J. Nelson Brown

During his term as president of the U.S. Men’s Curling Association in 1974-75 the first National Mixed and the first National Junior Men’s Championships were established. Brown developed the idea of the Century and Patron contributions for the National Men’s Championship when it was held at Detroit and the idea was later adopted by the USCA.

 As a director of the national organization he was chairman of the Rules Committee and was instrumental in arriving at as much uniformity as possible throughout the curling world. He had joined the Detroit club in 1944, later serving as its president. He had a sincere interest in helping new curlers learn and love the game and developed an instructional format in the 1950’s, long before the Curl Canada program. He also encouraged ladies to curl at the club. Brown was the club’s spokesman to the City Council when the building was condemned and worked to assure that the club was treated fairly in the forced move.

Brown was the first curler inducted into the Michigan Amateur Sports Hall of Fame in 1974. He played in the U.S. Men’s National Championship seven times and was the third on the 1963 team that went to the Scotch Cup. That team gave Canadian Ernie Richardson his only loss in 22 Scotch Cup games.