Trevon Brown: In My Own Words

By Joe Corley
ECUPirates.com

It takes just a couple of minutes of watching Trevon Brown perform on the football field to realize he's a tremendously gifted athlete, with the size, speed, hands and playmaking ability of a big-time college receiver who very well could make it to the professional ranks.

But as he enters his final season on the ECU football team as a marked man because his expected role as the featured receiver on offense, Brown knows that all that talent doesn't guarantee anything. Far from it, in fact. His entire life, he's been clearing one hurdle after another — some of which he placed there himself — just to get this far. He certainly has been resilient.

Brown's challenges started early. He grew up as the youngest of four children in his family with his mother, Twanna, in what he described as "a very tough neighborhood" in Wilmington, and never met his father until he was in college at ECU.

His mother, however, proved to be more than capable of keeping Brown in line. She supported the family by working as a CNA, and at times she was known to rule with an iron fist at home. When opportunity for trouble arose, she often squelched it.

"It seemed like my brother and sisters could do whatever they wanted, but I couldn't go anywhere," Brown said. "I couldn't hang out with my friends. And I love her for that. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I sure do now. All my friends were out, they'd come knock at the door and it'd be a little too late, and my mom was like, no, he can't come out. When I look back at it, it was everything. My mom is the best.

"Those guys are still my friends, but either they're locked up, dead, or in the streets still."

Of course, Brown's mother couldn't be around at all times. Sports occupied much of his free time, and when he was about 10, Brown also started spending hours upon hours at the Boys and Girls Club in Wilmington.

"I play the drums, so I was on a drum and drill team," he said. "That's when I first started traveling. They took us to events like the Battle of the Bands in Atlanta. Playing the drums and seeing people who did it for a living was amazing. If I wasn't at football or basketball practice or at track, I was playing the drums."

Brown describes himself as a "visual learner," and he taught himself to play drums.

"It's just something some people can do," he said. "No one taught me anything. I wasn't taught how to play basketball or football, either. For example, when my older friends were playing basketball, I'd sit and watch every move they would make, every dribble they would make, every jump shot, and when they would leave I'd go out and imitate everything they just did. Every day. Same in football and drums. I would tie everything together and make my own moves."

Athletically, Brown identified as a basketball player first. In fact, he played on the New Hanover High School team that won the 4A state title during his junior year, 2012. But as a youth he did play some Pop Warner football, mainly because his friends did. As one of the bigger kids, he played center. And even though he kept getting better and better, he still maintained a focus on basketball.

But Brown returned to football as a high school sophomore, and immediately excelled. He finished as New Hanover's career leader in 2,601 yards, and was contacted by programs such as Notre Dame, Tennessee and Auburn.

Life outside of sports didn't go as smoothly, though. Around 8:30 a.m. on New Year's Day 2011, one of Brown's close friends, Queyshon King, was killed in an automobile crash on his way home to go to church. King was a standout middle linebacker and a straight-A student in the classroom, and was soon to decide whether to accept a scholarship from a smaller school or to walk-on to a larger school.

"He was like a brother to me," said Brown, who added that he thinks of King every time he scores a touchdown. "When I didn't like football, he made me love football, and not just for the game but for the people I was going to battle with. We built a special bond. It's not about the pigskin, it's about my brother next to me."

Two years later when Brown's son was born, he named him after his friend. Brown and Quey's mother no longer are together, but the experience of having a child helped Brown mature a little.

"You don't understand the word love — like, you love your mom — but you don't truly understand the word love until you have a little one," he said. "I will do anything in the world to give him anything I can."

Quey lives with his mother and her husband in California now, but he did stay with Brown for four months two years ago. It's tough on Brown not seeing his son as much as he would like.

"When I see a picture of him, he's gotten that much taller," Brown said. "I'm missing pieces of his life. For me not to see him much is hard."

Just like it was hard for Brown not to see his own father. All along, Brown knew who his father was, and he said he always wanted to meet him.

"He was in Wilmington for a while, then he moved to Raleigh," Brown said. "Sometimes my sisters would tell me, hey your dad's in town. But then we'd call him and he wouldn't answer. It was tough. My mom was always there for me, but she couldn't teach me how to be a man."

That all changed one day when the man saw a story in the sports section of the newspaper that mentioned Brown.

"When he saw me in the newspaper, he hit me up on Facebook," Brown said. "He was like, my name is Tyrone Harrison, and I'm your dad. And I was like, I know, I've been wanting to meet you all my life."

Then Harrison dropped another surprise on Brown, telling him of a whole branch of family he never knew he had. In addition to the two sisters and one brother he grew up with, Brown found out that on his father's side of the family he had 11 more siblings.

"When he told me that, I was like, I don't even care if I meet you anymore, I want to meet my brothers and sisters," Brown said. "Now it seems like I've known them all my life. They come to my games. We hang out and joke and talk like we've always known each other."

Brown could've left ECU after last season, but elected to return in part because of the bond he has established with the younger receivers on the team. He broke multiple school and American Athletic Conference records last season, when he finished with 60 catches for 1,069 yards and seven touchdowns, including a pair of 95-yarders. He was second-team All-AAC and earned the Pirates' Offensive Skill Player-of-the-Year award.

"I'm preparing differently for this season because I've seen other people and how they prepared, like when Justin Hardy was here and when Zay Jones was here," said Brown, whose season last year included a nine-catch, 270-yard effort with two touchdowns (95, 20 yards) in a 48-20 win over Cincinnati in the home finale. "I'm going to run all these routes full-speed, 100 percent effort, even if I'm not going to get the ball, because that could make the difference for some of these young guys to step up and make plays.

"If everyone is stepping up on the receiving crew and at the running back position, (the defense) can't double me. I want to prepare my mind to not get frustrated if I'm not getting the ball or getting touches, just being that piece on the team that, alright, they've got to cover me, and if they don't we're going to take advantage of it."

He also wants to help ECU return to a bowl, something it hasn't done since 2014, when he was a true freshman. As a leader, he preaches that getting there begins with everyone working together and taking care of the little things first.

"You have to have confidence," Brown said. "The way we worked in the spring and the way we competed, we know we can be good. But we also know we have to prove it. We've really been coming together this spring and summer. We encourage each other, all of us."

Brown's chances of moving on to the NFL certainly are realistic. After all, ECU has produced a pair of NFL receivers in the last four years in Jones (2016) and Hardy (2014), who are first and second, respectively, on the NCAA career receptions list. But at 6-foot-2, 237 pounds, Brown compares himself more favorably with Cam Worthy, who was a teammate of his with the Pirates in 2014 and later spent some time with the Baltimore Ravens.

"Cam was a big, strong receiver who made the most of his opportunities when he got them," Brown said. "I always compare myself to him. When I came on this team as a freshman, there were so many great receivers on this team that I knew when I got my chance I had to take it."

Brown's first chance as a freshman came in the opener, a 52-7 win over North Carolina Central. In fact, the first catch of his college career was a 17-yard touchdown in the third quarter.

However, coming out of New Hanover proved to be anything but a smooth process. Brown received offers in both football and basketball. He chose ECU football because of the experience he had sitting in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium during a game on his official visit.

"My brother (B.J. Tyson) played basketball here, and all the other sports are important, but when I was visiting it was all about football," Brown said. "They put so much pride and joy into football. When I was sitting in the stands, I could feel the stadium moving."

He graduated in 2013, but didn't start at ECU until the spring semester of 2014 because he didn't meet initial eligibility requirements. Then in February 2014, Brown was arrested by ECU campus police on drug charges, which turned out to be a misunderstanding over a prescription drug. The charges eventually were dropped.

Brown's best game of his freshman year came against North Carolina, when he had five catches for 117 yards and two touchdowns in a 70-41 victory. His 55-yard touchdown catch from Shane Carden on ECU's opening possession got the ball rolling.

He played in eight of the 13 games that season, missing the final five of the regular season after suffering a posterior cruciate ligament injury against UConn. The injury did not require surgery, and he returned for the Birmingham Bowl against Florida.

Brown missed the first three games of the 2015 season because of a violation of a campus code of conduct, but still finished as the team's third-leading receiver with 41 catches for 496 yards and three touchdowns. With Carden graduated and his replacement out for the season with an injury just before the opener, ECU had to turn to backups Blake Kemp and James Summers.

"It was tough," Brown said. "Summers would start one game, and if he would mess up, Kemp would come in, and it would keep flip-flopping all season. We couldn't ever really get into a rhythm, and rhythm is very important between a quarterback and a receiver."

Then came more trouble. At times during his college career to that point, Brown had been a Dean's List student. But in the spring semester of 2016, he fell short of attaining the credits required to stay eligible for the 2016 season, and thus did not play in Coach Scottie Montgomery's first season. Brown said he made a C-minus in a class in his major, when he needed at least a C-plus to earn the credit.

"I felt like I hurt the team," he said. "I wish I could've done something."

Brown did contribute some, though, by working on the scout team. He also changed his major from recreation and leisure studies to university studies, which he is utilizing to study entrepreneurship and child development.

He got his academics shored up and returned to have a breakout season last fall. Going into this season Brown is a First-Team Preseason All-AAC selection by both Athlons and Phil Steele's College Football Preview Magazine. He wants to help restore a positive atmosphere to the Pirates.

"The bonds I've made with the younger guys here, guys like Leroy Henley, Blake Proehl, Mydreon Vines, I just feel like I can't leave these boys hanging," Brown said. "I have to go out with a bang, with a winning season, just to help these boys have even bigger things to look forward to."

Brown also is on schedule to graduate in December, and will be doing an internship with the Boys and Girls Club in Greenville during the fall.

"I've been working with classes over at Elmhurst Elementary," he said. "Back home I've been going to high schools around my neighborhood in Wilmington and talking with kids, lifting with kids, hanging out with them for the day, just to show them that you can make it no matter where you come from."

When his football days are over, Brown wants to make helping others his profession.

"I want to build a plan for kids who are like I was when I was growing up," he said. "I want to make it a place where they'll do their academics, but also have fun and maybe take trips. I want to build a business like that, where you teach kids the basics of sports, you teach kids how to maintain classwork, and then how to manage free time productively."

Of course, Brown doesn't want those football days to end after this season.

"I'm working hard to perfect my craft so I can play at the next level," he said. "My goal is to be better than I was last year, and if I can do that, I think that'll open up a lot of eyes."

Players Mentioned

Trevon Brown

Leroy Henley

Blake Proehl

Mydreon Vines

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