Troy Brown's fire fueled by presence of his two children
Junior linebacker Troy Brown practices ahead of a game against Ohio.
It’s just after 3:15 p.m. and Troy Brown is rocking side to side in a chair.
He’s facing a computer and taking questions from the media for the first time since February, when he was just a reigning First Team All-Mid-American Conference performer. Since then, he’s lived through an ongoing global pandemic, seen his name plastered all over national watchlists and had his junior season at Central Michigan cut in half.
He’s also welcomed his second child, Emery Kingston Brown, into this world – and he’s smiling.
“He’s my first son,” Brown said. “I love him to death.”
There’s no debating Brown is one of the best returning defensive players in the MAC, his stat line last season speaks for itself. What sets him apart is his growing family that motivates him. Brown’s on-field performance is fueled by the presence of his two children, Emery and his 3-year old daughter, Avah.
Because of them, Central Michigan’s star linebacker is back with vengeance for his junior season. Many football players spend years searching for their “why” – the fuel to their fire. For Brown, all it takes is a drive home.
Changing his life
Brown remembers finding out about the birth of Avah as an 18-year old. There were nerves and questions.
Was this the end of his short college football career? Would he be forced to hang up the cleats to focus on being a dad?
The prototypical college experience – frequenting bars, late nights on the town – isn’t tailor-made for a young father. Regardless of whether or not Brown wanted to do those things, they were essentially off the table.
Instead, Brown would spend his late nights at home watching over Avah, who was born on Feb. 19, 2018. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I never took it as a negative,” Brown said. “Most of the time I didn’t want to be going out anyway. My kids, they grounded me and helped me get back to a life that I needed to be on. Instead of being this wild football player that everyone expects you to be or something like that, I was just the homebody.”
Brown dealt with another change at the end of his redshirt freshman season, this time on the field. After beginning his collegiate career at safety, he moved to outside linebacker under new defensive coordinator Robb Akey.
Brown responded to the change thoroughly. He was all over box scores in 2019, intercepting passes and sacking opposing quarterbacks. While he exceeded expectations last season, doing so raised the bar for a shortened, conference-only campaign in 2020.
“He’s a playmakin’ son of a gun,” Akey said. “He’s got a great football awareness to him. I think he’s gained comfort in knowing how to work within the package, where he can make some things happen.”
Through all the changes, and the subsequent successes, there’s been one constant: the support from his family.
“They motivated me highly to keep doing me and keep being my best and keep moving forward because there are times where life doesn’t go right and you might just want to stop, you might just want to give up,” Brown said.
Navigating COVID with the birth of a son
Emery was born a month early – he beat his own baby shower.
Now approaching four-months old, his father speaks of him with a prideful smile. As with Avah, the announcement came with nerves. Brown has experience as a father, but balancing the full-time student-athlete workload with being a father of two wasn’t going to be easy.
Brown thought he was ready – and then the coronavirus pandemic hit.
“The experience was great, but I was nervous a lot because of the COVID situation and having newborns around and everything like that,” Brown said. “It was definitely different.”
Regardless, Brown leaned on each of his children’s mothers. Having to quarantine to stay healthy for a season that was canceled and then revived, the help provided for him was something he’ll forever be grateful for.
“They do a tremendous job in helping me and helping me stay in contact and, especially with the COVID situation and being quarantined, they helped me out a lot,” Brown said. “So, my hat’s off to them, man. They honestly made me a great father.”
Brown said that the pandemic allowed him to grow as a father. He’s proud of what he accomplished as a father during his time off. Now, with the season fast approaching, he’s shifting his mindset but not his focus.
Taking the field as a father, everything Brown does on the field is for the two people he’s raising off it.
“The motivation of my family, most definitely my kids, my daughter and my son, they motivate me to keep going,” Brown said. “They motivate me to go harder everyday.”
