Tales from the Rose Bowl
Brown finds success in following dad’s plan
LOS ANGELES — Orlando Brown’s third-grade football season lasted two games.
That’s all it took for Orlando Brown Sr. to get wind of his son’s newfound football career, and just two weeks after it started, it was over.
Orlando Sr., then an offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens, had a plan for his son, and it didn’t involve playing football before middle school.
It didn’t matter how big he grew or how strong his football genes were, Orlando Jr. wouldn’t put on pads until he turned 12 years old.
Monday afternoon, the 6-foot-8, 345-pound left
tackle put on pads for what could be one of his last college games in the Rose Bowl against No. 3 Georgia (4:10 p.m., ESPN).
As a redshirt junior left tackle, Brown is considered one of the top prospects in the upcoming NFL Draft, and he got there by eventually adhering to his dad’s plan.
“Growing up at first, it was kind of tough,” Orlando Jr. said. “I was a kid that was at home when everyone during the summer was getting ready for football. I’m at the pool or I’m playing video games.
“But now that I’m a lot older, and I see a lot of these guys get so many different injuries, I know I’m very blessed.”
As one of the biggest kids in his Baltimore, Maryland, elementary school, Orlando Jr. was expected to play football.
“Being the biggest kid in the school, that’s the expectation,” he said. “People think if you’re not playing football, then you’re playing basketball. Then if you’re not playing basketball, you’ve got to be a bum.”
Not only did he want to fulfill his peers’ expectations, Orlando Jr. also longed to emulate his dad on the football field.
So he convinced his mom to sign him up for the Lutherville-Timonium Chargers, a local peewee football team.
His parents were divorced by then, and he figured his dad would never find out.
So on the first day of practice, Orlando Jr. showed up and took his individual photo, kneeling with a football in the crook of his arm wearing his No. 00 white, blue and yellow jersey.
Orlando Jr. played as a right tackle for two weeks before that photo landed in his dad’s hands.
When team organizers noticed his mom didn’t fill in an address on the registration forms, they took a photo of Orlando Jr. to the Ravens facility. They figured Orlando Sr. would want a photo of his kid, and he could fill in the blanks on the forms.
But it didn’t happen quite like that. Orlando Jr.’s season was over.
“It was a done deal,” Orlando Jr. said. “He was a guy that didn’t start playing until he was in 10th grade, and he knew a lot of guys who started early and their careers didn’t last long.”
Heartbroken, Orlando Jr. gave all of his gear back to the team.
But Orlando Sr. found something else to fill his son’s time.
Two or three times each month during the summer, the pair would hop on a chartered boat in the Chesapeake Bay, armed with fishing poles and snacks to venture far off the coast of Maryland for hours of deep sea fishing.
“We caught so many different things from rockfish to croaker,” Orlando Jr. said. “We even fished for crabs and perch.”
They took their last fishing trip just a few months before Orlando Sr. died from diabetic ketoacidosis in September 2011, but it’s a habit Orlando Jr. hopes to pick up again.
“Being in college, I don’t have the money to do that type of stuff,” he said. “Oklahoma is pretty much landlocked. I’m too bougie to fishing in a lake. So I’ll just wait until the timing is right to go deep sea fishing again.”
They went less frequently once Orlando Jr. joined a football team with his dad’s blessing in sixth grade, but their bond stayed just as strong.
Just a few weeks into his first official season of football, Orlando Jr. made a promise to his dad.
Not only would he reach the NFL, but he would stay in the league for 10 seasons and land in the Hall of Fame.
The goals were lofty for a sixth grader, but Brown wanted to make his dad proud.
“That’s kind of what my goal’s been since I started playing,” he said. “Obviously you set smaller goals. I haven’t reached that top one yet. I’m not even in the league. I’m far from it.
“I’m just continuing to work and stay grounded.”