Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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Under the Dome Dean Brown: 1968-2012 Five days after enjoying his alma mater finishing No. 1 with a 12-0 regular season, former Notre Dame offensive right tackle Dean ���Big Happy��� Brown passed away suddenly at the age 44 on Nov. 29. Brown started every game for the 12-0 national champs in 1988 and also for the 12���1 team that finished No. 2 ��� the only two Fighting Irish teams until this season to win 12 games. A mainstay during the school-record 23-game winning streak, Brown was the Louis Nix III of his time with his gregarious personality. The 6-3, 291-pound Brown was the largest starter, but he also served as ���Happy Baby New Day��� in a Dillon Hall ritual on the eve of finals when everyone gathered outside the hall���s doors before a midnight countdown. ���As they count down, [Happy Baby New Day] is lowered from the second floor like the Big Ball in New York [on New Year���s Eve],��� Brown told Blue & Gold Illustrated in 1988. ���The guy only has a makeshift diaper and a cape ��� but I don���t let them lower me. I don���t think I���d trust them. So I just run outside into the crowd.��� Dozens of former teammates and coaches gathered at his Dec. 6 funeral in Canton, Ohio, where he had been a Parade All-American at McKinley High. After a brief NFL career, Brown was a manager for 11 years at Fannie Mae in Chicago. In 2003, he was hired as the Dean of Friendship Public Charter School, the largest such school in inner city Washington, D.C. In August 2012, Dean returned home to Ohio after being selected as principal of Nexus Academy in Cleveland. Brown was actively involved in Sunday School teaching and Big Brothers even at Notre Dame. Quarterback Tony Rice, who enrolled at Notre Dame the same year as Brown (1986), was his campus roommate. ���I wanted to go home many times,��� said Rice, a Brown South Carolina native who was ineligible to play his freshman season. ���But Dean was always there to help me. It���s hard to find such good people. ���It hurts deeply to lose him, but even at his funeral, it was a time of rejoicing, brotherly love and laughter, because we knew he wouldn���t want us feeling sorry for him. He was too young to go, but it just shows there are never any guarantees to anything.��� Brown���s survivors include his wife of 19 years, Brenda, daughters Alyssa (14) and Lauren (12), his parents (Saundra and Ed) and a brother, Michael.