David Brown has joined the Waterloo Black Hawks' scouting staff and will serve as a skills development consultant for the team, General Manager Kevin Gibson announced on Monday.
Brown's experience is wide-ranging. He has spent six successful seasons as the head hockey coach at Rogers (MN) High School. Simultaneously he has operated The Base Sports Performance in New Hope, Minnesota, and is the founder of the Minnesota Lakers AAA program. Brown will continue in all of those pursuits while adding responsibilities as the Black Hawks' head Minnesota scout, helping Waterloo prepare for the annual USHL Draft in the spring of 2026.
"Dave is very well connected at so many levels in Minnesota. His insights will be valuable to our current players this season and for the future of our team in finding us new talent," said Gibson.
Under Brown's direction, the Rogers Royals reached the Minnesota Class AA Boys Tournament for the first time in program history last spring. Rogers was 23-3-2 and seeded fifth when the tournament began. The Royals forced Edina to overtime before falling 2-1 during the opening round.
Prior to leading Rogers, Brown was an assistant coach at Wayzata High School from 2014 to 2019, including the program's first state championship in 2016. In that time, he worked with a substantial number of future Black Hawks: Hank Sorensen, Griffin Ness, Tucker Ness, Gavin O'Connell, Jake Schneider, and Colin Schmidt.
At The Base Sports Performance, players in the region have access to elite-level training facilities and coaching, focused on enhancing speed, power, strength, and agility. Brown and other coaches at The Base have been overseeing the training facility's annual summer hockey academy in recent weeks.
Brown established the Minnesota Lakers in 2019. The program provides opportunities for players to develop their skills on competitive teams in tournaments and also practices from March through the late spring, then resuming ahead of the traditional Minnesota hockey winter season. Brown's work at the high school level, The Base, and with the Lakers has yielded the opportunity to coach dozens of skaters who have gone on to junior and college hockey opportunities, with many now reaching professional hockey as well.
As a demonstration of his versatility, Brown also coached varsity baseball for four seasons at Providence Academy in Plymouth, Minnesota. He is a graduate of California Lutheran University.
The Black Hawks open the 2025/26 United States Hockey League season on September 17th against the Muskegon Lumberjacks during the 2025 DICK'S Sporting Goods USHL Fall Classic in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania.
