On Wednesday night, the Aggies defeated the University of Texas in what is one of their two or three biggest victories of all time. Unless something funny happens, they should be headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1987. I wasn't able to watch the game, but my sister immediately called me to tell me what had happened. I thought about what it must have been like to see Acie Law hit that shot in a packed Reed Arena, and I thought once again about how far the program has come. Then I thought about what this must be like for the man I'll always consider the face of the Texas A&M basketball program.
The Fightin' Texas Aggie basketball team is my second favorite team of all time, but it hasn't always been that way. The first A&M basketball game I attended was during my freshman year there, and before that I didn't know any of the players or coaches. Before the 1996-97 basketball season began, I checked out one of the preseason publications to see how the Aggies might fare in the innaugural season of the Big 12. They were picked toward, if not at, the bottom, the lone bright spot being the potential of a freshman named Jerald Brown.
Jerald Brown came in as Mr. Basketball in the state of Texas, and he had an interesting college career. He had a great freshman year, earning Freshman of the Year honors in the Big 12 and setting an A&M record for three-pointers. Things went kinda wrong his sophomore year--the team went 1-15 in conference play, and Brown was mired in a shooting slump. It was an awful year that resulted in the end of the Tony Barone era, but the image that sticks with me from that year is from the lone conference win against Baylor. When I opened up the school newspaper the next day, the picture was of Jerald celebrating after the final horn by doing the hand gesture that sophomores do as part of Aggie yells. It's the sort of thing you would expect to see out of a zealous Corps sophomore but not out of an impromptu celebration by an athlete. I took it to mean that Jerald had really taken to A&M as a home, even though, given the support he had received, I wouldn't have faulted him for transferring somewhere else.
Brown's final two years were better but not great. Under head coach Melvin Watkins, Brown was no superstar, but he was a solid contributor and a much happier player. During his junior year he tipped in the winning basket to defeat an Oklahoma team that would eventually go to the Sweet 16, and the next year he had a couple of the greatest interior passes I've ever seen in a huge upset victory over #12 Oklahoma State.
When I was researching for this, I found an article from Brown's senior year claiming that "he had scholarship offers from major powers such as Kansas, North Carolina and Duke, but selected A&M because he wanted to be a part of a remarkable turnaround." I wonder what his reaction is to this overdue resurgence of the basketball program. In a sense, he is the ultimate forefather for this team: Brown's senior year was Bernard King's freshman year, King's senior year was Antoine Wright's freshman year, and Wright's final year was Joseph Jones's freshman year. But in another sense, it's hard to say that somebody who started ten years and two coaches ago can have much of a connection to the current team.
Which is unfortunate, because when you have a drought as long as A&M has had between tournament appearances, you're bound to have a lot of people who contributed in some important way to the team's current situation who will likely be forgotten. That's why I think Jerald Brown is the face of the Texas A&M basketball program. The players and the coach who will be credited with this turnaround are being rewarded with huge crowds and glowing press. The crowd that saw A&M take down Texas was about 4 times the average crowd Brown played in front of, and I'd be surprised if more than a handful of the current fans have even heard of him.
I hope that Jerald Brown can see the current team's success as, at least partially, the result of his own hard work, dedication, and loyalty. When I was in school, the football team was contending for conference championships, and there was a lot of talk about guys like Dat Nguyen and Dan Campbell as the embodiment of the Aggie Spirit. Losing teams don't often get the benefit of having fans identify with them, but I always thought that Jerald was every bit the Aggie anyone else was. He had to be. Between being in the Tony Barone doghouse and playing in front of empty arenas, he had to have something substantial on the inside sustaining him, the same kind of thing that now allows a more talented group of players to thrive at A&M. I hope all the new guys recognize the foundation that people like him have laid.
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