Chris Hays: Former Hurricanes assistant coach is thriving.
Hurlie Brown is having a bit of a homecoming party, and he’s going to let it last as long as he can.
The former University of Miami assistant football coach, who was last in charge of linebackers for the Hurricanes, has returned to his roots in Merritt Island where he will volunteer as an assistant coach this season. The entire UM staff under former head coach Al
Golden was let go by new head coach Mark Richt after the Sun Bowl in December.
“It’s home and that was really the deal. We sold our house in Miami and we’ve got a place here in Merritt Island, where we’ve got a chance to come back and regroup,” said Brown, who organized a camp this past weekend to give back to the community.
The “Keeping it Together Brevard” camp was held in conjunction with local law enforcement agencies.
Brown, who played his college football at Miami in the early 1990s, returns to work with the same guy who coached him when he played for the Mustangs.
Jeff McLean is the head coach and he has welcomed Brown with open arms.
“We’re excited,” McLean said. “It’s great any time you can get a good coach, like Hurlie is, who has been around football at the highest level, and any time you can get a former player back and a guy who is a great person … and we have some others too, so it’s pretty special.”
Other former Merritt Island players on staff are former Florida Gators and NFL center Cal Dixon as well as Shane Williams,
Desmond Newbold and Walt Battle.
Brown has fit right in. “It’s been good, real good,” said Brown, who also coached at Merritt Island after his playing days were over (1999-2001) before going on to the college ranks at FIU and Louisiana Lafayette before heading to UM. “I’ve been knowing coach McLean for 30 years. He was the offensive coordinator when I was playing.
“I’m dealing with a bunch of great guys here, coaches and kids ... my big thing is that I’ve had an opportunity to go off for the last 16 years and learn from some great coaches and now I can come back and try to share what I have learned with everyone around here. It’s not Hurlie Brown, it’s Hurlie Brown taking bits and pieces from everywhere I have ever been and packaging it together to help benefit these kids.”
Merritt Island will always be his sanctuary, and Brown has nothing but fondness for the community.
“Home is home. Home has always been good to me,” Brown said. “I’ve been all over the world ... but I have always known that I was going to come home. This was where I always knew I was going to spend a lot of time.
“I love being around here; the people are great. It’s just a great place to be. It’s laid-back; everybody speaks to you, whether they know you or not ... you don’t get that everywhere you go. It’s just a great place. Going through all of the career changes and everything that I have gone through, I have a safe haven that I can come to.”
The players have been extremely receptive of his presence. It’s been a while since he wasn’t spending a summer at football camps hosting prospective college players.
“1998, I think ... I miss it. I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t miss the camps and working with the kids and being around the coaches,” Brown said, “but that’s part of life. You accept things. I knew going into this that there was a chance that I might not always coach college football.”
He has no ill words for the new Miami coaching staff. Brown has taken advantage of his time away from the college life this summer to branch out a bit, and, who knows, one day the NFL might be in his coaching future.
“I had an opportunity to do an internship with the Oakland Raiders this summer,” Brown said. “Had it not been for that, I would have probably been sitting around losing my mind, pulling my hair out.
“I went out there back in June and you talk about a class organization ... great people, Jack Del
Rio. I got a chance to work with Rod Woodson, arguably one of the best football players to ever play in the National Football League, and then
Marcus Robinson ,a perennial All-Pro . ... I got a chance to go out there and work with those guys, and then I’m a Ken Norton [boxing] fan, so my eyes are glued every time he comes on the TV and I got a chance to go out there and work with Ken Norton Jr . ... So this was a dream come true for me. I could not have imagined it was going to be like that.”
An interesting caveat from his time in Oakland was his realization that running back Latavius
Murray, the former UCF star, is from neighboring Titusville.
“I did not know that and I got a chance to meet him,” Brown said. “You talk about the salt of the earth ... he is just a great, great kid.
“So that has been my salvation and then I get a chance to go back out there and work during training camp, so that has really helped get me through this whole thing.”
Returning to Oakland, working as part of the Bill
Walsh Minority Internship coaching program, will cause him to miss about a week of camp for Merritt Island. Highschool practices start around the state Aug. 1, but he’ll be back.
McLean said Brown has helped energize his group.
“He’s been there, coming from the University of Miami, so some of the things that we’ve all been telling them, he tells them, but it comes from a different angle,” McLean said. “He can tell them what college coaches are looking for and this is what it’s going to take, things like that.
“He’s a fresh face, a guy who has a lot of energy and a lot of knowledge and the kids have really adapted well to him. And he’s intense, all of which makes him a good coach.”
So Brown has energized the players, but the players might have done more to energize Brown.
“These kids are amazing. We have at least 10 players over here who have the potential to play on Saturday,” Brown said of the Merritt Island college prospects. “I’m not saying they’re going to go to Florida State or Florida or Miami ... but we’ve got [QB/ATH] Jimmy
Batch, who just committed to Harvard, and
Ashton Wilson, he’s going to be probably one of our best players, and he’s getting recruited by Columbia and a bunch of Ivy League schools.
“We just have a bunch of those types of kids. The biggest thing right now is teaching them the work ethic, that I have learned over the years, to be successful. I’m just trying to add my experience to what they do and they do a great job.”