Charlie Brown's father had been a standout football player at Vanderbilt, but Charles H. Brown Sr. encouraged his son to play at Georgia Tech instead.
"My grandfather had a lot of respect for Coach Bobby Dodd because he had a highly regarded program at Tech and because of his reputation as a character-builder," said Charlie Brown's son, Charles Hunt Brown III of Atlanta.
"Dad was a lineman in both high school and college in the 1940s when linemen weren't nearly as big as they are now," Hunt Brown said. "Dad was 6 feet, 2 inches, but weighed only 195 pounds at the time.
"Competition for spots on the team was stiff, what with vets going to college after World War II, guys who were older, tougher and meaner than boys like Dad not long out of high school," the son said. "Dad redshirted his junior year, then played varsity center in the 1949 and 1950 seasons."
Mr. Brown was proud to have played on the first Tech team to beat Georgia "between the hedges," a 7-0 decision at Sanford Stadium in 1950. He also savored the fact that the win and Tech's 7-6 victory in 1949 were the first two of eight successive Tech defeats of the Bulldogs, his son said.
Mr. Brown stayed in football after graduation, officiating high school contests for several years before becoming an umpire for the Southeastern Conference from 1961 to 1976. During that period, he officiated at several bowl games. The most memorable one, his son said, was the 1966 Sugar Bowl, won by the Missouri Tigers in a 20-18 squeaker over the Florida Gators.
Charles Hunt Brown Jr., 83, died Thursday at his Dunwoody home of leukemia. His funeral will be at 11 a.m. Monday at Dunwoody United Methodist Church, with burial later in the Brown family plot in Birmingham. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Sandy Springs/Dunwoody Community Action Center, 1130 Hightower Trail, Sandy Springs GA 30350.
Officiating football was a weekend sideline for Mr. Brown. Weekdays he was a manufacturer's representative specializing in commercial lighting. One of his most notable projects, according to his wife, Phyllis Brown, was providing developer John Portman with "all the sparkly little lights" inside the Peachtree Plaza Hotel.
In his leisure time, Mr. Brown was an experienced skipper on Lake Lanier.
"Dad could navigate with a sextant and never felt the need for radar," his son said. "He knew the lake so well he could motor from Brown's Bridge to Holiday Marina on a moonless night as easily as you or I could drive from Marietta to Atlanta."
Mr. Brown was meticulous in his maintenance of his boats, which ranged from twin-engine cabin cruisers to 60-foot houseboats, his son said.
Mr. Brown joined the U.S. Power Squadron of Atlanta to become a more proficient and knowledgeable seaman, his son said. "While for many the boater's handbook, ‘The Practical American Navigator' by Nathaniel Bowditch, served as a coffee table book, for Dad it was an essential and well-used reference," he added.
After Mr. Brown retired from officiating football, he and his family spent many a fall Saturday afternoon anchored in an isolated cove listening to Tech games on the radio.
Also surviving are two daughters, Marilyn Hunt of Madison and Cheryl Sykes of Sandy Springs; two stepdaughters, Reba Totten of Asheville, N.C., and Amanda Clarke of Chicago; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
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