Former Texas quarterback James Brown remembers walking in L. Theo Bellmont Hall as a freshman and seeing pictures of members of the Longhorn Hall of Honor on the wall. Bobby Layne, Tommy Nobis, Earl Campbell.
“I thought ‘Man, what would it take to be on that wall?’” Brown said. “I wanted to be one of the eyes of Texas that looked down on people when they walked in.”
Fifteen years later, Brown’s wish has been granted. The Longhorn quarterback who set 30 school records while playing from 1994 to 1997, is one of seven inductees in the Longhorn Hall of Honor’s 2009 class.
“I didn’t know what to say when I found out,” Brown said. “I had been playing phone tag with [Associate Athletic Director David McWilliams] and I thought he was just trying to call me about season tickets. I wasn’t expecting this. It’s an honor and a pleasure to be a part of Texas history.”
Brown, who went 25-13-1 as a four-year starter, may be best remembered for leading Texas to the inaugural Big 12 championship over heavily favored Nebraska by converting a fourth and inches on a play that went down in history as “roll left.” Texas’ 37-27 victory in that game set the stage for its rise to dominance in the Big 12, which transpired a few years later during the Mack Brown era.
“He turned our program around,” said Bill Little, Texas’ Sports spokesman. “That win gave Texas a swagger in the Big 12.”
Bright beginnings
Brown came to Texas from Beaumont West Brook High School as the top quarterback recruit in Texas, throwing for 2,207 yards and 20 touchdowns and rushing for 305 yards and six touchdowns as a senior.
Since Brown stood just six feet tall, most schools recruited him to be more of a running quarterback. But Texas coach John Mackovic wanted to turn him into a drop-back passer, which was a critical factor in Brown’s decision to come to Texas.
“[Assistant Coach Steve Bernstein] met with James’ father and talked to him about how I would provide James a real opportunity to play quarterback and not just be an athlete,” Mackovic said. “James wanted a fair opportunity, and we gave it to him.”
Brown’s opportunity didn’t come overnight. He redshirted his first year, 1993, and began the next season on the bench as returning starter Shea Morenz’s backup. That all changed with a stroke of fate. Morenz hurt his knee in the Colorado game, and Mackovic sent Brown in to replace him.
“We didn’t really have a backup — me and John Dutton shared that role,” Brown said. “I just happened to be standing the closest to Coach Mackovic at the time and I had my helmet on, so he sent me into the game. All I was thinking to myself at the time was ‘Man, I don’t want to fumble.’”
Brown didn’t fumble and was named the starter for the next week’s game against Oklahoma.
He rose to the occasion in his first start, completing 17-of-22 passes for 148 yards and a touchdown while also running for a score in Texas’ 17-10 victory over Oklahoma.
Morenz would come back the next week, but by the end of the season Brown had beaten him out for the job, and the rest is history.
Roll left
Heading into the inaugural Big 12 championship in 1996, all the power lay in the north division. Nebraska, Kansas State and Colorado were the conference’s premier programs.
The Longhorns were able to slip into the game as the South’s representative, but were 21-point underdogs to the third-ranked, 10-1 Huskers.
“When people told me that, I said we were going to win by 21 points,” Brown said.
With the Longhorns up 30-27 with 2:40 left to play in the fourth quarter, facing a fourth down and inches from their own 28 yard line, Mackovic called a play the Longhorns had been saving for that exact moment — roll left.
“I had told him the night before that we would use that play if and when we absolutely needed to make it,” Mackovic said. “It was always going to be roll left — never right. When the official signaled fourth down and inches, I simply gave him the play. I knew he would execute it perfectly.”
Brown faked the handoff to Priest Holmes in the backfield and then turned to his left with the entire Nebraska defense converging on him. He then threw the ball downfield to tight end Derek Lewis for a 61-yard gain that set up the Longhorns’ go-ahead touchdown and sent them to the Fiesta Bowl.
“I looked short and saw Pat Fitzgerald open, but then saw [Lewis] farther down the field and made the throw,” Brown said. “I remember being so focused for that game that I didn’t even feel any emotion after that. After the game, I just sat in front of my locker staring into space trying to come down from it all. To this day, people everywhere I’ve gone, even in Scotland, Germany and Paris, know about that play.”
Non-storybook ending
Brown entered his senior year as a Heisman candidate, but was hurt in the first game of the year and never really recovered as the Longhorns finished 4-7, which ended up leading to Mackovic’s ouster.
“He never complained, but it was obvious he could not do the things he had done before,” Mackovic said.
The Longhorns also lost 22 seniors from the year before, including key players such as All-American guard Dan Neil, who went on to play for the Denver Broncos. Star receiver Wayne McGarrity missed the season with an injury, leaving Brown with inexperienced receivers.
“We tried to pick up where we left off the year before, but probably should have simplified the offense for all the new people,” Brown said.
Despite his injury and the inexperience surrounding him, Brown refuses to make excuses for that season.
“I stunk that year and now that I’m coaching I try to make sure that the seniors finish their last year without a letdown like I had,” Brown said.
Brown left with 30 school records, almost all of which were broken by his successors: Major Applewhite, Chris Simms, Vince Young and Colt McCoy.
“Prior to James coming here, we hadn’t really produced a lot of quarterbacks except for Bobby Layne and James Street and weren’t thought of as a dominant quarterback school,” said Neil, who played with Brown for three seasons. “He changed that.”
Breaking barriers
Brown didn’t just break the stigma of Texas not being a dominant quarterback school.
When Texas integrated in 1970, it was one of the last schools to do so, and before Brown, only one black quarterback, Donnie Little in 1978, had started a full season at quarterback.
Brown said people told him not to come to Texas because the fans wouldn’t accept a black quarterback.
“I’ve never been one to just fall in line when people say things like that,” Brown said. “They shouldn’t have used the word impossible — because it’s an opinion not a fact. When somebody tells me I can’t do something, it just makes me want to do it more. You saw that when people said we were supposed to lose by 21 points to Nebraska.”
Once he got to UT, Brown said he never saw any of the racism he had been warned about.
Almost 10 years after Brown won Texas’ first Big 12 championship, Vince Young, the third black quarterback to start a full season, became the first to win a national title at Texas.
“The barriers were broken down long before with Donnie Little, but he didn’t have success to the extent James did,” Neil said. “It probably did help influence a guy like Vince Young.”
From player to coach
Brown, now 34, is back in his hometown of Beaumont as the quarterbacks coach for the brand-new football program at Lamar University, which starts play next season.
After playing at Texas, Brown played in the arena league and NFL Europe before moving back to Austin to finish his degree and work in real estate. Brown, a licensed real estate appraiser, was the offensive coordinator at Hyde Park Baptist School from 2003 to 2005.
When Lamar Head Coach Ray Woodard, an assistant coach for the Scottish Claymores while Brown was on the team, took the job in 2008, he offered Brown a position on staff.
“About a year and a half ago, the real estate market went bad and I thought ‘What am I going to do?’” Brown said. “Then I heard about the opportunity at Lamar and it was a dream come true — being able to go back home after 15 years.”
Helping start a Division I program from scratch hasn’t been an easy task.
“We’re having to do a lot of things normal position-coaches wouldn’t have to do,” Brown said. “We have to do purchase orders, put equipment together, work on the field, work in the weight room. But I like that it’s a unique situation where we get to build the traditions ourselves. It’s a great bonding experience.”
Brown says most of the players he recruits now are too young to remember his famous “roll left” play, but most of their parents do.
“I tell the kids anything they want to find out about me they can Google,” Brown said. “Google tells you everything.”
Brown ran into the quarterback who followed him at Texas, now UT’s running backs’ coach, Major Applewhite, while recruiting at an Aldine Nimitz game in the Houston area.
“James was probably one of the most competitive people I’ve been around at Texas,” Applewhite said. “He played and carried himself with a confidence that made others believe in him regardless the opposition. He had a genuine love for the game and was a true teammate to me as a young freshman trying to learn the position.”
Brown’s legacy
Brown threw for the most yards of his career, 2,468, his junior year, which broke the school record he had set his previous season. Applewhite, Simms, Young and McCoy all broke his record, but unlike those four; Brown never got to play in a modern spread offense.
“The hardest part about playing quarterback back then was the drop back because I had to make sure I got the snap, go through my reads and decide whether I needed to pump fake or not and watch for the blitz all while moving backward,” Brown said. “I was always a good reader of defenses, so I think my numbers would be a lot better if I got to play in the spread.”
And though his records are getting wiped away with each passing week, Brown’s enshrinement to the Longhorn Hall of Honor on Nov. 20 will ensure that his competitiveness and toughness forever remain a part of Longhorn lore.
“Out of all the quarterbacks I’ve played for in college and eight seasons in the NFL, I enjoyed playing with James as much as or more than any of them,” Neil said. “He’s one of the best in Texas history.”
Football: Brown's dream comes true
Former standout Texas quarterback inducted into Longhorn Hall of Honor
Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009
Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009
 "Photo: Courtesy photo of Texas Athletics")
Courtesy photo of Texas Athletics
Former Texas quarterback James Brown remembers walking in L. Theo Bellmont Hall as a freshman and seeing pictures of members of the Longhorn Hall of Honor on the wall. Bobby Layne, Tommy Nobis, Earl Campbell.
Good article but Major, Chris, Vince and Colt would be his successors because they came after him.