Brandon Brooks - A Student's Perspective
4/25/2012 12:00:00 AM | Football
April 25, 2012
Mary Kate Burgess is a sophomore at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She is a member of Miami's women's club lacrosse team and an intern with Miami's Athletic Communications office.
My assignment from Mike Pearson, Miami University's Athletic Communications Director, was to profile a RedHawk football player named Brandon Brooks, a student-athlete I'd heard about but had never met. Anxious to sharpen my interview and writing skills, I was eager to get started.
First, I studied his background: native of Milwaukee ... graduate of Riverside University High School, where he was his team's player of the year in 2005 and '06 ... team captain as a senior ... a member of Wisconsin's all-state team and an honor roll student ... a psychology major at Miami.
I made an appointment with Brandon to meet at Miami's Shriver Student Center. When Brandon walked into Shriver, my first impression of him was, "Whoa, this guy is BIG! "
As he sat down to talk to me, I asked him why he came to Miami for football. He got a thoughtful look on his face as he pondered his response.
"Because it was exactly what I was looking for," he said, "the best combination of athletics and academics. I wanted a school that was not only football, but was school first, football, and then a social life."
This guy is sharp, I thought.
I asked Brandon about the man who recruited him to Miami five years ago, former RedHawk head coach Shane Montgomery. Again, he carefully formulated his answer to my question.
"Coach Montgomery was the entire reason that I went to Miami in the first place," he said. "He was very laid back and like a father figure to me."
Again, I was struck by Brandon's kind and polite manners, how very poised he was. I had the opportunity to talk to Coach Shane Montgomery on the phone. He seemed to have a smile in his voice when he spoke about Brandon.
"Brandon was a unique situation," Montgomery said. "He had originally decided to play at the University of Wisconsin, but then decided against playing there. He sent us a letter, saying he was interested in playing at our school, so we took a look at him."
Montgomery chuckled into the phone.
"We usually recruit linemen that are developmental, which means they are tall, but lanky; they need to have weight put on them in order to compete. With Brandon, he already had the size and the strength coming in as a freshman. I felt like we were getting a Big Ten lineman with him, which is something we never usually have."
What was his favorite moment at Miami, I asked Brandon.
"The MAC Championship last year," he said. "We went in as 20-point underdogs and pretty much shocked the world. We went in with a chip on our shoulders."
Brandon played through three coaching changes at Miami, redshirting as a freshman, then earning a starting job as a sophomore with Montgomery. When Montgomery was fired, Brandon played for Coach Michael Haywood his third and fourth seasons. Following Miami's Mid-American Conference championship season in 2010, Haywood took the job at the University of Pittsburgh, a position he lost just 17 days later following his arrest after a domestic dispute.
Brandon transitioned to yet another new head coach, Don Treadwell, for his fifth and final season in 2011. I asked Brandon how having to learn a different offensive system and switch to new coaching staff affected his game.
He shrugged and said, "It made me stronger as a player. It made me diverse, knowing that everything won't go your way. And knowing that, it taught me to fight back, to really give it your all."
Despite Miami's 4-8 season in 2011, Brandon earned second-team All-MAC honors for a second consecutive season. More importantly, last December he received his bachelor's degree in psychology from Miami.
On January 21, Brandon played in the East-West Shrine Game, and he wound up turning some heads.
The website NFLMocks.com loved Brandon's effort.
"Brooks was one of the players who most helped himself during the week," it said. "He absolutely dominated all week long and finished strongly in the game. He displayed power in his run blocking, good technique in his pass blocking and has a chance to be a day two pick thanks to his strong Shrine Game showing."
Another website, BleacherReport.com, was equally complimentary.
"The West's power running game led the way to their game-winning drive late in the fourth quarter, and this was mostly due to the terrific play of the trio playing on the interior line at the time. Miami University guard Brandon Brooks, Connecticut center Moe Petrus, and Saskatchewan right guard Ben Heenan all did a great job throughout the game of lead blocking in the middle to open up holes for the running game. The player who really helped his stock this week was Brooks. Weighing in at 353 pounds, Brooks is an absolutely massive player, and he uses his strength and power to his advantage. Brooks really turned heads with his performance in this game, and went from a late-rounds draft selection to a player who will be selected in the middle rounds."
Since then, Brandon has spent every waking minute preparing for the NFL draft, his dream. In January, after signing with LMM Sports to train, he spent the next several weeks in Scottsdale, working out twice a day.
"Unbelievable place," Brandon said. "It got me in the best shape I've ever been."
Though his performance at the East-West Game wasn't enough to earn an invitation to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, Brandon used Miami's annual Pro Day on March 1 to show off his skills. The flock of NFL scouts that made the trip to Oxford was duly impressed. Thirty-six reps on the bench press at 225 pounds. A time of 4.99 in the 40-yard dash. A 32-inch vertical jump, a 105-inch broad jump. All amazing stats for a man weighing 346 pounds.
This week marks the 77th Annual NFL Draft, held at New York City's Radio City Music Hall on April 26-28. The draft gurus, including ESPN's Mel Kiper, rate Brandon as the fourth- or fifth-best offensive guard.
Regardless of what transpires in what he hopes will be a lengthy pro career, Brandon has his post-football future firmly planned--a career in law enforcement.
"Not necessarily the police, but the FBI or the CIA," he said. "People really don't understand how much a psychology degree helps, but I want to try and read body language and help people out," Brandon says.
For the time being, however, an NFL team will use Brandon's physical skills to help them out.
--www.MURedHawks.com--
