Oct. 19, 2000

Rick Brewer Has Been the Best of All Mentors

By Dave Lohse
Director of Media Relations for Olympic Sports

The first time I ever met Rick Brewer, I was wearing a really bad leisure suit. It's amazing he ever hired me in retrospect. Of course, I thought the suit was pretty cool. I had seen an ad for the suit in Gentleman's Quarterly and hey, GQ couldn't be that far off. What was I thinking back then?

It was March of 1977. I was a senior at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. and I had my heart set on coming to Chapel Hill the following fall for graduate school. During my spring break my senior year at good ole PU, I ventured to Chapel Hill for the second time in my life, talked to the folks in the graduate school and made my decision. I wanted to be a Tar Heel.

Since I had worked for three years as an undergraduate in the sports information office at Purdue I thought a job in the SID office at UNC might be a good way to supplement my income. So I ventured over to Carmichael Auditorium and walked in to ask Rick Brewer for a job. At that time the SID office was one room "big" and Rick's office was wedged in the back corner. It was a converted closet. The most sophisticated machinery in the office included an electric typewriter and a telecopier.

For some reason Rick hired me despite that really bad suit I was wearing. He was a sincerely compassionate man for doing so. And for 23 years since then I have come to know how truly compassionate a man Rick Brewer is. Now he does not want to claim to be such a person. All of us who know Rick are quite aware that he tries to eschew all of the honors and platitudes that have come his way in his life.

That is just his nature. He is the master of playing off a compliment into a quick joke or a self depricating comment. That's simply his humble way. After 32 years of service to the UNC Athletic Department as an assistant sports information director, sports information director, an assistant athletic director and an associate athletic director, Rick Brewer opted for early retirement on February 1, 2000. He now works 20 hours a week as the University's sports information director emeritus and let me tell you the University is getting a big bargain for whatever they are paying him now.

While Rick has won more than his fair share of honors in his life, I doubt that those awards mean as much to him as the gifts he has made to the sports information profession. And what has probably been most important to Rick in all of those 32 years has been the help and the assistance he has given to the close to 200 full-time and student employees he supervised during that time. I don't want to speak for Rick but my gut feeling is that it is those relationships he has valued the most.

Now don't get me wrong about the honors Rick has won in his lifetime. Rick was inducted into the College Sports Information Directors of America Hall of Fame in 1991. He served as an officer for seven years in the rotation for CoSIDA. In that role he advocated for change in the organization and was one of the groups most progressive presidents ever. And just a year ago CoSIDA presented Rick the Arch Ward Award for lifetime achievement in college sports information. Those honors are well deserved.

And so this weekend more than 100 of Rick's former student assistants and assistant sports information directors in the UNC SID office will gather on campus to fete the man who mentored them and helped them achieve so much in their chosen professions. On Friday afternoon a luncheon will honor Rick at the Carolina Club to announce the founding of the Rick Brewer Scholarship in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University. A total of 220 donors have contributed to the scholarship fund and the first grant will be awarded in the fall of 2001.

And on Friday night a crowd of around 120 folks which include former employees and other well wishers will be on hand as the sports information office holds its first ever reunion. Rick will be the guest of honor of course and he will be there to play the event off with his usual humor.

But ever the master story teller he will also be coaxed into telling some of his classic stories of life in the SID office at Carolina over the past 32 years.

It is rare when we in life are given the opportunity to give a man his true due in life. I hope the events of this weekend will do part of that job for Rick. I doubt that Rick will ever fully comprehend the positive effect he has had on the lives of so many people in his profession and in the media. Hopefully this weekend's activities will let him know how we feel about him.

I think I speak for the nearly 200 folks who have worked in the SID office at Carolina over the past 32 years when I say thanks. That hardly seems enough for a man who has had such a positive influence on us. But I think, deep in crevices of Rick's mind, he knows how sincere that thank you truly is.