North Carolina State University Athletics
PROGRAM SPOTLIGHT: Senior Tailback Andre Brown
9/20/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
BY TIM PEELER
When Brown scored his 16th career touchdown in NC State’s first home game of the 2008 season, a 34-24 win over William & Mary, he stood up in the end zone and saluted, a gesture that drew him a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and the wrath of Wolfpack head coach Tom O’Brien.
He sat out the next three offensive series. He did 50 up-downs at practice the following week. And O’Brien said publicly that Brown deserved all that he got.
But the senior running back wants everyone to know that he wasn’t just preening for attention on Military Appreciation Day by co-opting the Army’s sign of respect. He was fulfilling a request made by his older brother, Devone Contrell, a member of the Army’s 82nd Airborne who just returned from his third tour of duty in the
“He asked me to do it,” Brown said. “He also offered to do the up-downs for me later that week, but I told him I would take care of it.”
Taking care of things especially in difficult situations is one of the things Brown does best. He came to NC State four years ago as a mature 18-year-old, one already used to fending for himself after living on his own for three years in high school and one year at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va. He knew how to keep an orderly room, how to find bass in a good fishing hole and how to find an opening in the offensive line.
But none of those things necessarily made him a mature football player. O’Brien says, however, that Brown is getting there, as he carries much of the weight in a revamped Wolfpack backfield.
Brown arrived in the fall of 2005 one year away from Hargrave and two years away from his record-breaking career at Greenville’s J.L. Rose High School with a remarkable story and an unbelievable debut: raised by a single mother in Baltimore, Brown was sent to live with his 23-year-old cousin not long after one of his middle-school football games was canceled because of gunshots fired near the field.
Woodlawn, Md., was not a good place for Brown to be, and his mother Adrienne Winns, a Baltimore-area police officer knew it. So she sent her middle son to live with cousin Wesley Studivant, who was attending
The move was a blessing and a curse for Brown. He got away from the negative influences that might have brought him down during his high school years. But he also became academically irresponsible after he left his mother’s home.
“I wasn’t really ready for all that freedom,” Brown says. “My mom always stayed on me about books and school. I couldn’t do anything until my schoolwork was done. When I got to
“He was doing all the right things and was a good example for me to follow, but I never looked at him as a guardian figure. I just knew I could do whatever I wanted, and I did what I wanted.”
That included hanging out with his friends, going to the lake, spending the day fishing instead of studying. He wasn’t looking for trouble, which was much harder to find in
“As far as school, I just wasn’t there,” Brown says. “I was more worried about being with the boys.”
By the time his senior year came around as schools like NC State, Florida State,
There was little doubt that he could be a factor on the football field. His senior year at Rose, he rushed for a state-record 3,479 yards and scoring 47 touchdowns and led Rose to the 4-A state championship. He was named the Associated Press North Carolina Player of the Year and Parade All-American. But he needed a year of prep school to become academically eligible for college.
He learned discipline at Hargrave, where the 5:45 a.m. reveille gave him plenty of time to shine his shoes and scrub the toilets before he went to breakfast, to class and to football practice. He’s applied that discipline to his school work at NC State. He was an Academic All-ACC as a freshman and made NC State’s academic honor roll. He’s put himself in position to graduate in December with a degree in Sports Management after just three and a half years in school.
“I just feel like I am way better in school than I have ever been before,” Brown says. “I love football, but I know it is school, then football here. School is definitely the most important thing. You must excel there first. No one wants a dumb football player. The coaches tell us that all the time. Everybody thinks football is just running and hitting. It’s much more mental than that, especially on offense.”
Initially, Brown was lost in a sea of backfield options. As a freshman, because of his tendency to be less than protective of the football, he fell to third-string tailback, behind Darrell Blackman and Toney Baker. But when he got his opportunity early in the team’s seventh game, he made a tremendous splash against
He followed that up the next week, in his first career start, by going for 179 yards in an upset of
Though Brown has had four more 100-yard rushing games including one in the 2008 season-opener against
After leading the team in rushing in 2005, Brown was slowed for a while as a sophomore by a thigh bruise. While he was slowed, Baker became the team’s leading rusher. When Baker was lost for the season in last year’s opener, Brown became the starter again until he suffered a broken foot against
He’s started all three games, and shared duties with sophomore Curtis Underwood. O’Brien has seen great improvement in Brown’s versatility and productivity. His 64 rushing yards and 51 receiving yards the 27-9 loss to No. 23 Clemson was perhaps the most well-rounded game of his career.
“Andre has matured a lot from the day I got here,” O’Brien said. “When we got here, some of the things we asked him to do he wasn’t real good at, things like running between the tackles and catching the ball out of the backfield. He wasn’t real keen on doing those things a year ago. He was a much more complete back [in the game against Clemson] than any time I have seen him since I have been here.”
Brown returned this fall in good shape, even though he missed the final few practices of the spring when he reinjured his sore foot. He’s done everything the coaching staff has asked, and the Wolfpack offense is utilizing Brown and Underwood to establishing a ground presence.
While the Wolfpack hasn’t repeated the success it had his freshman year Brown was a big reason State won five of its final six games in 2005, including a 14-0 victory over
“I am very proud of what we have here,” Brown says. “I am looking forward to seeing what we do in the future. I am looking forward to the time, when State is always in the Top 10, to being able to say I was part of the program that helped get it all started. I really do think the sky is the limit.”
Despite the time he spends with football, Brown has been involved with projects outside of his sport. He not only takes his academics seriously, but he also believes it is his responsibility to be a good example. He frequently volunteers to join other student-athletes in speaking to younger students.
“I like volunteering,” Brown says. “I like reading and speaking to kids. I try to let them know that everybody didn’t grow up in a two-parent house. There are a lot of people who don’t have a dad figure, and that doesn’t prevent anyone from being successful. I am just trying to be a positive role model.”
One day, Brown would like to own his own business. He would like to become a coach on some level, to influence others in the positive way his mother, his cousin and his two brothers have influenced him.
“I want to impact lives,” Brown says. “To know that even after I am passed, that a kid could say Andre Brown impacted my life’ would be the ultimate accomplishment. I just want to be a positive influence on everybody I am around.”
For that, and for all he’s done on the football field, perhaps Brown himself deserves a salute. Without all the up-downs.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
