Vernell Brown, right, is back at UF as director of player development for the Gators. (Photo: Courtney Mims/UAA Communications)
Former Gators Captain Brown in Mentoring Mode
Wednesday, April 11, 2018 | Football, Scott Carter
Vernell Brown was a leader on Urban Meyer's first Florida team, and Dan Mullen brought him back to be a leader for his first UF team.
Brown made do with what he had and that was good enough to finish his UF career in fairy tale fashion. Fifty-eight days after Brown broke his left leg and faced the prospect of missing the rest of his senior season, he raced 60 yards with an interception for a touchdown in Florida's victory over Iowa in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 2, 2006.
The moment tied a perfect bow on Brown's college career, a player former UF head coach Urban Meyer, in his first season with the Gators then, declared "the face of the program."
"If there's a poster, if someone out there says Florida Gators, I want his mug right there,'' Meyer said at the postgame press conference. "Maybe he's an underdog, but he's a fighter. He will fight until he can't fight no more."
Brown was listed at 5-foot-8, 165 pounds his final season at Florida, and by the look of him today, those measurements have not changed much, if at all. Brown is back with the Gators as director of student-athlete development, a position that allows him to mentor players and teach them to do the right thing when 90,000 fans are watching or no one.
"Not some of the time, but all the time,'' he said.
Brown was a natural at that.
"That was just the way I was raised,'' he said. "I was always taught to do the right thing by my parents and that's what I've always strived to do. That's part of my job, to get those guys to see that. It's a role near and dear to me, something I've been pretty much doing since I finished playing."
After college, Brown had a stint in camp with the New England Patriots and spent time in the Canadian Football League. However, with a wife and child in the fold, he sought a more stable lifestyle and returned home to take a sales job with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
Brown stayed active in the community and mentored kids in different programs. A new opportunity presented itself three years ago and Brown moved to the Lady Lake (Fla.) area to serve as director of operations/football for The Villages Youth Sports Club.
Brown was established there when he got a call from Dan Mullen to gauge his interest in returning to UF. Brown drove up to talk to Mullen, liked what he heard and started his new job in February.
"It's great to have him here,'' Mullen said. "This is what he lives for – mentoring kids and helping young people. That's what he's always done. He's been in all these guys' shoes and it means a lot for this program that he's back here with us."
Brown's connections to the Gators stretch back to his father, a Florida defensive back in the 1980s. Brown joined the UF program as a player in 2001, Steve Spurrier's final season as head coach. He played the next three seasons for Ron Zook and finished his career under Meyer.
Similar to what Mullen is trying to do with the current team, Meyer relied heavily on the team's veteran leadership his first season. Brown emerged as one of the players who helped smooth the transition.
"I was kind of always looked at by that staff as a leader for the way I did things on and off the field,'' Brown said. "I was always a smaller guy, so I always had to work extra hard to prove myself."
Brown has been busy at work trying to make an impact on players who for the most part were still in diapers when he first joined the Gators in 2001. He seeks to teach them lessons he learned during his playing career and the years since in the real world.
As he did 13 years ago in Meyer's first season, Brown is making his mark during a difficult transition period for any program.
"It's good to have him around,'' junior running back Lamical Perine said. "It's always good to learn from somebody who's already been in your shoes. All you can do is listen and take care of things he is trying to tell you."
Brown's message is simple: take care of your business the right way on and off the field. If you do that, you will succeed in life.
"Keeping yourself out of situations where you've got to ask for mercy,'' Brown said. "Staying in control of your own destiny. That is key in being successful in life, whether it's in sports or corporate America. Take pride in being a Gator. It's also more than football.
"You can have opportunities if you're a guy that is presentable and does things the right way. If you leave here and you have not done anything you are supposed to do off the field and on the field, then you are really didn't get a whole lot out of the University of Florida, and it's not the University of Florida's fault, it's your fault. What I want to do is prepare these guys for when the lights turn off."
Brown hasn't been back long – he is still living in a local hotel while his family waits to join him after the school year ends – but he has been around long enough to have confidence in the direction of the program.
He is appreciative of another chance to make a difference.
"I'm here to help assist in getting us back to where we used to be,'' he said. "I'm pretty sure we're going to be alright football-wise. I just want to make sure we're doing things the right way off the field and preparing for the success we're going to have on the field."
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