2008 Woodie Awards
The Other Chris Brown
Meet The Man Who Shares A Name With Colgate's QB
Jeff Fein
Issue date: 11/12/04 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 2 next >
During the football team's appearance in the NCAA National Championship game last December, a distant relative placed a call to senior Chris Brown's home in Hancock, NY and solemnly told Brown's father how proud he was of Chris despite the Raiders' poor performance that day. After a moment of bewilderment, Brown's father realized the situation, one that had become increasingly familiar during the Raiders' rise to national prominence.
"You know, you might want to take a closer look," Brown's father said. "I don't think we're talking about the same Chris Brown."
They weren't. And on the advice of Mr. Brown, let's all take a closer look at his son - the other Chris Brown on campus.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Chris Brown the econ tutor.
An affable, involved, and well-dressed member of the class of 2005, Brown looks and acts like the Colgate student they put on the cover of university brochures. That's what's so horribly hilarious about the cruel joke that someone (maybe God, maybe a sadistic worker in the admissions department) has been playing on him for the last four years. Since the man who shares his name took over as the Raiders' starting quarterback in 2002, Brown's life has had a certain surreal quality to it - like that of a typical Colgate student, but with Dark Side of the Moon playing perpetually in the background.
I first contacted Brown when I inadvertently e-mailed him an interview request for my weekly football article. It was not the first time such a mix-up had occurred. Or the second. Or the hundredth. "That kind of thing happens all the time," Brown says.
Let's have a few laughs at the man's expense, shall we? When interviewing to go abroad to London with the economics department, the professor in charge questioned the feasibility of Brown going overseas, what with his extensive commitments to the football team and all. In the end, Brown found a way to fit London into his schedule.
Along with the frequent e-mails he gets from Colgate's athletic department, other schools' newspapers and dim-witted Maroon-News editors, Brown receives "tons of stuff" in his mailbox that doesn't belong to him. These items have included, among other things, a new toothbrush and a letter from a disgruntled ex-girlfriend of the Raiders' quarterback. "Yeah I opened it; I mean, it was addressed to me," Brown says with a smile. "That was pretty awkward."
"You know, you might want to take a closer look," Brown's father said. "I don't think we're talking about the same Chris Brown."
They weren't. And on the advice of Mr. Brown, let's all take a closer look at his son - the other Chris Brown on campus.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Chris Brown the econ tutor.
An affable, involved, and well-dressed member of the class of 2005, Brown looks and acts like the Colgate student they put on the cover of university brochures. That's what's so horribly hilarious about the cruel joke that someone (maybe God, maybe a sadistic worker in the admissions department) has been playing on him for the last four years. Since the man who shares his name took over as the Raiders' starting quarterback in 2002, Brown's life has had a certain surreal quality to it - like that of a typical Colgate student, but with Dark Side of the Moon playing perpetually in the background.
I first contacted Brown when I inadvertently e-mailed him an interview request for my weekly football article. It was not the first time such a mix-up had occurred. Or the second. Or the hundredth. "That kind of thing happens all the time," Brown says.
Let's have a few laughs at the man's expense, shall we? When interviewing to go abroad to London with the economics department, the professor in charge questioned the feasibility of Brown going overseas, what with his extensive commitments to the football team and all. In the end, Brown found a way to fit London into his schedule.
Along with the frequent e-mails he gets from Colgate's athletic department, other schools' newspapers and dim-witted Maroon-News editors, Brown receives "tons of stuff" in his mailbox that doesn't belong to him. These items have included, among other things, a new toothbrush and a letter from a disgruntled ex-girlfriend of the Raiders' quarterback. "Yeah I opened it; I mean, it was addressed to me," Brown says with a smile. "That was pretty awkward."