'Who is Chucky Brown?' Introducing NC State's new men's basketball radio analyst

As Charles Barkley once asked, “Who is Chucky Brown?”

Only one of the most beloved players of NC State basketball’s Jim Valvano era.

So last week’s announcement that Brown would become the new radio color analyst for NC State men’s basketball brought smiles to the faces of anyone who remembers an accomplished player and big personality from one of the most successful decades of Wolfpack athletics.

And it gives the Wolfpack Sports Network’s broadcast crew the distinction of having one of the youngest announcers and most basketball-experienced announcers in all of college athletics.

At the age of 14, Brown knows a lot of basketball for someone so young.

Yeah, yeah, yeah … most places list Brown at 57, but Pack fans who remember the playing career of the jangly-jointed forward from New York City by way of Navassa, North Carolina, knows he is one of the most successful athletes in any sport who was born on Feb. 29. (NC State has another Leap Day star, Olympic gold medalist swimmer Cullen Jones.)

Brown, who won NC State’s Jon Speaks Award for being the best teammate his senior year, has always been a good guy to play with and crowd favorite. During the late 1980s, his loping gait was instantly recognizable walking across the Brickyard, especially when the weather turned cool and he began wearing his trademark knit hat.

A former Mr. Basketball in North Carolina, an All-Atlantic Coast Conference and ACC tournament and regular-season champion player for Valvano from 1985-89, an NBA and CBA champion in 1994-95, Brown was the perfect Valvano player: Underrated by the experts, just kooky enough to be called a “character,” coachable enough to earn first-team honors on a team that won the 1989 ACC regular-season title.

A letterman for four years, Brown played 128 games and went to four NCAA Championship tournaments with the Wolfpack. He scored 1,357 career points, a total that still ranks 25^th in school history, and shot 55.7 percent from the field in his NC State career, a mark that is fourth all-time in the program record book.

Brown was an unlikely basketball star. Having grown up in Harlem, Brown lived in New York until he was 15 years old. When his father, Clarence Brown Sr., retired from his job as a New York City bus driver, the family moved to the North Carolina coast, across the Cape Fear River from Wilmington, where he became a star at Leland’s North Brunswick High School.

He knew early on that he wanted to play for Valvano, who once called him to the front of Reynolds Coliseum to cheerfully give him a summer camp award until he saw that Brown was wearing a “Property of UNC Basketball” cutoff T-shirt and a pair of Duke basketball shorts. Valvano held the award until Brown turned the shirt inside out.

“My parents thought he was crazy,” Brown once said. “I knew he was, and I knew I wanted to play for him.”

As an NBA player, Brown toiled for 12 different franchises during a 13-season professional career, not to mention time in the Continental Basketball Association and a brief stint overseas.

“There’s somebody on every team I have played with,” Brown said near the end of his career.

In 1995, Brown was called up from the CBA’s Yakima (Washington) Sun Kings to play for the Houston Rockets, signed to a pair of 10-day contracts to fill the holes left by a handful of injured players.

Famously during the Western Conference finals that year, Brown was assigned to defend All-NBA star Barkley.

“Who is Chucky Brown?” Barkley asked. “I don’t even know him.”

It didn’t take Barkley long to find out, as the Rockets won Game 4 in overtime and Barkley apologized to Brown for the public slight before Game 5. Brown played well enough during his 61 games to earn an additional year-long contract, at the end of which he was included in a three-player deal for Barkley.

“I ended up being a key player that year [1994-95], and I got to play for my ring,” said Brown, who was the Rockets’ sixth man.

Brown actually won two championships that year, since Yakima went on to win the CBA crown. Brown, who played almost the entire season with the Sun Kings, got a ring for that title too, becoming only the second player in history to win titles with two teams the same season.

Brown joined John Ritcher and Chuck Nevitt as the first three former Wolfpack players to win an NBA championship.

After the NBA, Brown and his wife settled down in Cary, North Carolina, to raise three athletic daughters, the youngest of which is currently playing basketball at Lenoir Rhyne College in Hickory.

He filled his time as a high school, college and professional coach, as a youth league referee, an NBA scout and a part-time television announcer, building an incredibly well-rounded resume for understanding the game.

Now, he’ll take over a seat that Tony Haynes has filled since 1998, joining one-time teammate Chris Corchiani as the only former State players to serve as color analysts for men’s basketball on the Wolfpack Radio Network. Another former teammate, Ernie Myers ’87 (interpersonal communications), is the color analyst for women’s basketball.

He’ll be the second new voice in as many years for the Wolfpack Sports Network, as play-by-play announcer Matt Chazanow took over for Gary Hahn before the 2024 football season.

“[I’m] super excited to work with Chucky,” Chazanow says. “Not only is he an all-time great but he’s an experienced broadcaster. Chucky has been analyzing national games for Compass Media at the highest level of college basketball.

“He brings elite perspective, a wide range of broadcast experience and has been so fun to talk ball to. He loves the Pack. I feel grateful to be able work with him and excited to get to know him better.”

Brown also has coaching experience, working in the World Basketball Association, in the NBA’s D-League, at West Johnson High School and at Raleigh HBCU St. Augustine’s until the school’s athletics department went under with the school.

And that’s who Chucky Brown is.

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at [email protected].

Full-time radio announcers (since 1948)

Wally Ausley (1948-90): Play-by-play and color analyst for football and men’s basketball on the Tobacco Radio network, the Wolfpack Radio Network and others.

Bill Jackson (1961-74): Play-by-play for football and men’s basketball.

Garry Dornburg (1975-97): NC State graduate in English, color commentator for football and men’s basketball.

C.A. Dillon (1950-61): NC State graduate in English, play-by-play announcer for various local radio stations and the Tobacco Radio Network before the Wolfpack Radio Network began in 1961.

Jim Reid (1950-61): Color analyst for the Ausley and other local announcers, later mayor of Raleigh.

Reese Edwards (1973-74): Took over for an ailing Jackson as  play-by-play announcer of the ACC- and NCAA-champion Wolfpack.

Johnny Evans (1984-present): Former NC State quarterback, punter and graduate who serves as color analyst for Wolfpack football.

Gary Hahn (1990-2024): Play-by-play announcer for football and men’s basketball who retired following the 2023-24 season in which State won both the ACC title and advanced to the Final Four.

Chris Corchiani (1996-97): Former Wolfpack point guard filled in as a color announcer during the 1996-97 season and the ACC tournament for an ailing Dornburg.

Tony Haynes (1998-2025): Raleigh native and NC State graduate in speech communications who served as men’s basketball analyst and football sideline analyst.

Matt Chazanow (2024-present): Play-by-play announcer for football and men’s basketball.

Chucky Brown (2025-present): Former star player at NC State and NBA champion just named the color analyst for men’s basketball.

Others who have announced football and men’s basketball games: Lin Dawson (football), Patrick Kinas (men’s and women’s basketball), Neil Solonz (men’s basketball), Mark Thomas (football), Andrew Sanders (men’s and women’s basketball), Ernie Myers (men’s and women’s basketball).