*Editorial Note:  I am sitting here at home with one eye on the Patriots and the Ravens and one eye on speaktherights.com.  I have to write something this evening and I kind of don’t want to.  I don’t want to put a final punctuating period on a piece of prose I have been looking forward to writing since early October last.  The idea just clicked in my head and I have been tossing it around ever since and I have enjoyed every minute of it.  Hence, I don’t want this story to have any end punctuation.  I might just leave off the final period.  Though the story may end, the adventure continues.

Footballs are BROWN

A few minutes ago I exchanged text messages with my dear friend Jerry Brown.  Jerry and his son, Clay, and his brother, (Tom) “Harv” were featured in a speaktherights.com post that was written in September.  I was reflecting on a high school football game I had attended and the many layers of significance the night represented for me.

That night Jerry was coaching, Clay was playing quarterback, and Harv was broadcasting the game on the radio.  For over forty years this family has been putting the BROWN in Brownstown Central Football.

Never does a football season come that I don’t think intently and deliberately about Brownstown Central Football.  That is where I fell in love with the game.  My Dad was the head coach of the BCHS Braves from 1970 to 1978.  I was ten years old when he coached his last game there.  In March of the next year, a day or two shy of my 11th birthday, the school board at Brownstown decided they did not want my Dad coaching the team anymore.  I was a sad youngster.  The field I played my games on as a pee-wee league player would not be the home field I would play my high school games on.  I was in the 8th grade when I played on that field again.  I was a North Harrison Cougar and not a Brownstown Central Brave.  It was very awkward for me.  My Dad did coach my high school team at North Harrison and I would play inside the confines of Brownstown’s Blevins Stadium on two occasions in high school.  As a freshman in 1982, North beat Brownstown 27 to 14.  In 1984, the Cougars beat the Braves 59-0… Jerry Brown and I, high school juniors at the time, were on the same field…but we were not teammates.  I still remember how strange that was…and how much I hated that aspect of it.  One of the best friends I have ever known…still to this day…was on the other team.

The Cougar in 1984.

The Brave in 1985.

Finally Braves teammates in 2014.

Know that football is a tough game.  There are aspects of this game that I am so delighted that I was privy to.  Teamwork.  You have to have it if you are going to be successful.  Toughness.  Physical toughness and mental toughness are essential to understanding the game of football.  I miss it.  I still miss playing it.  I miss the camaraderie that goes with it.  For the past near twenty years, I have worked in schools that do not have a football team.  If they had, I would have coached.  Never say never.

Among my cronies, my memory is legendary.  I have not forgotten much.  There are moments and sounds associated with this game that I hope to never forget.  The people are what I remember the most.  I can rattle off the names of players my Dad thinks the world of and a few names he probably wishes he had never heard.  That is what happens when you coach.  When a coach says the team has a “graduation problem”, it might mean they lost some key guys to graduation or it might mean it is a shame a few of the current seniors were not seniors last year…then they would be gone too.

When you coach and when you play football, it becomes a way of life.  A coach’s time is not his time.  It belongs to the greater good of the team.  Coaching is not easy.  A  high school coach must manage personalities of players and managers and sports writers and fellow coaches and administrators and parents…all of which offer good and bad.  Players contribute to the good of the cause too.  Instead of sitting on the couch eating Twinkies and watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes, the player lifts weights and runs and studies and makes good decisions to help his body stay out of harm’s way…unlike some of his classmates.  There is a sacrifice that is made for the good of the cause that affects the coaches and the players and their families.  Thank God we have folks willing to put a portion of their livelihood on the line partly contingent upon whether or not a sixteen year-old hangs on to a pass in the end zone late in the game.  Yes…it is a risky business.

Tom and Gleda Brown had four children….four boys: Steve Brown, Jim Brown, (Tom) Harv Brown, and Jerry Brown.

 Steve Brown, the oldest, did not play football.  He was in the last graduating class of Clearspring High School west of Brownstown in 1972…I think.  This was a small school that did not have a football team.  His son, Scotty, did play for Brownstown.  We’ll get to him later.  I have no doubt that if Steve had played football, he would be remembered.  The mean ones usually are.  When I was a kid in the 70s spending time over at Jerry’s house, Steve would come around with his mirrored sunglasses on ready to kick the butt of any eight year-old that got in his way.  Though he was ultimately harmless, he put on a good show.  He taught us to value fear.

Jim Brown, a 1976 graduate of Brownstown Central, played football for my Dad.

This is Jim.

Jim Brown wasn’t the greatest athlete in the world but he sure played like it.  My Dad never kept many newspaper clippings from his coaching career. He is just not that type.  He does have a picture of Jim being honored as a senior for being a….I think it was….12-time letter winner during his high school career.  Jim played football, basketball, baseball, and participated in track and field…with an emphasis on field.  He was a senior on a team that played a game at Paoli against the Rams in 1975.  Brownstown won the game 76 to 0.  Someone commented that was Brownstown’s opening ceremony for the upcoming Bicentennial.  Jim was the first kicker in the family.  He started it for the rest of us.

One of my fondest memories of Brownstown Central Football features Jim Brown. It is an audible memory.   I can hear it right this moment like I could hear it forty years ago.   Jim was about to kickoff to start a game.  The opening kickoff of a high school  football game is special.   The teams are spread out on the field unlike they are on any other play, as the tension of the start of a game is flying around along with the ball that just left the foot of its deliverer.  In a scene like this one, Jim Brown was about to kickoff to start a game.  One of Brownstown’s greatest athletic supporters, Maurice Hobbs, was sitting near me and she cut through a cool October night (it was dark) with the following edict: “Boot it, Jim!”  He did.

For the past several years Jim Brown and I have had an opportunity to keep up with each other to a certain degree.  Jim runs a very successful Sporting Goods store that supplies many of the schools in Southern Indiana with what teams need.  One of these schools is the one I am employed by.  Our athletic director always gives me a heads-up if Jim is scheduled to come by.  We talk candidly.  I am always delighted to see him.

Like Jerry, Harv Brown too had a son that would play quarterback for the Brownstown Central Braves. Harv played high school football for BC during the years 1980 to 1983.  His son, Jake, played from 2008 to 2011.  I was doing a pregame show on the radio one Friday night before a high school game.  I had Harv on as a guest.  This was long before he would be calling BCHS games on the radio.  This past fall he had me on as a halftime guest.

 

September 2014

 

When I interviewed Harv many years ago, I called Harv the “Godfather of Brownstown Youth Football”.  In 1989, Harv helped revived the youth program and it was no longer called the pee-wee football program. They renamed it  the 56er program.  One would think it was named so because its participants are 5th and 6th graders.  I happen to believe it was called 56er Football because when Harv played high school football from 1980 to 1983 he wore number 56!  Just kidding.  Coach Harv Brown was at it from 1989 to 2005.  That is a great run of helping youngsters.  He has been doing Braves radio since 2011.  He and his partner, Harry Rochner, do a fine job on 96.3 WJAA.

I thank Harv for his dedication to helping improve the horizon of football and good citizenship in Brownstown.  As a player, as a solid parent, as a broadcaster, as a coach, and a friend to  the program…Harv has done Brownstown a great service.  I thank him again.   Harv was the next kicker in the family, taking up where Jim left off.

 

At center….#56….HARV BROWN!  (The crowd roars).

Harv’s son, Jake Brown, played quarterback for Brownstown from 2008 to 2011.

Jake Brown, QB.

This past week I have heard the following phrase attributed to a sportscaster that recently passed away.  With all respects…I first heard it on the radio listening to Jack Buck and Hank Stramm calling Monday Night Football when Stramm said about Bob Griese: “He is as cool as the other side of the pillow.”   That is how I would describe the play of Jake Brown at quarterback.  Though I did not see him play many times, I was always impressed.  His command of the field was fantastic.  He never seem to get too high and never seem to get too low.  He had the field presence and demeanor of a leader that is rarely seen on a high school field.  Harv told me the years Jake played went by way too fast.  I have no doubt. Jake’s junior and senior years saw the Braves win twenty games and lose three.  Not bad.

Jerry Brown and I are very fortunate.  Well, at least I know I am.  He is one of my dearest friends.  We were in each other’s weddings.  We got paddled by the principal together when we were in the 4th grade.  Our offense?  Chewing gum in music class.  What can I say, 1977 was a simpler time.  We listen to each other.  He too is an educator and I am so proud of his work as a teacher and a coach.

As I alluded to earlier, it was tough to be on a football field with Jerry having a different colored shirt on.  It just wasn’t right.

Jerry was a kicker too.  He wore number 57.  Being a kicker also, I look back fondly on the times we kicked together at his house at the time.  Our crossbar was an electric line.  It was fun…swinging our legs together.  We took it serious.  We tried like heck to out kick each other.

When we were seniors he kicked a 33 yard field goal against my team.  I can still hear my Dad, as he was Jerry’s opposing coach, and what he said as Jerry was lining up his kick.

“Come on, Jerry, put it through there”, my Dad mumbled.  It was the only time in over twenty years of coaching did my Dad root on an opposing kicker in a relatively close game.  We lost 17 to 7.  Dad had cheered on Jerry’s brother Jim when he was kicking for him ten years earlier.  Right is right.  Good is good.  Jerry’s kick was good.

Jerry in the 9th grade.

Jerry has been a high school football coach since 1994.  He has been fortunate enough to work with Coach Reed May.  What Coach May has done with the Brownstown Central Football program since he arrived in 1993 has been nothing short of phenomenal.

In observing Jerry in his football environs, I have seen a coach that loves the game…but most importantly…he wants to do right by his players.  He is tough.  He is consistent.  He knows when to give them the business and he knows when to give them an ear…or an ear-full.  He, like me, has not forgotten what it felt like to be behind the face-mask.  That in itself is a wonderful gift.

Jerry addressing the team. You would have thought E.F. Hutton was speaking here.

Jerry’s son, Clay Brown, was a senior for Brownstown Central this past football season.

He wore Jim’s old number…15

I got to see Clay play a few times and it was a joy each and every time.  I think as a junior he threw 41 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions.  As I am not the Elias Sports Bureau, don’t hold me to that. This past year was much of the same.  Clay quarterbacked BC for three seasons.  The past two years they won 22 games and lost 2.  Wow.  Like his cousin, Jake…their Dads were centers and they were quarterbacks…Clay was very subtly in charge on the field.  I saw him talk a ref into changing out a ball at the line of scrimmage once.  I just laughed.  You could tell he knew the playbook inside and out and down to the copyright date.

If Clay decides to continue playing at the next level…and he has the talent to do so…I look forward to watching him play some more.  If he chooses not to, I certainly respect that too.

 

Jerry and Clay victorious post-game 2014.

I was at Blevins Stadium sitting with Gleda Brown and her son, Steve Brown, as we watched Steve’s boy, Scotty Brown,  take a kickoff back against Salem for a touchdown.  Right up the gut if I remember correctly.  He was barely touched.  I was impressed with his speed.  I was more impressed with his cool demeanor. I don’t know what got into these younger kids.  When Jerry and I were playing we were both nutty as fruitcakes.  Scott, Jake, and Clay were better players and better teammates than most any others you will ever find.

Scott Brown played for Brownstown Central from 1988 to 1991.

Scott was tough.  I remember sitting there that night with his grandmother and his Dad as he returned a kickoff for six.  As usual,  I just took it all in.  I was glad to be back at Brownstown and thought it so novel to watch another Brown play.  Twenty years later we would see more with Jake…and now Clay has wrapped it up…at least for a while, I suppose.

What we have is a legacy of football..one that won’t be forgotten.

I am so fortunate that I have been here to bear witness.  It has been my pleasure.

Tom and Gleda Brown are not around to read this.  I wish they were. They were my parents away from home. I wish they both could have seen all these grandchildren play like the champions they are.  Champions in football?  Who cares!  This is a legacy that has shown and is still showing us Champions in Life!

Speaking the Gridiron/Friendship/Thankful Rights…and not wanting this to end

Danny Johnson