Young Harris College Athletics

A national champion as both a player and a head coach at the collegiate level, Kathy Brown has served as the head coach of Young Harris College's women's soccer team since its inception in 1997.  

In just its 10th year, Brown's team won the 2006 National Junior College Athletic Association's National Championship, and she was named National Coach of the Year by both the NJCAA and the National Soccer Coaches Association of America that same season.

In 2009, Brown earned her sixth NJCAA Region XVII Coach of the Year honor after leading her team to a 10-6-1 overall record, despite a schedule loaded with four-year schools and highly-ranked NJCAA opponents.

Her teams have won eight state championships and six district titles, and have advanced to the national tournament six times (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006).  The Mountain Lions reached the national semifinals in 2000 (third place) and 2002 (fourth place), and played in the championship game in 2004 (national runner-up) and 2006 (national champions).  

Along with the national and regional honors from the NJCAA, Brown, who has guided the Mountain Lions to a 259-84-11 record in 18 seasons, has also received accolades from other organizations.  In 2003, she was named Junior College Coach of the Year by Georgia Women's Intersport Network, in conjunction with the Georgia Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.  The award is presented to a college female coach in Georgia who has represented her profession in performance, leadership and community service. 

In 2004, Brown was selected South Region Coach of the Year by the NSCAA. While proud of the personal awards, Brown is just as proud of her team's Sportsmanship Award that it was presented at the 2003 NJCAA National Tournament.  The award was presented to the team that displayed the best sportsmanship, both on the field and off the field during the tournament.

Brown came to Young Harris from Jacksonville State University, a member of the NCAA Division I Ohio Valley Conference, where she served as an assistant coach for two years. Brown earned her first national championship as student-athlete at Berry College in Rome, Ga.  The Lady Vikings, also known as the Fury then, rolled through the 1993 season with an 18-4-1 overall record on their way to the NAIA national title.  Brown, then known by her maiden name, Kathy Insel, was a starting defender on that squad, helping Berry to nine shutout victories that year.

She came to Berry after growing up playing in South Florida for the Margate Blitz club program.  As a high school player, Brown led the state in goals scored as a senior. 

Brown, who was inducated into the YHC Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013 along with the entire 1996 national championship team, earned a bachelor's degree in psychology and sociology from Berry College and a master's degree in community agency counseling from Jacksonville State University.   

She and her husband, YHC cross country coach Barry Brown, were married in 2000. The couple have four children.  The oldest, Jensen, was born just eight days after the Mountain Lions returned to Young Harris from the 2002 national championship tournament.  Jensen's brothers Brayden and Leyton were born in 2006 and 2008, respectively. The final addition to the family came in 2012 when Breckyn Olivia was born.