Post by Bornthrilla on Dec 14, 2007 12:37:32 GMT -5
BROWN IS THE NEW MAN IN CHARGE IN A&T ATHLETICS
www.ncataggies.com/A&T%20Athletics/wheelerbrown%20story.htm
Wheeler Brown graduated from North Carolina A&T State University in 1979 with the understanding from his N.C. A&T college football coach Hornsby Howell that you must prepare yourself for every situation life brings.
Those lessons became evident a few months later when he was given a book at Harper High School in Atlanta and told he was the new boys basketball coach. Brown, who had never coached or played basketball before, took on the challenge and turned himself into a good high school coach and later an outstanding college basketball coach who went 191-110 during his career.
On Thursday, November 29, 2007, N.C. A&T chancellor didn’t hand Brown a book, but he did hand him the interim director of athletics position at N.C. A&T. Even though Brown has never been a director of athletics, like Howell taught him to be years ago, he’s prepared.
“Coach Howell made it hard to be an Aggie,’’ said Brown, who played right tackle at N.C. A&T under Howell from 1975-78. “When you left here you knew what it meant to be an Aggie because you earned it out there on the field and in the classroom. We have to get back to that point. Coach Howell always taught us to lay the groundwork needed to be successful.”
Brown started laying the groundwork to become a director of athletics in 1996 when he accepted a position at Wheel and Jesuit University as assistant athletics director and assistant men’s basketball coach. Two years later, he was promoted to head men’s basketball coach. In 2001, he was named an associate athletics director at Bowie State University before former N.C. A&T director of athletics Charlie Davis brought him back to N.C. A&T in 2002.
Once back in Aggieland, Brown continued to prepare himself for the position he holds today. Brown was one of only 12 people chosen from 300 applicants to be a part of the NCAA Fellows Program. The program is sponsored by the NCAA. It pairs minorities and women who expire to be director of athletics at Division I programs with an executive mentor who is a Division I director of athletics. Brown is the only person in the program from a historically black college or university.
Among the programs success stories are Buffalo director of athletics Warde Manuel and 37-year-old Georgia director of athletics Damon Evans. Brown can now be added to the list of success stories.
“Academics are No. 1 in my book,’’ said Brown. “If we bring in a kid and don’t graduate him or her, we’ve used them. That’s not good. The goal is to make sure each every student-athlete – now some of it is up to the student – has a chance to get a degree. Then we have to get our swagger back.
There was a time if you wanted a championship; you had to come through A&T and fight like mad to get it. We need that back. When our student-athletes walk around this campus, we want students, faculty and staff to look at them with a level or respect because they’re working hard to be out there competing. We don’t want people to believe that just anybody can walk out there and be an Aggie athlete.”
Brown credits first his sister and then his former Aggie football coaches for his determination and Aggie Pride. Brown is the only one of his three brothers to graduate high school. His sister Edna Parker was the first in the family to earn a college education. Parker earned and undergraduate and graduate degree from Coppin State University.
It was then when Brown, who is from the inner city of Baltimore, saw that he had options other than the mean Baltimore streets. Brown decided to use his football talents to earn an athletic scholarship to a college. From the 10th grade on, he thought that university would be Morgan State, which is located in his hometown. But a high school business teacher named Hubert Simmons told him he should not decide on a college until he talks to N.C. A&T. Simmons was a former N.C. A&T student-athlete and a graduate.
Simmons called his good friend Hornsby Howell and told him he had a 6-foot-3 offensive lineman at Northwestern High School in Baltimore he needed to recruit. Howell sent his assistant Matt Brown to Brown’s house.
“After my mom met with coach Brown she said: ‘Boy, you’re going to A&T,’” Wheeler Brown recalls.
Brown continued: “Almost all the coaches were A&T graduates. You felt the pride in them. It wasn’t called Aggie Pride back then, but you felt their pride and it meant something to you.”
Howell tested Brown’s pride when after starting him as a freshman; Howell threatened to send him back to Baltimore. Brown’s grades had dropped to below a 2.0 GPA, so Howell called Brown into his office and started dialing Brown’s home number to reach Brown’s mother in Baltimore.
He told Brown he was sending him home because he obviously didn’t want to attend N.C. A&T. Brown replied that he couldn’t go home. There was no way he could look his mother in the eye and tell her he was being sent back home because he wasn’t going to class. Brown begged Howell not to call. Howell took Brown at his word that he would complete his school work.
“It was a wake-up call for me,’’ said Brown. “From that day forward our treasured being an Aggie. I want our student-athletes to put on their uniforms and treasure being an Aggie. It’s important for our athletes to know one of them is in this position. I’m Aggie born and Aggie bred. They need to know I’m prepared to make sure they know it’s hard to be an Aggie. But once you’re an Aggie, there is nothing like it.”
But then again that’s Wheeler Brown…always prepared.
www.ncataggies.com/A&T%20Athletics/wheelerbrown%20story.htm
Wheeler Brown graduated from North Carolina A&T State University in 1979 with the understanding from his N.C. A&T college football coach Hornsby Howell that you must prepare yourself for every situation life brings.
Those lessons became evident a few months later when he was given a book at Harper High School in Atlanta and told he was the new boys basketball coach. Brown, who had never coached or played basketball before, took on the challenge and turned himself into a good high school coach and later an outstanding college basketball coach who went 191-110 during his career.
On Thursday, November 29, 2007, N.C. A&T chancellor didn’t hand Brown a book, but he did hand him the interim director of athletics position at N.C. A&T. Even though Brown has never been a director of athletics, like Howell taught him to be years ago, he’s prepared.
“Coach Howell made it hard to be an Aggie,’’ said Brown, who played right tackle at N.C. A&T under Howell from 1975-78. “When you left here you knew what it meant to be an Aggie because you earned it out there on the field and in the classroom. We have to get back to that point. Coach Howell always taught us to lay the groundwork needed to be successful.”
Brown started laying the groundwork to become a director of athletics in 1996 when he accepted a position at Wheel and Jesuit University as assistant athletics director and assistant men’s basketball coach. Two years later, he was promoted to head men’s basketball coach. In 2001, he was named an associate athletics director at Bowie State University before former N.C. A&T director of athletics Charlie Davis brought him back to N.C. A&T in 2002.
Once back in Aggieland, Brown continued to prepare himself for the position he holds today. Brown was one of only 12 people chosen from 300 applicants to be a part of the NCAA Fellows Program. The program is sponsored by the NCAA. It pairs minorities and women who expire to be director of athletics at Division I programs with an executive mentor who is a Division I director of athletics. Brown is the only person in the program from a historically black college or university.
Among the programs success stories are Buffalo director of athletics Warde Manuel and 37-year-old Georgia director of athletics Damon Evans. Brown can now be added to the list of success stories.
“Academics are No. 1 in my book,’’ said Brown. “If we bring in a kid and don’t graduate him or her, we’ve used them. That’s not good. The goal is to make sure each every student-athlete – now some of it is up to the student – has a chance to get a degree. Then we have to get our swagger back.
There was a time if you wanted a championship; you had to come through A&T and fight like mad to get it. We need that back. When our student-athletes walk around this campus, we want students, faculty and staff to look at them with a level or respect because they’re working hard to be out there competing. We don’t want people to believe that just anybody can walk out there and be an Aggie athlete.”
Brown credits first his sister and then his former Aggie football coaches for his determination and Aggie Pride. Brown is the only one of his three brothers to graduate high school. His sister Edna Parker was the first in the family to earn a college education. Parker earned and undergraduate and graduate degree from Coppin State University.
It was then when Brown, who is from the inner city of Baltimore, saw that he had options other than the mean Baltimore streets. Brown decided to use his football talents to earn an athletic scholarship to a college. From the 10th grade on, he thought that university would be Morgan State, which is located in his hometown. But a high school business teacher named Hubert Simmons told him he should not decide on a college until he talks to N.C. A&T. Simmons was a former N.C. A&T student-athlete and a graduate.
Simmons called his good friend Hornsby Howell and told him he had a 6-foot-3 offensive lineman at Northwestern High School in Baltimore he needed to recruit. Howell sent his assistant Matt Brown to Brown’s house.
“After my mom met with coach Brown she said: ‘Boy, you’re going to A&T,’” Wheeler Brown recalls.
Brown continued: “Almost all the coaches were A&T graduates. You felt the pride in them. It wasn’t called Aggie Pride back then, but you felt their pride and it meant something to you.”
Howell tested Brown’s pride when after starting him as a freshman; Howell threatened to send him back to Baltimore. Brown’s grades had dropped to below a 2.0 GPA, so Howell called Brown into his office and started dialing Brown’s home number to reach Brown’s mother in Baltimore.
He told Brown he was sending him home because he obviously didn’t want to attend N.C. A&T. Brown replied that he couldn’t go home. There was no way he could look his mother in the eye and tell her he was being sent back home because he wasn’t going to class. Brown begged Howell not to call. Howell took Brown at his word that he would complete his school work.
“It was a wake-up call for me,’’ said Brown. “From that day forward our treasured being an Aggie. I want our student-athletes to put on their uniforms and treasure being an Aggie. It’s important for our athletes to know one of them is in this position. I’m Aggie born and Aggie bred. They need to know I’m prepared to make sure they know it’s hard to be an Aggie. But once you’re an Aggie, there is nothing like it.”
But then again that’s Wheeler Brown…always prepared.
