Brown Quietly Becoming Nation’s Best Defensive End

On a defense loaded with loudmouths, Penn State’s Courtney Brown doesn’t waste words.

As a defensive end with a 7-foot-2-inch armspan and the quick-twitch muscles of a cat, does he really need to say anything?

His curmudgeon of a coach already compares him with Penn State legend Dave Robinson. NFL draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. picks him to go in the top five next year. His position coach can find only one thing wrong with him: He has no twin.

Coaches, teammates, friends--heck, even his mother--have spent years trying to figure out whether he’s shy or private, humble or aloof.

Really, it makes no difference: Brown needs no advertising.

“If Courtney Brown was as outgoing, as talkative as I was, he’d be up for the Heisman,” Nittany Lions linebacker Brandon Short said. “He’s 272, 6-foot-6, runs a 4.5 40, his arms are long, he strong. And he’s mean.”

On the field, at least. The only words his teammates use to describe his off-field persona are “quiet” and “nice.”

The 21-year-old Brown goes to Bible reading once or twice a week. He had a 4.0 grade-point average in high school and is studying Web design in college. He likes going to the movies, anything that’s “good and clean,” his roommate, Anthony King, said.

“Courtney is one of the coolest guys ever,” teammate LaVar Arrington said. “He’s just the nicest guy.”

Tell that to offensive linemen and quarterbacks, who have watched the ferocious pass rusher dominate entire quarters for Penn State.

“Courtney, he’s a natural,” ends coach Larry Johnson said. “First of all, he has the big arms. He has great explosion off the ball. Then he has great balance. He can move. He’s not a straight-ahead guy. He’s got the head fakes and moves, and that makes him different from other ends. And a will to be successful, Courtney has that, too.”

Coach Joe Paterno, usually sparing in his praise of his players, has run out of great things to say. He already has called him the best player at his position in Penn State history.

“Courtney would be in Dave Robinson’s class and maybe, over a long period of time, even a more consistent performer,” Paterno said, referring to the NFL All-Pro outside linebacker.

“The great thing about Courtney is that he is so unassuming. He is just such a great asset to this football game because of his poise, maturity and just him being such a good, good person.”

Reading those words recently, Brown raised his eyebrows, incredulous.

“Did he really say all this?” he asked.

Then he looked at the sheet of paper again.

“I’m just thankful that someone thinks of me like that,” he said. “But that’s saying a lot, because Dave Robinson was a great player, and I think I have a ways to go before I’m mentioned like that.”

Typical Courtney. Always deflecting the praise. Always harder on himself than everybody else.

“Sometimes he realizes being humble is the best way to get where you want to be,” Johnson said. “He hates being singled out. He really does. He thinks it takes away from the team. He’s a very unselfish young man.”

If Brown sounds small-town, it’s because he is. The youngest of five children, he hails from a speck on the map called Alvin, S.C.

“You can miss it if you’re trying to get somewhere,” said Shirley Brown, Courtney’s mother, whose family has lived there for at least three generations. “It’s hot. Mosquitoes everywhere. You see snakes sometimes. Deer, you see them crossing the road.”

Sitting in a swampy lowland of moss-hung oaks and pines, Alvin has no stop lights, no city water, no fast food within 17 miles, no movie theaters within an hour’s drive. The locals speak of all this with great pride.

Alvin’s other famous star is Georgia Tech’s star quarterback, Joe Hamilton, who played high school ball with Brown and follows Penn State. He was watching on television as Brown manhandled Miami’s offensive line.

“I love it when he goes out and does that,” he said. “But what I love most is when I see ‘Alvin, S.C.’ under his name.”

Brown seems a little stunned, too, that just another kid from Alvin is on the verge of going to the NFL.

“I’m glad somebody thinks highly of me, but I’ve got a long way to go,” he said. “I’m just thankful. Blessed that I had an opportunity to play.”