While sitting out the Terrapins football team’s season this fall because of a university suspension, Wes Brown felt as though he’d lost everything.
The running back was arrested and charged with second-degree assault, theft of less than $1,000 and unlawful interception of oral communications in early July before the charges later were dropped. In early August, the university suspended Brown for a year with the opportunity to return after one semester.
So while Brown watched the Terps’ up-and-down 7-6 campaign between working as a high school custodian, speaking to youth football teams and trying to get back in football shape, he never took off the red bracelet marked with the words “Hold the rope,” theTerps’ slogan for the 2013 season.
“[The bracelet] was kind of my connection to the guys and supporting them back home,” Brown said Saturday in his first meeting with the media since he was reinstated in January.
Brown is back with the Terps after his semester-long absence, and the changes he’s made are obvious to his coach.
“It was sad, but it was something that needed to happen,” coach Randy Edsall said. “I’m not sure it would have made him the man that he is today if that didn’t happen, and I think that’s one of the things that college athletics is all about. He needed to have something that was very dear and special to him taken away to realize what a privilege it is to have the opportunity that he had.”
Brown spent his time away from the team watching the Terps every week while keeping in touch with teammates through social media and talking to his coaches on the phone. He said the most painful moment of watching the Terps came when he was watching a game and running back Brandon Ross missed a gap in the defense because he hesitated.
“I loved watching,” Brown said. “But it hurt so bad.”
The Baltimore native also worked out to lose weight. He missed spring practice in 2013 after having shoulder surgery, and he said he weighed 218 pounds at the time of his suspension. He said Saturday he is down to 205 pounds and hopes to reach a playing weight of 210 pounds.
In his first few practices, including two with pads, Brown said he felt like he was floating because he wasn’t used to playing with less weight. And while he may have felt sluggish, his coaches and teammates told him he still looked fast.
“The biggest thing with Wes is he’s just got to get his feet back going underneath him,” Edsall said. “The time away made him grow as a young man, and you can see that growth and the maturation in him. Now it’s just a matter of him coming out here and continuing to keep working to get better.”
Brown also worked part time as a custodian at Good Counsel, his alma mater. Some nights he watched the Falcons play on the field where he starred as a four-star recruit before cleaning up the trash from the bleachers. Current Good Counsel players would recognize him, but Brown would try to remind them he was just like them.
“No disrespect, but it was a good job because it helped me humble myself and appreciate things, the little things like that, like people who actually do those jobs for us who we don’t even appreciate or say ‘thank you’ for doing,” Brown said.
As Edsall does with all incoming players, Brown is at the bottom of the Terps’ spring depth chart behind fellow running backs Ross, Albert Reid, Jacquille Veii and Joe Riddle. In 2012, Brown appeared in eight games and ranked second on the team with 382 rushing yards. In the Terps’ 20-18 loss to N.C. State that fall, he rushed 25 times for 121 yards and a touchdown for one of the top Terps performances on the ground that season.
Still, he’s going to have to work for a higher spot on the depth chart.
“He’s walking in the door,” offensive coordinator Mike Locksley said. “He’s at the bottom of the depth chart. He’s going to have to fight his way to earn whatever time he gets, and I would think that’s what every player expects, and those are the standards that are set here within our program.”
Overall, Brown and his coaches are excited for his return. His speaking engagements with youth football teams made him less shy, and he expressed gratitude to athletic department members such as Athletic Director Kevin Anderson, who checked on him during his suspension.
And with the past summer and fall behind him, Brown can focus on the thing he missed so much during his absence: playing football with the Terps.
“Every time I come out here, everything feels new,” Brown said. “A fresh breeze. Come out, just feel like a new Wes every day I come out here.”
