Downtown Fred Brown Uptown Fred Brown

One Fred Brown committed perhaps the biggest gaffe in NCAA
tournament history, making an errant pass to North Carolina's
James Worthy with :08 left in the 1982 championship game and his
Georgetown team down by one point. The other Fred Brown was one
of the best players in Seattle SuperSonics history, retiring as
the franchise's alltime leader in games (963), points (14,108),
field goals (6,006) and steals (1,149). The two have never
crossed paths, but each is often mistaken for the other.

Georgetown's Brown still lives in the Washington, D.C., area,
where he runs a real estate company that buys and renovates
residential and commercial properties, primarily in D.C. and
upper Manhattan, then resells them. "The thing most people say
is, 'I lost a lot of money on that game,'" says Brown, 43,
married and the father of four, "and I tell them, 'Well, you
shouldn't have been gambling.'"

The Sonics' Brown retired in 1984 and remained in Seattle, where
he is a senior vice president for Bank of America. One of his
colleagues enjoys getting in the same dig at the company picnic
every summer. "He tells anyone who will listen that I passed the
ball to James Worthy in the final," chuckles Downtown Freddie
Brown, 56 and married with three grown sons, "and I say, 'No, no,
no, that wasn't me.'"

--J.L.

COLOR PHOTO: CHRIS USHER/APIX URBAN RENEWAL Hoops got this Fred out of the inner city; realestate got him back into it.

B/W PHOTO: MANNY MILLAN; RICH FRISHMAN URBAN RENEWAL Hoops got this Fred out of the inner city; real estate got him back into it.

COLOR PHOTO: RICHARD MACKSON BANK ON IT Downtown was named for his long but deadly jump shots.