John Brown - off the field

John Brown - off the field

Val Vita

In the night when John Brown’s older brother, James, was shot three times outside a Miami nightclub, in July 2010, Brown’s cellphone was dead.

“And I let it dead,” said Brown, today, a wide receiver playing for the Gorillas. “When I turned it on there were a lot of voice mails and text messages. I called my mom and cried, but I didn’t believe. I just believed when I saw him.”

Brown, at the time, was playing in Coffeville, Ks., and went back home, in Homestead, Fla., right after he got the bad news. James ended up dying, and the loss of a real close brother wasn’t something easy to handle for Brown.

“Since he was gone I thought about giving up on school, on life,” Brown said. “It was the end of semester and I didn’t want to come back. But then I remembered what he always told me: ‘If I don’t make it my little brother will’. So I decided to take it as a good thing, not as a bad one.”

That’s only one of the happenings on Brown’s life that makes you think that his real story is not in the football field. If someone wants to understand who Brown really is, is important to understand everything he went through, and the way he handled where he came from.

Born in April 3 of 1990, in a suburb of Miami in extreme southern Florida, Brown started playing football when he was 5 years old.

“My childhood was rough,” Brown said. “Growing up where there is a lot of gangs and violence, the only way to make it was playing sports.”

It was with his brother, James, that he learned how to play football.

“In my neighborhood, football was the only sport we knew and care about,” he said.

Until today, Brown’s family lives in Florida, and he goes visit them during some school breaks, not always, according to him, because the flight tickets to Florida are expensive.

Brown has been living in the Midwest since 2010, when he went to study and play at Coffeyville Community College. It was there where the Pittsburg State football coach, Tim Beck, saw him practicing and offered him a scholarship.

“And it was the best decision I’ve ever made,” Brown said.

Today, Brown is one of the premiere players in NCAA Division II, and hard work is part of his life philosophies.

“I practice every day, even on breaks like Christmas and New Year’s, and even when I go home,” he said.

He says he loves the feeling of being in the field. If some players prefer the kickoff, he says his favorite part of the game is when there are only 30 seconds left.

“Who’s going to be the bigger player? Are you going to fall or are you going to score? I am a person who loves pressure.”

Majoring in social work, Brown is planning on graduating at the end of December 2013. After that, he says he want to continue playing football in the next level.

“And I want to be able to help kids back home that I know are going through the same I did. I want to change that.”

Besides these kids, Brown’s attention goes to a very special one: his daughter, Caia, born in April 2012. Caia lives with her mom in Miami, and he can see her every time he goes back home. Brown’s Facebook picture is a picture of Caia, wearing Pitt State clothes, where you can see number 5 and the word “daddy.”