He Chooses Own Route : Brown’s Decision to Leave Nebraska for NFL Rooted in Desire to Care for His Family

“I just want to do the right thing.” --Derek Brown, Feb. 20, 1993

Derek Brown will become a number in the eyes of the NFL on Sunday or Monday, whichever day and whichever round he is taken in the draft.

The 15th selection in the fourth round of the draft . . . maybe the first pick in the sixth round . . . he’s one of 37 undergraduates eligible.

But through his daughter Kierra’s soft brown eyes, Derek represents the perfect human jungle gym.

She swings back and forth on his arms as he sits at a picnic table outside a Fountain Valley hotel Tuesday night. She climbs up his chest and hangs over his shoulders.

For her, dad is more than a football player, he’s a playground.

Kierra turns 1 Tuesday, the day after draft’s second and final day. Her perfect present--a team in need of a running back.

The next few days are important ones for Kierra. They are important to her mother and Derek’s fiancee, Amy Trout, and for Kierra’s 2-year-old half-brother, Brennen.

They are important to Derek’s mother, Shirley, who raised Derek and his brother, Mark, on her own in La Habra.

And they are important days for Derek, whose job is not only to carry a football but his family’s future as well.

Brown, a former Servite High standout, bypassed his senior season at Nebraska to enter the draft.

He rushed for more than 2,000 yards in the last two years in Lincoln. He had high hopes for his senior season, but decreasing playing time and concern for his financial future led him to the NFL.

“I wanted to move on,” he said. “I have a daughter, a little boy. I have responsibilities to take care of.”

Brown needs money, but NCAA rules wouldn’t allow him to work and play college football too. He wants to provide a good life Kierra, Brennen and Amy. He wants to buy a home and a car for his mom. He wants to help out Mark, who’s taking classes at Fullerton College.

It’s a tough year to enter the draft, which has been cut from 12 to eight rounds with a $2 million rookie salary cap per team. Still, Brown thinks he’s doing the right thing.

“My mother is having some tough times right now and it’s been pretty difficult for her,” he said. “It’s been tough for all of us financially. It’s tough to find a good job out here and to keep it. My family has been the big part of my decision. Hopefully, down the road, it will all straighten out for us.”

*

“When I’m not working, that puts a lot of pressure on my mom. I want to do my part. I feel I have to. Since my father left, I guess I put myself in the position of being the head man. That’s pretty hard on me because I’m still young and sometimes I just don’t know what to do.”

--Derek Brown, age 17, Sept. 30, 1988.

To understand where Brown is going, you need to know where he has been.

Brown grew up in a single-parent family. Shirley worked hard to raise her boys.

Mark and Derek worked hard too, taking part-time jobs in high school when they weren’t playing football.

Derek didn’t know his father, George Brown, very well. He left when the boys were young, although he visited them frequently.

Money was never in abundance. Shirley and her sons pooled their money to make ends meet. Hard work came at an early age in the Brown household, both with sports and with life.

Bill Velasco and Harold Bishop, the boys’ junior league coaches, were the father figures for Derek and Mark.

When they needed a stern hand or someone to talk to, Bishop and Velasco were there. The brothers often stayed overnight at Velasco’s house. Bishop paid for the boys’ football shoes and took them water skiing. Bishop helped pay Derek’s tuition to Servite.

Brown became an instant star at Servite, rushing for 4,878 yards from 1986-88. He rushed for 2,301 yards his senior year, setting the county single-season record that was broken last season by Rancho Alamitos’ Jeff Byrd.

He and Encino Crespi’s Russell White turned Servite-Crespi football games into classics with their play and verbal battles in the sports pages. Derek would outdo Russell and let him know it. Russell would outdo Derek and let him know it.

Brown was a USA Today and Parade All-American, and won the Times’ Glenn Davis award as the Southland’s top high school player. Nearly every college recruited him, and Nebraska got him.

His freshman year at Nebraska was one of his toughest but also one of his best.

He sat out that season for failing to meet Proposition 48 requirements and worked part-time with a Lincoln plumber while he went to school.

He also met Amy, a Nebraska student, during his freshman year. His roommate, Cedric McDonald, introduced them on Valentine’s Day.

Amy was pregnant with Brennen when she met Derek.

But something clicked with them. Perhaps Derek saw some of his mother in Amy, who planned to raise her son on her own, just as Shirley had done with him and Mark.

“Brennen’s lung collapsed just after he was born,” Amy said. “He nearly died. But I told myself I wanted to do this alone.”

Still, she said, Derek was there for support, as a friend.

Derek passed his college entrance exams during the winter and was eligible to play the next fall. His relationship with Amy turned serious during the football season, and they have been together ever since.

Amy said their relationship has survived some difficult tests. She said most people handle their mixed relationship well--Amy is white and Derek is black--but there are always stares, questions and comments.

“We’ve handled that,” Amy said. “My family has accepted it. And that’s important to us.”

Derek, 22, and Amy, 23, haven’t set a wedding date yet. Derek plans to adopt Brennen after he and Amy are married.

“I’ve matured a lot since I had Brennen,” Amy said. “And Derek’s maturing, too.”

*

“This is by far the toughest decision I’ve made. It was tougher than deciding where I wanted to go to college. The NFL . . . this is real life now. It’s time to get down to business.”

--Derek Brown

Brown’s college career ended with a 27-14 Orange Bowl loss to Florida State on New Year’s Day. Brown gained only 13 yards in four carries.

He flew to Fountain Valley after the game and began thinking about the draft.

He wondered if he figured in Nebraska’s future plans. In three seasons he rushed for 2,699 yards, fourth on the all-time chart, but was that enough?.

He started eight games last season, sharing playing time with sophomore Calvin Jones, who was emerging as a big-play back. Brown’s carries dropped from 230 in 1991 to 169 last season. His yardage dropped from 1,313 to 1,011.

Suddenly, Nebraska’s I-backs became the “We-backs.” Together, Jones and Brown rushed for 2,221 yards, a 6.59 average per carry last season.

Brown wondered if staying was worth it. Would he be better off learning at the professional level, and providing for his family?

“I looked at what would happen if I stayed at Nebraska and the same thing would have happened,” Brown said. “Calvin and I would split time. I just didn’t think there was anything else I could do there.”

Brown called scouts, asking their opinion of him, where they figured he would go in the draft. Some told him between the fifth and seventh rounds. Others said as high as the fourth, depending on how he performed at scouting combines and private workouts.

“(I) spoke with them (scouts) every day for about a week to get as much information as I possibly could,” Brown said. “I wanted to make the right decision.

“Some people were upset with me when I decided.”

One was Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne, who had been away on a recruiting trip when Brown made his decision. NFL officials had notified him of Brown’s departure.

Osborne had asked Brown just before the Orange Bowl if the running back was interested in declaring for the NFL draft. Brown told him no.

“That was the truth at the time,” Brown said. “I wasn’t thinking about the NFL at the time, I had my mind on the (upcoming) game.”

Brown made the draft registration deadline by a half-hour.

He still had two things to do. He was a year away from completing his business degree, and he promised his mom he would get it. Then he returned to Lincoln and apologized to Osborne for not consulting him on his decision.

“Coach Osborne was really upset about it because it was out of his control, that I didn’t speak to him about it,” Brown said. “I didn’t want to burn any bridges with Nebraska. That was important to me.”

*

“(Waiting for draft day) is sort of like waiting for Christmas. Except it’s April 25, not December.”

--Derek Brown, April 20, 1993

Brown surprised many people when he declared for the draft, including NFL scouts who only gave him a passing glance during his junior season.

A senior year would have given scouts a better look at him. Brown thought the worst could happen--what if he was injured? It happened to Nebraska senior linebacker Travis Hill, who injured his knee in the Orange Bowl.

“Travis got hurt and that hurt his position in the draft,” Brown said. “I looked at that and thought that could be me getting hurt next year.”

ESPN’s Mel Kiper has projected Brown getting drafted between the fifth and seventh rounds. The Sporting News’ Chris Mortensen didn’t list Brown among the top 11 running backs eligible for the draft.

“I really see myself up with the top guys,” Brown said. “I haven’t had the publicity or the notoriety a lot of them have because I was sharing time with Calvin.

“That was something that was hard to do, but I understood it then and I understand it now. Teams just don’t know about me.”

They are learning about him, though. He helped his draft standing by scoring eight out of a possible 10 points at an NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. He also has worked out for Washington Redskin scouts at USC with Curtis Conway and in Lincoln for the Redskins and the Rams.

He ran a 4.4-second 40-yard dash during the Lincoln workout, and scouts told him they liked his pass-catching ability, something he rarely did at Nebraska and Servite.

“I don’t care where I go,” he said. “I just want to get with a team and get settled.”

Derek and his family will gather around the TV Sunday to watch the draft. They’re hoping for the best--one of the top five rounds at least.

After he’s taken, there is the task of signing a contract and making the team. He has already signed with an agent: International Management Group, which has Joe Montana and Herschel Walker among its clients.

In the meantime, Brown stays in Fountain Valley with his family and lifts weights regularly at Mater Dei with Monarch assistant coach Kendall Blackburn, who helped coach him at Servite.

And Brown waits, anxiously, for the draft to start.

“I’m not nervous or anything,” he said. “A lot of people ask me if I am. Should I be?”

One thing’s for sure. He’s convinced that he has done the right thing.

“The decision I made was a tough one,” he said. “But I made my decision. There’s no turning back now.”

Derek Brown at Nebraska

Derek Brown finished his three-year college career fourth on Nebraska’s rushing chart, trailing only Mike Rozier (4,837), Ken Clark (3,307) and I.M. Hipp (2,814):

Year Carries Yards Yds/Game TDs 1990 59 375 46.9 5 1991 230 1,313 119.4 14 1992 169 1,011 101.1 4 Totals 458 2,699 93.1 23