When a college basketball coach once suggested that 6-foot-6, 225-pound Michael Brown would make a good center for his team, Brown quickly corrected him.
"I said, 'Coach, I don't play with my back to the basket. I'm running the (fast) break,'" Brown recalls.
It turns out that was an apt description of the now 61-year-old Nashville native's entire professional career: Never stand still, and always push forward.
Brown comes to the city to head the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Chattanooga (RMHC), flush with experience after being a nonprofit administrator in Nashville, Dallas and Tampa. Most of his career has been spent in YMCA management, but he has also worked in city government in Tampa and, most recently, as an executive with the Epilepsy Foundation of America.
"He's got lots of great idea and great experiences," says Jane Kaylor, the longtime leader of RMHC here, who is retiring later this year.
But it was early lessons learned on a North Nashville basketball court that shaped both his character and his heart for people in need, such as the parents of hospitalized children that occupy the 28 rooms at the RMHC complex near Erlanger hospital. Each year, the house here serves more than 500 families whose children are sick or injured and being treated in local hospitals.
When he was just 12 years old, Brown was present when his older brother died after going into cardiac arrest on a basketball court in Nashville. For Brown, whose mother was a social worker, his brother's death was a trigger that propelled him into helping professions.
Brown excelled at basketball as a young man, starting at Glenciff High School in Nashville and later playing at Aquinas Junior College there. He later went back to college as a 28-year-old to spend his last year of college basketball eligibility at Trevecca Nazarene University, and even once had a tryout with the NBA's Houston Rockets.
Before beginning work as a van driver at the Nashville YMCA, Brown had organized summer sports camps for inner-city kids while he was still a restaurant worker.
Once acclimated to a nonprofit job, he quickly climbed the administrative ladder in Nashville. Through his job as an administrator at the YMCA, he earned a reputation in the midstate for bringing leaders of social service agencies together to create efficiencies and to serve more children.
In Dallas, he received national press attention for instituting a swimming program through the YMCA that taught more than 3,000 children a year how to swim.
Brown, who is pursuing a doctorate, says he was not planning to return to Tennessee for the final phase of his career, but was contacted by a recruitment company about the RMHC position here.
"I applied (for the job) will little understanding and interest at the time," he says, "only to gain momentum each time I spoke with a representative from Chattanooga.
"Then, it became obvious to me this was more than an opportunity to continue my career. This was an actual calling for me, and I felt it every step of the way. God was directing me and guiding me to this place."
Brown replaces Jane Kaylor, longtime leader of RMHC here who will retire in September. Kaylor, who has led the charity here for more than three decades, became CEO after losing a young daughter to cancer.
Brown says that before he starts fundraising in earnest for the RMHC operation he wants to go through a period of "friend-raising" in which he hopes to educate more people about the good work done at the Ronald McDonald House.
Fast Facts
Name: Michael BrownHometown: NashvillePosition: President and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater ChattanoogaAge: 61Family: Five children, two step-childrenEducation: Masters of Nonprofit Management, Springfield College, MassachusettsHobbies: Hiking, travel, jazz and blues music
"Helping people in trying times, my whole career has been built around that," he says. "My big thing is that I need more friends than ever before in Chattanooga."
Brown says he is overjoyed to be in Chattanooga for the "back nine of my career."
"I'm here to transition and move things forward," says Brown.
Spoken like a true point guard.
Kaylor leaves a lasting legacy at Ronald McDonald
Jane Kaylor's name is synonymous with the Ronald McDonald House Charities in Chattanooga. The founding president and CEO will step down later this year after 33 years at the helm.
Kaylor became involved with RMHC a few years after losing her 9-year-old daughter, Lori, to leukemia in 1984. Now, she hands off her duties secure in the knowledge that the 35,000-square-foot house is in good shape, physically and economically.
In her final weeks on the job, Kaylor shared some of her thoughts about retirement with Chatter.
Chatter Magazine: What does retiring feel like after so many years?
Jane Kaylor: I have to admit it may be a little harder than I thought it was going to be ... I took the whole year of 2021 and wrote a little journal of all the things that I do that nobody really knew that I did.
Chatter: What do you know about your successor, Michael Brown?
Kaylor: He is certainly very capable, and he doesn't need much of my help at all ... He's got lots of great ideas, lots of great experiences ... I'm trying to do whatever he needs to set him up for success ... I feel like God is sending him (here), and he's the right one.
Chatter: Brown lost a brother at a young age, and you lost your daughter. Do you think life experiences like those help you empathize with the folks that come through Ronald McDonald House?
Kaylor: ... I can put myself right in their shoes; especially with our oncology families that are here from out of town ... I think those kinds of experiences help you put things in perspective for the families we serve.
... One of my sayings has always been, "We need to err on the side of compassion." ... [Brown] is going to bring that same kind of thought.
Chatter: Do you have some bittersweet feelings: sadness about closing one part of your life mixed with satisfaction for what Ronald McDonald House has become?
Kaylor: ... There is true satisfaction in where it is right now. Surviving COVID was a big thing, coming out of it financially sound. [And] with the renovations [ongoing], we've got the building in really good shape.
... I don't really have any regrets. The nice thing about leaving is that I can go back and be a volunteer. I can cook for a crowd, not everybody can ... I don't have to just totally walk away.
Chatter: Is walking through the house now just one big memory to you?
Kaylor: There isn't a spot in that house I haven't touched, cleaned or mopped. In the early days, I was the only one there. The house is dear to me. Every inch of it.