The annual Portland Nike Football Coaches Clinic brings together some of the best coaching minds in the game each year.

But North Bend coach Bill Masei was so impressed with Bruce Brown that he went to two talks by the former high school coach, rather than listening to well-known headliners including University of Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops.

Bruce Brown?

It’s a name that Masei and North Bend athletic director Boyd Bjorkquist hope a lot of parents, coaches and athletes from up and down the South Coast become familiar with this week when Brown gives three talks at North Bend High School.

The talks, free to the public, include a discussion geared at parents at 7 p.m. Wednesday, one for coaches at 9 a.m. Thursday and one for athletes at 10:30 a.m. Thursday. All will be held in the gymnasium at North Bend and refreshments will be provided.

Brown is appearing at several cities in the state through the Oregon Athletic Director’s Association as part of that group’s new Spirit of Champions program. The events are co-sponsored by Bi-Mart.

“We’re hoping this will kick off character education in Oregon,” Bjorkquist said.

Brown has spent more than 35 years working with athletes at the college, high school and middle school levels. Bjorkquist has seen him speak several times at state and national conventions and given his books to coaches as a learning tool for character development.

All three talks are geared specifically in that direction. Masei and Bjorkquist expect they will be exceptional presentations.

“He’s a great speaker,” Masei said. “I’m excited to listen to him again next week.”

Brown discusses how to build strong programs based on character and relationships.

“The biggest thing with him is it goes beyond the scoreboard,” Masei said. “Just because you win a lot of basketball, football or baseball games, it doesn’t mean you have a great program.”

Instead, great programs are ones that develop athletes into good citizens and ones that instill them with memories that make them want to continue being involved with the team.

“One of the biggest things is just the relationship he builds with his athletes and how they’re so involved in his program and keep in touch with him,” Masei said. “That’s something I’ve wanted to build. We’ve had that the last couple of years here.”

This week, Masei had five former players volunteering at his football conditioning camp.

“Some of them graduated five years ago and wanted to be part of the program,” he said. “One of my best years was the first year, when we went 1-8. We didn’t have a lot of wins, but we had great memories. That’s what it’s all about.”

Masei recommends Brown’s talks for anybody who has any interaction with students.

That starts with the parents and Wednesday’s talk. What makes that presentation effective is that it teaches the parents from the perspective of their student-athletes, Bjorkquist said.

“We want to encourage any parent at any grade level — high school, middle school or grade level — to come,” Bjorkquist said. “If parents come and listen to him, it will set them up in terms of having a positive relationship with their children who are athletes.”

In addition to sending out information on the talks to area schools, Bjorkquist also shared it with the Boys & Girls Club of Southwestern Oregon, so parents of athletes in those programs will feel welcome to come.

Parents will learn what their children expect and want from them in terms of athletics, and how parents can make the athletic experience more enjoyable for themselves and their students, he said.

The presentation is scheduled to last an hour, but Bjorkquist said Brown expects to stick around at least another hour answering questions.

As Wednesday’s session is for parents of students at any grade level, Thursday’s first talk is geared toward coaches at every level.

“They will listen to Bruce talk about the reason we have athletics — for character development,” Bjorkquist said. “How can we make kids better through sports.”

The third talk is aimed toward the athletes, including how they should approach practice, what their role is in leadership and what leads to the formation of great teams.

Bjorkquist hopes to see a big turnout for that session as well, and said team camps going on during the week will take a break for that talk.

“We hope to get 200 of our athletes here and 200 from Marshfield and 50 from the other schools,” Bjorkquist said.

Character development has been a prime goal of the OADA for several years, said Bjorkquist, the group’s vice president for the coming year.

“Our intent is to this fall have a program in place that schools can sign up as a spirit of champion school,” he said.

The program’s goal will be to establish character development expectations for student-athletes, coaches and parents and to encourage coaches to champion character development as part of their programs.

Materials will be available that schools can use in parent and coach meetings and that coaches can use with their athletes.

Attending this week’s seminars would be a good start, Bjorkquist said.

“We invite everyone to come listen,” he said.