Brown Bears | |||
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First season | 1878 | ||
Athletic director | Jack Hayes | ||
Head coach |
Phil Estes 19th year, 112–77 (.593) |
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Stadium | Brown Stadium | ||
Seating capacity | 20,000 | ||
Field surface | Grass | ||
Location | Providence, Rhode Island | ||
NCAA division | Division I FCS | ||
Conference | Ivy League | ||
All-time record | 589–548–40 (.517) | ||
Bowl record | 0–1 (.000) | ||
Conference titles | 4 | ||
Consensus All-Americans | 10 | ||
Colors | Seal Brown, White, and Cardinal |
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Fight song | Ever True | ||
Marching band | Brown University Band | ||
Rivals |
Harvard Crimson Yale Bulldogs Dartmouth Big Green Columbia Lions Penn Quakers |
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Website | BrownBears.com |
The Brown Bears football program is the intercollegiate American football team for Brown University located in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The team competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and are members of the Ivy League. Brown's first football team was fielded in 1878. The team plays its home games at the 20,000 seat Brown Stadium in Providence, Rhode Island. The Bears are coached by Phil Estes.
In the middle of the 1926 season, the “Iron Men” came into being when the same 11 players played against Yale for 60 minutes and a 7-0 win. The next week the same 11 players played without substitution against Dartmouth and won 10-0. Two weeks later the Iron Men played 58 minutes against Harvard, but in the last two minutes the substitutes came in to earn their letters. Brown won all its games that year until the Thanksgiving game against Colgate ended in a 10-10 tie. The famed “Iron Men” were Thurston Towle ’28, Paul Hodge ’28, Orland Smith ’27, Charles Considine ’28, Lou Farber ’29, Ed Kevorkian ’29, Hal Broda ’27, Al Cornsweet ’29, Dave Mishel ’27, Ed Lawrence ’28, and Roy Randall ’28.
Notable alumni not in an NFL Draft include:
The Bears have no national championships, though they do have one undefeated team, the 1926 team, also known as the Iron Men of 1926, finishing 9–0–1 (and winning all three of their Ivy League games), with a 10-10 tie to Colgate in the last game of the season. The Bears have won the Ivy League title four times in their history.
The Bears won their first Ivy League title in 1976, sharing it with Yale while finishing 8-1 on the season, clinching the title with a 28-17 victory over Columbia.
In 1999, the Bears went 9-1 (the most victories since 1926, along with a record seven game winning streak), while beating Columbia 23-6 to share the Ivy League title with Yale.