Nord retired from tennis after 35 years to lead Montana’s golf team.

Under Nord, Brown served as an assistant coach for the Grizzlies since the fall of 2013. In his first year as an assistant he helped lead the Griz to the program’s first-ever Big Sky Conference Championship, advancing on to play Oklahoma in the 2014 NCAA tournament.

As an assistant, Brown helped mentor 2014 Big Sky MVP and first team all-conference pick Andrew Warren as well as 2014 Scholar-Athlete Ethan Vaughn. He also helped develop two-time first-team All-Big Sky selection Semion Branzburg in 2014 and 2015, as well as 2016 first-team all-conference player Victor Casadevall.

Under Brown, Montana tennis has posted some of its most successful results ever in the classroom.

The team claimed the first-ever Dusten Hollist Award for the top overall team GPA in Grizzly Athletics in 2020 with a cumulative team GPA of 3.68, and repeated as Hollist Award winners again in 2021. The ITA also named Brown’s Grizzlies an All-Academic Team in 2018, 19, 20, and 21.

A native of Conrad, Montana, and a University of Montana alum, Brown began his coaching career at the high school level, coaching at both Missoula Big Sky and Missoula Sentinel.

The Brown File