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*Prove It - YoungTB - 05-24-2018
![[Image: 124_B87_B8_F9_A2_4_E5_A_B6_AB_1_FF81_C5_F3_EB9.jpg]](https://preview.ibb.co/m8Why8/124_B87_B8_F9_A2_4_E5_A_B6_AB_1_FF81_C5_F3_EB9.jpg)
“Prove It” by Marquise Brown
As we approach the DSFL draft, I wanted to take the time to fully introduce myself to the league. I feel like you don’t get the full story with media pressers and interviews, and I have so many thoughts on my mind that I’d like to just get them out here. It’s currently 2 in the morning here in Florida, I and I can barely sleep. To be honest, I haven’t been able to get much sleep at all over the past week or so. Maybe letting all of this out onto my phone will help? I don’t know.
My name is Marquise Glenmore Brown. I’m 22 years old turning 23 in October. I was born in Brooklyn, NY but moved to Florida when I was very young. My mother and father were both very young at the time of having me, and they weren’t on the best of terms. My mother was a working woman, a sex worker. On a cold winter night in February 1995, my Father was a client of her’s. And uh... the rest is pretty much history. My mother had initially realized she was pregnant after taking a pregnancy test. After that, she took a DNA test to find out that the baby was his. She was initially going to terminate the pregnancy apparently, but my father talked her out of it. They tried a relationship... but in the end it just didn’t work. They truly aren’t compatible with each other at the end of the day. Anyways, I’m born and my Mother wants nothing to do with me. After a year of me being born and living with my Dad and Grandma, she eventually gives up custody to my Dad and he moves me out to a small town called Pahokee Florida to work at the county jail there.
Where do I even begin with Pahokee? Often considered to be one of the worst if not the worst cities in Florida, Pahokee is littered with homelessness, poverty, crime, and depression. The school system is horrible, and a lot of students don’t go to college. Overall, it’s an awful place to live.
Pahokee is known for mainly negative things, but one positive connotation of the city is it’s high school football. The city, school system, and 5,000 residents pride themselves on the Pahokee Blue Devils. They won countless championships with different teams. One thing is for sure, the city breeds amazing athletes. I even saw Anquan Bolden play when I was in middle school.
My Dad and I (and eventually my little brother that would come a year later with a different woman) moved into a small condo on the south side of the city. The condo was old, rickety, and we didn’t even have TV. But one positive was that I got to see every single High School football game that went on, being so close to the High School.Watching the Pahokee Blue Devils was the highlight of my week growing up. Seeing the big kids lace up and dominate was so fun to watch. As a boy in Pahokee, you don’t grow up wanting to be an astronaut or wanting to be in the NSFL. You want to be a Blue Devil. And that theme rang especially true with me.
So at the age of 10, I obviously wanted to get into Pee Wee football. It was 150 dollars just for me to get in, and my Dad didn’t have that kind of spending money. I begged and begged for weeks, but I kept getting the same answer. “I ain’t got that kind of money though, Marquise.” I was crushed, not being able to play killed me. All I could think about was lacing up and making my Daddy proud. My father knew how badly I wanted to play, so to be able to afford for me to get in, he took money out of the electric bill to pay. I was ecstatic, even though we had no electric for a month. I was finally able to play football with my friends in Pahokee colors! And even though my Father had to deal with no electricity, he was also happy for me too. And on that day, when I learned that my Dad sent in the money for me to play football, I knew that I aspired to be a football player.
I’ve always been a fast kid, and I’d always beat my friends in races on the playground. My dad even told me that I’m “one hell of a runner”. Initially, I wanted to be a wide receiver and I was in Pee Wee. But in middle school, I got transitioned and groomed into a RB/CB. It was sooo much fun, and I loved it way more than being a WR. Cutting through holes in my o-line, breaking away from the second level of linebackers and defensive backs and juking and faking out defenders all the way to the end zone became second nature for me. In middle school, I was only like 5’7 too, so I made bigger dudes miss and fall. However, I wasn’t the best at being a corner. Being short was kind of a blessing and a curse, because I could run faster than anybody on the field, but bigger guys could just destroy me on long balls and deep throws. Needless to say, I’m not that much of a defensive player! At the end of my middle school football career, I held rushing records for Pahokee that were previously held by high schoolers AND I was top 3 in rushing yardage in the entire state. Going into high school, I had some lofty expectations to say the least. But I harnessed these expectations, and focused on becoming a better player every single day. I was never happy or satisfied with how I played, and I am still like that to this day. I’m definitely my biggest critic. But like I said, that only pushed me to do bigger and better things on the field.
But during this time, my Dad started to go through some horrible times in his life. One summer day during the summer of eighth grade, my Dad learned that my Grandpa had been shot and killed, apparently due to him owing money. This sent my Dad into a deep and dark spiral of depression and drugs. He started to become addicted to cocaine, oftentimes spending our food stamps to get more and more of it. It was horrible, and it pained me to see my dad like this. But I couldn’t do anything about it, because I always thought he would have gone to jail. One day, I tried to help him get off the drugs by hiding one of the bags that was clear as sight in the living room under my bed. I made such a huge mistake that day. When he got home from work and couldn’t find his drugs, he was absolutely furious. He started breaking things, trashing the entire house so that he could find the cocaine that he needed. And when he found the bag under my bed in my room... he beat the shit out of me. He left bruises and marks on my face and neck and let me have it for a good 3 minutes. He was much taller and heavier than I was, but I was stronger than him. To this day, I still believed I could have fought him off. But I didn’t for some reason. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because I thought it would have made the problem worse, or because I respected him too much. Either way, he went off on me. I thank God everyday that DeMarcus was at a sleepover at his friend's house. If he had saw that, I don’t know what he would think.
My Dad eventually apologized, but I will never forget that moment, and I don’t think I even could if I tried. The anger and fury in his eyes, the strength of every hit, punches designed to want to kill someone, will always be engraved in my mind whenever I think of him. And it makes me feel horrible, because I know that’s not my real father, I know he was in a different state of mind at the time. But when I was getting beaten, I couldn’t differentiate between my real Dad and my drugged up Dad.
After that, he made it a point to try and get off the drugs. But it got even worse.
One day after school, I came home to him lying on the floor, unresponsive. I dashed over to the landline phone to call 911, I told them frantically that my Dad was on the ground not moving. Turns out they sent an ambulance in the nick of time. Had I shown up a minute later, my father would have been dead. He was in an overdosed state of coke and molly, and had to stay in the hospital for 5 days. I was left with taking care of my little brother and feeding him. I grew really close to him during this time, and kept telling him that everything would be okay.
When my Dad came back, he wasn’t the same person he used to be. He ended up stopping the drugs, and he just became a quiet person. He started taking anti-depressants to help him cope with his depression instead of cocaine, but it made him a shell of his former self. But in spirit, he was still the same old Dad, and he was still my biggest role model in life.
After that summer was high school. Getting into high school and beginning to play high school football was a day that I had dreamed of since I was a little kid. Donning the dark blue and white was something that I had wanted to do forever, and to play under the lights on Friday games and lead Pahokee to championships was my goal. It was here where I met Coach Dave Atwater, the freshman football coach of Pahokee High. And he had no time for weak-minded young men on his football team.
The first tryout, we had to run 15 laps around the field at full speed in the hot August weather with no water. Almost everybody ended up throwing up, including me. But I kept going and pushed myself to finish those laps if it were the last thing I’d ever do. I was one of the few who were able to finish them all, and I think on that day, I gained Atwater’s respect.
After the tryout, he pulled me aside. He said “Son, I know you’re a hell of a ball player and put up big numbers. But I don’t give a shit about no goddamn numbers. I want you to show me how good of a ball player you are. I want you to prove yourself to me once the season starts.” “Yes sir.” I replied, out of breath, sweat dripping down my face. It had me thinking on the way home about how my numbers don’t matter to him. It put me in a state of mind where I constantly had to prove why I was there and why I deserved to be in Pahokee colors. My middle school records didn’t matter to me anymore, I wanted to prove why I could tango with the big guys.
Now, Pahokee didn’t just play some pushover preppy ass high schools. Our rivals are the Belle Glade High Gators of Belle Glade, the town over from Pahokee. Belle Glade was a bit of a nicer town than Pahokee, but produced comparable high school athletes. The Blue Devils and the Gators always played each other hard and the games were incredible to watch. Watching each guy give it their all for the city they rep is amazing.
To keep competitive, Pahokee has to make sure that it trains and grooms some great athletes, and Coach Atwater took this to a whole other level. He lead multiple teams to championships and was able to make stars. He isn’t an idiot. So, I listened to his words. I was going to prove myself to him and to the team that I deserved to be there and I was going to lead this team to victory. I started living for the game of football, studying the playbook cover to cover, focusing on hardcore drills that pushed me to my absolute limits. I was going to make Pahokee, Coach Atwater, and most importantly, my little brother and Pops proud of me.
And, despite being undersized at 5’9 (I think I was one of the shortest on the team), I became the starting runningback and kick returner for the Freshman Pahokee Blue Devils. I was thrilled, but even more nervous. The day before my first game, Coach Atwater had a meeting with me. He pulled me into his office and shut the door behind me. I took a seat while he sat down at his end of the desk.
“Son, you know what tomorrow is, right?” He asked, donned in a dark blue polo with a Pahokee Blue Devils insignia on the right breast, black shorts, and a white visor. “Yes sir. Game day.” He let out a smile and nodded, something that I rarely saw him do. “Correct. Now I know you’re excited, but I think I might be even more hyped up to watch you take the field.” “Why is that, sir?” I replied. “Because Marquise, I know you’re going to do big things in the future. You’re something special, you know that?” “Th-thank you-“ He slammed his fist down on the oak desk, rattling me a little. “I asked you a question, dammit. Answer. Do you know how talented you really are?” “Yes sir.” He smirked. “You know you gon’ be a star one day?” I stopped. I always wanted to stay humble and keep my head down, but Coach Atwater made me realize something. That if I wanted to make a name for myself and separate myself from the rest of the pack, I needed to have a little bit of confidence in me. “Y-yes sir. I’m gonna be a star.” Coach Atwater liked my answer. He got up out of his leather chair and walked around the desk to give me a firm handshake. I stood up and nodded to him. “You’re one of the most talented freshman I’ve ever seen in all of my years of coaching here in Pahokee.” He said to me. “Go and prove yourself out there tomorrow.”
And after that pep talk, I felt confident about going into that game and proving that I am the best runningback, no, the best player to ever don Pahokee blue.
That season, I ran for 2000 yards, broke multiple state rushing records, and went to the State Championship where we eventually won. I was the MVP of the season.
For the rest of my high school football career and into my college career at Florida State, I wanted to prove to myself and to everybody why I deserved to be getting the chance to play. And that’s one of the reasons why I became the player and man I am today.
And as we approach the DSFL draft, I will continue to prove myself to everyone who doubts me, everyone who says that I can’t do it. Because I know I can. If I don’t have any confidence in myself, how can my team have any confidence in me?
I’m going to lead a team to victory, that’s all I wish to do in my upcoming career. And I will prove to you all why I can. Thank you.
[Ready For Grading, 2636 Words]
*Prove It - Toasty - 05-24-2018
Great article. I am sure you will be doing great things for the team that got you. Now I am praying like hell the Portland Pythons will get you
*Prove It - YoungTB - 05-24-2018
(05-24-2018, 02:50 AM)Fire-Bred Wrote:Great article. I am sure you will be doing great things for the team that got you. Now I am praying like hell the Portland Pythons will get you
Thank you my man! It’d be an honor to suit up in black and yellow.
*Prove It - Toasty - 05-24-2018
Hey by any chance is Marquise Brown inspired by Oklahoma WR Marquise Brown
*Prove It - YoungTB - 05-24-2018
(05-24-2018, 03:29 AM)Fire-Bred Wrote:Hey by any chance is Marquise Brown inspired by Oklahoma WR Marquise Brown
No I just came up with it myself, lol.
*Prove It - run_CMC - 05-24-2018
Always nice to see people flesh out a good backstory for their player. Great article!
*Prove It - iamslm22 - 05-24-2018
LOVE the Saquon pic. :pennstate:
*Prove It - YoungTB - 05-24-2018
(05-24-2018, 03:07 PM)run_CMC Wrote:Always nice to see people flesh out a good backstory for their player. Great article!
Thank you!
(05-24-2018, 03:11 PM)iamslm22 Wrote:LOVE the Saquon pic. :pennstate:
WE ARE! Sad that he got drafted by the enemy though.
*Prove It - iamslm22 - 05-24-2018
(05-24-2018, 03:17 PM)YoungTB Wrote:Thank you!
WE ARE! Sad that he got drafted by the enemy though.
PENN STATE! And I'm a Jets fan - so I'm happy for him. No ill will to the GMen. Hoping he's a star in the NFL.