TACOMA — Tim Brown stood along the sideline in the Bethel High School gymnasium, talking about the unique opportunity he has to help coach his two daughters.
Then he paused, squinted his eyes and directed his stare at one of them.
“But she just won’t shoot,” he said at Tianna Brown.
“I do shoot,” she barked back. Tim paused, then looked away.
“Not enough,” he said.
He might get more riled up about it, but he needs to keep his blood pressure low. Tim was wearing what looks like a small backpack, but it’s really a left ventricular assist device. The LVAD is a battery-operated machine that pumps blood to the rest of the body and is surgically implanted in patients who have reached end-stage heart failure.
Tim was once a good enough athlete to star at Spanaway Lake and Pierce College before trying out with the Seattle SuperSonics in the mid-1990s. Now he’s waiting for a heart transplant. And Bethel coach John Ainslie has not heard one complaint.
“Never,” Ainslie said. “He goes about his business every day.”
That’s not hard, Tim says.
Not when his daughters, Tianna and Tiarra, are playing together for the first time in high school. They’re the Braves’ top two scorers.