Meet Lindsay Brown, History Department Chair and Head Coach of Crew and Sculling

On Thursday, September 10, I walked into Lindsay Brown’s classroom to interview him for a faculty profile article. Right away, I noticed a large assortment of books in the center of his Harkness table. Lindsay calls these his “please touch” books — books that he wants students to borrow, read, and learn from.

Lindsay also has a “please touch, but only with my permission” table. This contains Michelin guides to World War I battlefields, a signed picture of a young Joe Biden with a personal note to Lindsay, a piece of the Berlin Wall, pictures of Lindsay’s family, and more. 

You can learn a lot about Lindsay just by browsing through these two areas of his classroom, but I wanted to learn even more than that. I sat down with Lindsay to talk about his career as a teacher and coach and his time at Dublin School. We started with a small-picture question:

Q: How are you doing today? What does your day have in store?
A: Today was a regular teaching day for me. I taught two of my classes. We talked about the events of 9/11, so it was a very moving class. None of the students that I’m teaching have any memory of this, so to them 9/11 is about the same as Pearl Harbor. It’s something that they know about, but they don’t really understand. Part of the assignment that I give them is to interview somebody — a family member, an advisor, or a teacher here — about their memories of 9/11. Then, we go through the events and we talk about that day and its impact on U.S. history… Often that’s eye-opening for students, as they tend to think of history as “stuff in a book.” Now they see that that “stuff in a book” really does have an impact on humans and people — ordinary, common people.

Q: And what about after the academic day is over? What else do you have going on?
A: Well, today is our Clubs & Affinities Fair, but if it wasn’t, I would be coaching rowing, which is one of my great joys. As Sam Bicknell [Dublin Head of School] said, critically important elements of the education of children are the classroom and the extracurricular activities that follow that — sports, arts, dance, music. You learn a lot from athletics, and rowing is a sport that I personally connected with in my life, and so I want to share that.

From there, we jumped to the big picture, talking about Lindsay’s journey to Dublin School and his experience as a History teacher.

Q: Can you tell me about your Dublin history? What brought you to the School? How long have you been here, and what different roles have you held?
A: Of course, being a History teacher, I’m going to have to start with where I was before Dublin. I worked and taught at St. Andrew’s School in Delaware for 30 years, and I got to know and worked with Brad Bates [former Dublin Head of School]. Brad used to joke that I hired him, because I was looking for an assistant rowing coach… and he came on board to do that. He was an amazing educator and an amazing administrator, and we worked together for quite a long time.

After 30 years I had met my wife, gotten married, raised a family, and our children had gone off to college. The decision we faced was, do we stay here until the end of our careers, at a great school, or do we take a step somewhere different and face a new challenge? We elected to go somewhere new. I was looking at schools in the New England area because my wife and I have family here, and Brad contacted me and asked me to consider Dublin. We joke that I hired him, and then he hired me. In all truth, the reason I chose Dublin is because of my deep admiration of Brad as an educational leader.

I arrived here in the fall of 2016, so this is my eleventh year. In my time here, I’ve pretty consistently been the History Department Chair and a rowing coach.

Q: You obviously came to Dublin pretty established, with a lot of experience. Do you still feel like you’ve evolved over your time here?
A: Absolutely. At my other school, where I’d been for 30 years, I was Mr. Brown, and everyone knew who Mr. Brown was. When I got to Dublin, nobody knew who Mr. Brown was, so I had to create, you know, who was Mr. Brown? Students, faculty, none of them knew me, so it was a real chance to start fresh, start over, rethink. I had well-established lesson plans; many of them stayed, but it was also a chance to create new lessons, new ways of approaching material. It was very, very personally exciting to have a chance to restart.

Q: Did you always see yourself becoming a teacher and a coach?
A: No, not at all. In my senior year of college, I was looking for jobs, and I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. I thought maybe law school, maybe business, but I also didn’t want to go right back into more school. I was tired, so I thought, ‘I’ll teach for a year or two, and then I’ll do something else. Something different.’ And now here I am, 41 years later.

Q: What do you love most about teaching history in particular?
A: I like convincing students that history matters to them, and that they should pay attention — that what happened in the past might have an impact on their lives today, and what they can learn from the past that can help them in their lives today. That’s one reason why, in my U.S. history class, we start with contemporary moments that have had an impact on their lives, like 9/11. They can connect with that. They can talk to their parents. They can see how this is actually important to them. Then, I can make the same argument when we talk about those olden people, long ago, you know? That they, too, might have something to offer.

Next, we talked about one of Lindsay’s extracurricular passions — rowing.

Q: What first drew you to rowing and coaching?
A: I didn’t start rowing until I was a freshman in college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in college, so I was at the club fair freshman year, and rowing was actually a club. The rowers go around and scan for tall-ish people, and I was tall-ish, so somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Would you like to try rowing?” and I thought, "It's college, sure, I'd love to try.” Then I went out and I did it, and I was hooked immediately. It was so much fun.

Q: When did you realize that you were really good at it?
A: Well, early in my freshman year, I started to realize that I was doing well because I was willing to work hard and push myself, and I just continued that. I was elected captain of my freshman team, and I just found that it was a very easy formula. You work harder and you do better.

There’s a rowing machine where you can get a number that tells you your time. It's very easy to compare, and I could see that I was doing well in a very quantifiable way.

Q: And how did you ultimately end up coaching?
A: When I was looking for a teaching job, I thought, ‘Well, a school is going to need me to coach.’ Rowing is the thing that I can coach, and so I looked and applied to every independent school that had a rowing program. I sent them all a cover letter and my resume, and I got a couple of interviews. One place offered me a job, and I took it.

Q: How do you think coaching makes you a better teacher, and vice versa?
A: I think teaching in the classroom and coaching athletics are linked and very complementary. It’s the same idea that if you work harder at something and you practice something, you do better at it. Sometimes you can have a student who struggles in the classroom but is doing well athletically, and you can help them understand that, “You're working hard here, and then you're doing better. You can apply that same idea to your studies. If you read a little bit more, if you write a little bit more, if you think a little bit more, if you ask more questions, you're going to have more success.”

I think a lot of students find success academically because they start having success athletically. I also think that strong students who may not think of themselves as athletes can start to understand that, “Wow, if I apply the same ideas that make me good in the classroom to my sports, I can have that same success.” 

Finally, we discussed Lindsay’s accomplishments and fondest memories over the course of his time here at Dublin School. Lindsay will be retiring at the end of the 2026-2027 academic year, so he is in a season of reflection as he prepares to close this chapter of life at Dublin.

Q: What are some of your proudest moments or accomplishments over your time at Dublin?
A: I think, in sort of a silly way, winning the Winterfest lip sync contest for the first time. My team won that last year, and I was very proud of that moment.

I got a Moxie Award one time, so that was a proud moment as well. Brad Bates forced me to be an assistant cross-country skiing coach, which I have no skill in whatsoever. The students gave me a Moxie Award for getting out there and flailing away and being really bad at it, but still trying. I think it gave room for the other beginners to say, “Hey, Mr. Brown is falling down all the time, so it’s okay if I am too.”

I’ve had students at the end of a year in the classroom say that they really liked the class and they want to keep reading and studying history. That’s a more substantial proud moment. I’ve had athletes who did not have confidence in themselves as athletes start pushing themselves and improving and being proud of themselves as athletes from the coaching and working with the team. That’s not just me, that’s the whole team dynamic.

​​​​​​​Q: Are there any lessons from students or from your time here that you’re going to carry with you beyond the School?
A: Almost every class, a student says something in response to a question or a homework answer — they say something about a topic that I haven’t thought of in that way before, even after 41 years of teaching. I’m still surprised, really every day, by the way that students approach the world and think, and it keeps teaching fresh for me because I’m learning every day.

Another thing that has kept teaching so enjoyable for me and that I hope to carry with me are the connections and relationships that I have with other faculty. The friendships, the inspiration, and the way that I learned from other faculty was very impactful to me when I was younger. Now I’m older, more experienced, and I’m learning from the younger, enthusiastic teachers. The adult community makes teaching such a vibrant, wonderful profession, and I really, really value that.

Q: If you could give one piece of advice to current and future students, what would it be?
A: Well, you’ve got all of the standard stuff — try new things, get out of your comfort zone, work hard and play hard — but I think, really, my biggest advice would be to cultivate relationships with your peers and with the adults. Find an adult or two that you feel comfortable with, that you can establish a connection with. The reason I became a teacher was because of the relationships and friendships I had with the teachers who were my models and mentors, and I thought, ‘I want to have that same impact on students.’

Q: What do you have in store for this next chapter?
A: My wife and I want to be able to spend more time with our adult children and do some traveling. We have, as everyone should have, a life list of places we'd like to see. You may not get to all of them, but you have a “life list.” We’re looking forward to slowing down and enjoying each other's company. We  both work full time, so we're very busy. Having more time together is something we look forward to.

As we wrapped up our conversation, Lindsay made sure to tell me about two of his most treasured family members — his dogs, Moby and Sailor. I’m sure they will both be thrilled to spend more time with Lindsay in the years ahead.