Centered

by Jason Brown

  I gave it my all during every single practice—so much so that when practice was over, I’d have nothing left. I’d go home, take my shower, eat my dinner, and go to sleep at seven-thirty or eight. But I still had homework to do, so I’d set my alarm for three in the morning. When the alarm went off, I’d head straight for the bathroom, splash cold water on my face, and get to work.

  Later in my high school career, while the rest of my classmates were socializing and goofing around during their lunch period, I’d sneak my lunch into the library and use that time as an extra study period. Out of seven hundred students, I was the only one using the library during lunch. In fact, I wasn’t supposed to be eating lunch there, but it was what I had to do. I told the librarian just that after she caught me one time eating a sandwich. I promised her I’d never do it again. But the next day I was back, during lunch. I was there every lunch period after that too. She could probably tell I wasn’t missing any meals, so I think we just came to an understanding. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

  “Hey, Jason, are you coming in here to study?” she’d ask.

  “Yes ma’am,” I’d say.

  Meanwhile, back at home, the house was filling up again. My dad had truly retired from his job in Washington, DC, when I was in high school, and Ducie was back too.

  He’d gone to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University on an ROTC scholarship. But, as you remember, he also loved video games. Well, in college, he got around a whole bunch of other students who loved video games just as much. He washed out of school, came back home, and started picking up odd jobs here and there. He worked at a restaurant for a while. He worked at a cable company. He moved back in with my parents and started working as a guard at a nearby prison. Ducie had battled earlier with some maturity and time-management issues, and he was paying the price for that now.

  Yet even if he was struggling to find his way a bit, he came into his own as a brother. Ducie knew he’d made mistakes, and he was determined to make sure I didn’t make the same ones. As I was finding new success in high school, he was encouraging me in everything I did, filling me up with love and praise and advice.

  “Jason, I want you to do better than me,” he said. “Jason, be better than me.”

  He kept pushing me, kept encouraging me, kept pouring love and affirmation and support into me, like the best big brother in the world.

  I wasn’t losing to him anymore; he was helping me win.

  College Bound

  It was my junior year and we were already in the middle of track-and-field season. The team boarded the school activity bus to head out to the meet, with Coach Long doing the driving. But as I was about to board, he closed the bus door partway so I couldn’t climb on.

  “Jason, stop right there!” he hollered.

  The rain was pouring down, splattering over my jacket and wetting my face. “Coach, it’s raining,” I said, as if he couldn’t see that for himself. “Let me on the bus.”

  “No,” he said. “I want you to soak in this moment. I want you to remember this moment for the rest of your life.”

  I wasn’t thinking about soaking in the moment. I was thinking about the rain soaking into my clothes.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m going to remember this, okay?” I hollered through the rain. “What is it?”

  “I just got off the phone with Coach Ken Browning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,” Coach Long said. “They want to offer you a full ride. A full scholarship to play for them.”

  I stood for a minute, the rain forgotten. “Wow. Really, Coach?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s awesome,” I said. “Can I get on the bus now?”

  He opened the door and I climbed aboard, wiping water away from my face. Wow, I thought again. All the weight lifting, all the practices, all the 3 a.m. mornings—they’d paid off. The University of North Carolina was going to pay my way through college.

  The Race

  Happily ever after, right? My dreams, my expectations, everything I wanted to achieve in the short term had been realized. Not only did I know that I was college bound, but I had reached new levels of popularity. In my senior year, I was voted both homecoming and prom king. Zero to hero, they say. That was me. I was Northern Vance High School’s homegrown hero. Everyone was saying so. And I listened. Boy, did I listen.

  As most everyone in my life was pumping my ego up like a balloon, Ducie was trying to keep my feet on the ground. He started warning me about the dangers of thinking too much of myself.

  “Jason, look, we’re all proud of you,” he told me, “but you need to have some humility too.”

  I didn’t listen. Why should I? I was headed to UNC on scholarship. He’d washed out of school. I worked really hard and excelled both on the football field and in the classroom. When Ducie was my age, he worked hard and excelled at only one thing: video games. My future was limitless. He was working at a prison. His future, it seemed, was literally locked in a cage. I didn’t have to put up with his love of Star Trek or his skill at Mortal Kombat anymore. My big brother wasn’t beating me at everything like he used to. He wasn’t beating me at anything.

  “Be better than me,” he had told me. Well, his wish came true. I was better than he was, or so I thought. I loved him too much to say it—up until the day we buried my grandmother.

  She died in spring 2001. She had lived the latter part of her life in Washington, DC, so the whole family went up for the funeral. Not many people knew about my scholarship then, so for me the funeral served double duty: our whole extended family could remember my grandmother and celebrate my achievements at the same time.

  For most of the day, that’s exactly how things played out. Everyone at the funeral was praising me. I, of course, soaked it all in like a paper towel.

  Ducie was getting a little tired of hearing “Great job, Jason,” and “Way to go, Jason.” He saw my pride. If he couldn’t hold down my helium-filled ego, he was determined to prick it.

  We were standing outside the church in our black suits and dress shoes. He’d heard the praise I’d gotten all day, and I was ready for more—from him, from my big brother. Instead, he turned to me and looked me in the eye.

  “Jason, everything you’ve done is great…,” he started. “But you need to show a little humility in your high position.”

  He’d said this to me before, and I’d always smiled and nodded and completely ignored him. This time, Ducie went further. He wasn’t just offering me advice; he was a little fed up with me, and he was about to let me know it.

  “I’m your big brother, and you know what that means?” he said. “I’m always going to be bigger than you, faster than you, and stronger than you.”

  My eyes opened wide, like a cartoon character’s. Ducie had obviously lost all perspective, all sense. No way was he bigger than I was. That was obvious. No way was he faster or stronger. He wasn’t going to UNC on scholarship. I wasn’t the fat tagalong kid anymore. I wasn’t the little boy that Lunsford would beat so badly in video games. Who was Ducie, pretending he was better than me? I thought. Hasn’t he been listening to everyone else?

  I was furious. I wanted to just punch my brother in his face. Maybe he wanted to punch me too. But we were dressed in our funeral clothes. We were mourning our grandmother. We weren’t going to start fighting right outside the church. We were angry, but we had enough sense and grace to stay away from anything stupid.

  “You’re faster and stronger than me, huh?” I told Ducie. “Really? You want to make a bet?”

  The street in front of the church was an empty strip of asphalt. Many of my grandmother’s mourners were slowly dispersing.

  “All right, let’s see who’s faster,” I said. “Right now.”

  So we took off our jackets and stepped into the street with our sharp-
creased pants and dress shoes. A few family members had gathered to watch, laughing and talking a little. And sure, it might’ve looked as though Ducie and I were just kidding around, blowing off a little steam after sitting in that church for so long, but I wasn’t just kidding.

  We decided to run down fifty, maybe sixty yards—a distance familiar to me from football practice. Ducie used to play football, too, but that was years ago. Who knew how long it’d been since he had run. I figured I had the race in the bag.

  “Ready…,” someone said.

  I felt the asphalt through the soles of my shoes. Now, after all this time, I was going to put my big brother in his place, to show him who really needed to be humbled. After so many years of getting beat by Ducie, I was going to beat him. After spending my entire childhood following his lead, he was going to follow me for a change.

  “Set…”

  I leaned forward a little and, out of the corner of my eye, saw Ducie do the same. He might’ve been smiling, I don’t know. I wasn’t. The time had come to show him—to show my family—I wasn’t the fat little baby brother anymore. I was a big man, and a big deal. I was everything my parents hoped I’d be, and I was determined to make sure everyone, including Ducie, knew it.

  “Go!”

  My shoes pushed against the asphalt, sending me farther, faster down the street. I could hear the sound of my soles scraping and felt the wind in my face as I saw Ducie—my layabout, video-game-loving brother Lunsford—in front of me. I pushed harder. I tried to run faster. It didn’t matter.

  Big brother beat little brother by a country mile.

  I crossed the finish line, wherever it was, and bent over, hands on my knees. I was huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf. Ducie walked over to me, smiling arrogantly, I thought at the time.

  “Look, man, we’re all proud of you,” he said, “but you can be humble as well, all right? You don’t have to walk around like you’re the big man on campus. Like you’re a big shot.”

  I should’ve listened. I should’ve smiled, nodded, and shaken his hand. Given him a hug. More than that, I should’ve humbled myself. Just like Ducie told me I should.

  But I’d been beat. Again. I was hurt. Humiliated. At a time when I was finally feeling good about myself, it felt like Ducie was trying to drag me back down—put me back in a place that I’d long outgrown.

  I stood up straight and stared at him, eyes as icy as I could make them. “You know what? I’ve got a scholarship to play football at North Carolina!” I yelled. “What are you doing with your life that’s so great? What are you doing with your life that’s so awesome?”

  I waited for the angry words, for the comeback that Ducie always seemed to have at the ready. He had a quick mind and a quick wit, as skilled with comebacks as he was with pencils and paintbrushes. If someone jabbed him, he’d always have a parry ready to go.

  But not today. I watched the smile fall from his face and the mirth and kindness drain from his eyes. Earlier, I’d wanted to punch him in the face. Right now, he looked like I had.

  He didn’t say a word. He turned and walked away.

  Did I feel bad? Maybe. But I was too angry to notice, too sure of what I’d said, and too enthralled by this cheap little victory to care.

  Dana, our sister, had watched the whole thing.

  She said, “Jason, you’re a jerk. You need to apologize.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not going to apologize. He doesn’t deserve it.” And I walked away too.

  My sister was right. Of course she was right. Ducie was right too. I’d let my hurt and pride and arrogance take control. But sometimes I think God can use even our mistakes for His purposes. He can bring His goodness out of our badness.

  A couple of months later, I noticed that Ducie was doing things differently. He was dieting. Exercising. After years of bouncing around from job to job, he was showing a focus that no one had ever seen. I didn’t know why. No one in the family did—not until he made an announcement.

  “I finally know what I’m going to do with my life,” he said. “I’m going to dedicate my life to service. I’m going to join the United States Army.”

  I tried to talk him out of it at the time. I thought of him and all his talents—the beautiful pictures he drew, the work he did with stone and brick and wood. And, selfishly, I didn’t want him to go. The United States wasn’t sending troops to Iraq or Afghanistan at the time, but to serve in the military is an inherently dangerous calling. Risk is part of the job.

  “The military?” I said. “Why you want to do that, man? There are so many other things you can do with your life.”

  He looked at me, didn’t even pause. “Jason, I’ve got to do this,” he said. “Before you can help somebody else, you first have to help yourself.”

  He said it with such boldness, such conviction. I didn’t understand what Ducie was telling me fully at the time, but I knew he meant it. I knew I couldn’t talk him out of it and that I shouldn’t. I had to accept Ducie’s decision. I walked over to him and hugged him.

  He married his fiancée, Sherrie, that fall. Two days later, he went off to basic training. After years of feeling stuck, Ducie was experiencing some massive changes, exciting changes.

  I was, too, taking my scholarship offer and heading an hour’s drive southwest to Chapel Hill. I was a Tar Heel now.

  Losses and Lessons

  The University of North Carolina is basketball country. With seven national championships and eighteen Atlantic Coast Conference titles on its ledger, how could it not be? Michael Jordan and Los Angeles Lakers legend James Worthy both played there—on the same team, in fact. When people think North Carolina Tar Heels, they think hoops, not the gridiron.

  But when I arrived, you could sense a potential shift. The basketball program was going through a rare rough patch. Yet, in 2001—the first game I saw action in, in fact—the Tar Heels football team beat Florida State University, a program that at the time was ranked sixth in the nation. It was a first in the school’s football history that North Carolina had beaten a top-ten team. After losing our first three games that season, we finished the rest of the regular season with a 7–2 record, polishing it off with a 16–10 win against Auburn in the Peach Bowl. Hopes were high for the following season.

  But the team sagged my sophomore season. I moved from offensive tackle to center that year—the position that my line coach, Hal Hunter, called the line’s most important position—and started all twelve games. But the team finished 3–9. Going into my junior year in 2003, I didn’t see any reason to believe that the team would be much better. My life wasn’t falling apart or anything. My grades were strong, and earlier in college I met the love of my life, Tay—beautiful, brilliant, ambitious Tay. I’ll have much more to say about her later, but for now I can just say that from our first days together, she became my rock, and we’d known each other for just a few days when I knew, without a doubt, that she’s who God wanted me to spend the rest of my life with. She and I were married in the summer of 2003.

  But when you play Division I football, everything else in your life—grades, relationships, everything—must make space for the sport. Football takes an enormous amount of your time, energy, and spirit. Sure, I was doing my job well, according to the coaches. I was considered one of the strengths of an otherwise disappointing team. Some people were already telling me that I might be NFL material. After my college career was done, I might be playing on Sundays.

  But football is a team sport. Yes, it’s nice to play well. It’s nice to hear your coaches praise your efforts. It’s even nicer to win. I could’ve played a perfect game, but it didn’t mean much if I headed into the locker room a loser. When you play football, you’re a piece of a machine. You can be a really great piston in an engine, but if that engine doesn’t turn over, it doesn’t much matter. And when the season l
ooks like it’s heading south before it’s even begun, you’re bound to feel disproportionately gloomy too.

  Ducie, meanwhile, had become a father. His daughter, Amber, was born in June 2003, while he was in Iraq. He wasn’t allowed to go home to see her, but Ducie’s wife, Sherrie, sent him pictures of her regularly. And every day, when he was out in the field, he’d wear a picture of his daughter on his ID band, strapped to his right arm.

  That August, at the end of our long, hard football training camp, my parents came to Chapel Hill to have dinner with Tay and me. I was really looking forward to it. It was a great opportunity, I thought, to vent about everything that was going wrong with my life. If there’s any shoulder that’s good for crying on, it’s my mama’s.

  Right after Tay and I climbed into the back seat of my mom and dad’s vehicle before dinner, I launched into my sorrows. I recapped the team’s horrible season last year. I told her that the team wasn’t going to be any better this year.

  “All the guys are selfish,” I said. “They’re just way too into themselves.”

  Looking back, that’s pretty ironic—me pointing the finger of blame at everybody else. I was pretty full of myself in that moment, thinking I was a strong link in what I perceived to be the weak chain (my football team). My brother had cautioned me; he’d told me to be humble. You don’t have to walk around like you’re the big man on campus, he’d said.

  But I was the big man on campus. I was setting weight-lifting records for the school. Humble? At that time, I still didn’t feel I had anything to be humble about. All my problems, all my woes—I was sure they were someone else’s fault. I knew that if anyone could understand that—could understand all my woes and hardships—it would be my mom. She’d make me feel better. She’d commiserate with me, reassure me, just like she’d always done. Oh, baby, everything’s going to be all right, she’d say. You just work hard and do your best, and that’s all anybody can ask for.