Something we all should remember
The path Devon Brown took to the being named the Associated Press Group AA girls basketball player of the year Wednesday wasn’t carved out of the ground during the course of one year. Nope, it’s been under construction for a while. Probably starting when her father gave her a basketball and she found a new home on the Waynesboro YMCA basketball court.
The paving started years ago, when Brown was on a youth team coached by Franklin Woodson and she dominated the court back then. You didn’t have to be a slack-jawed know-it-all sports editor (at the time) to see what was coming once Brown put on the real purple and gold. Heck, Ray Charles could see where this was going. He could have seen what Waynesboro was getting and how the team, school and community would benefit from it.
What you got, River City, was one of the most electrifying girls basketball players this town has ever seen.
Yeah, yeah, throw those old names my way. That’s all fine and dandy. But, let’s be honest here, Brown has all the tools for success at Liberty University. A team that wins the Big South Conference almost every year (actually, seven out of the eight years coach Carey Green has been there) which will give Brown a chance to show off her skills on a National scale. Yeah, things are looking up for Devon Brown.
Because the bottom line here is, in this day and age Brown has a chance to become the best female basketball player from Waynesboro the world could know thanks to the popularity of NCAA women’s hoops and the WNBA. (Or overseas, whichever.)
But let’s not overlook what is important here, Brown is going to college for free. Some people have to work their butts off in a factory in order to pay for college. Brown worked her tail off on the basketball court to get her tuition paid for. And, for some reason or another, she took some heat for that. She took heat from parents of opposing teams that, for reasons known only to the protect-my-little-girl gods, found her style of play too rough and tumble. Then, as an added bonus in her senior year, some wanna-be sports writer bored with his nights of shaking hands with business owners, decided to do his best to spark some sort of controversy after the Little Giants dismantled Fort Defiance in a road game. Ironic, isn’t it. Suddenly, hard work and tough play was cause for a stupid and, let’s be honest here, unnecessary blog post done with the hopes he could label it a “Hot Topic” and get more Web hits. Completely forgetting that, well, charging through the lane toward the hoop is part of basketball. What next? A blog entry on how mean Pickle Nuckols runs over opponents on the football field? But I digress.
Brown was always one of the good ones. Sure, she seemed more genuine during interviews in her younger days, but by her senior year you could tell she was getting PR trained for her big-time shot. Nothing wrong with that. Because if you happened to walk down the street and ran into Brown, she was as amicable as always.
The last shot I saw Devon Brown make, after countless points (actually 2,728 to be exact), rebounds and hustle plays, was a free throw in the Group AA semifinals at the Siegel Center in Richmond. After the game, after she sat in front of the gathered media beaming with pride and smiling ear to ear because she was finally going to the state title game, she saw me outside near the loading dock of the stadium. I was pacing back and forth, going over my notes and trying to figure out the angle of my column as deadline loomed, she walked up to me and smiled.
“What you doing out here?“ she asked.
I held up my notebook, pointed to its pages scribbled with notes that have a shelf life of 36 hours and said I was trying to figure out what I was writing.
“It’s cold, you better get inside,“ she said.
“Congratulations,“ I said. “Won’t be able to watch you guys play Saturday.“
“Aw,“ she said. “Be safe getting home.“ And she walked away.
I’ve sat in her parents’ living room for a story before. A room so small and cluttered with enough hardware to make the Ace blush, that you barely had room to sneeze. I remember listening to her dad talk about sports. And why he wanted his kids to excel at them and in the classroom as well.
“I clean up little kid’s vomit for a living,“ her father, a janitor, said. “Athletics can get them into college.“
It can. It can also etch yourself into the collective memory of a community as well.
Brown won’t be paying for college. Good on her. You’ll never forget her. Good on you.
I just wish I could have watched her drain a 3 for her last shot. Oh well, that free throw will have to do. It will have to do.
Best Devon Brown moment? After she scored her 1,000th point, they stopped the game and gave her the ball. She immediately ran up to the stands, hugged her mom and dad and gave the ball to them. Jennifer Brown, her mother, wiped a tear from her eye.
Another great Devon Brown moment? Watching her thrust her hands in the air after the Little Giants beat Bruton in the state semifinal game. Pure elation and a sigh of relief. Finally.
