Lamar's Brown to enter UT's Men's Athletics Hall of Honor

BEAUMONT – James Brown, Lamar University’s quarterbacks coach, is one of seven distinguished and highly-decorated former University of Texas student athletes who will be inducted into the Longhorns’ Men’s Athletics Hall of Honor later this month.

Brown, who established a reputation as a prolific passer and a big game performer over the 1994 through 1997 seasons, finished his Longhorn career holding 30 school records after leading the team to three straight conference championships.

Brown’s heroics took on legendary status with his now famous “roll left pass” that put the exclamation point on a stunning 37-27 victory over two-time defending national champion and third-ranked Nebraska in the first-ever Big 12 Conference championship game in 1996.

In recalling the Longhorns’ upset of Nebraska, Brown said he and his teammates were bombarded with questions about being 21-point underdogs to the Cornhuskers in their Monday press conference leading up to the game.

“I told the media members we had just as good of a chance of beating them (the Huskers) by 21 points as they did of beating us by 21,” said Brown, who went 20-0 as the starting quarterback during the regular season in his final two years (1991 and 1992) at West Brook. “Looking back on it, it was a pretty bold thing to say, but my teammates were glad I said it.”

As history tells us, Brown and the rest of the Longhorns – given an assist by an aggressive decision by head coach John Mackovic – backed up his statement.

“Late in the game, we had a fourth-down-and-one from our 35-yard line,” said Brown. “We could’ve easily punted and turned things over to our defense, because there was only about two minutes left.

“During our timeout, Coach Mac called the roll left. It was a risky call, no doubt, but it was a play we had practiced over and over in our workouts. It was part of our rock-and-roll package. We had run it many times in goal-line situations but never from where we were then.

“I rolled left and faked the ball to our deep back. By then, I could see that I could’ve kept the ball and gotten the first down, but I took a quick look at our tight end and he was open, too. Then I looked deep, and there was Derek Lewis wide open deep. I threw it; Derek caught it, and the play went 60 yards to their 5. Priest Holmes took it off left tackle for the touchdown on the next play.

“I’m sure I’ll get asked about that play a lot when I go back for the induction ceremony. It was a gutsy call on Coach Mac’s part but a good call.”

Brown and six other former Longhorn stars in tennis, baseball, football and swimming will be honored at a banquet in Austin’s Four Seasons Hotel on the evening of Nov. 20, and the official enshrinement ceremonies will be during halftime of the next day’s Texas vs. Kansas football game.

“I’m still trying to wrap my mind around exactly what all receiving this honor means to me,” said Brown. “I like being remembered as a leader and as a winner, but I never was a very vocal type of player. I wanted to lead by example, and that means away from the football field as well as on it.

“My dad (James Brown Sr.) is the one who had the vision. When I in was in high school, I was getting a lot of attention from a lot of college recruiters, but I had no idea where I was going to wind up.

“My dad was all about wanting me to get a quality education and a degree. He wasn’t thinking football. He was thinking the University of Texas would be an ideal place for me to get that education, and he was right. My whole UT experience was so exciting, so pleasurable and so rewarding.”

Brown, who completed work on his degree in sport management in 2000, rocketed onto the scene as a freshman in 1994, posting the nation’s top passer rating of 177.0 and leading UT to a 17-10 win over Oklahoma in his first career start. He was the Southwest Conference’s Offensive Player of the year after leading the Horns to a 10-2-1 record as a sophomore in 1995, and he finished his career with 53 touchdown passes, 7,638 passing yards and 8,049 yards of total offense.

The 34-year-old Brown, who still ranks in UT’s top 5 career-wise in most passing and total offense categories, played professionally for six seasons in the NFL Europe and Arena Football Leagues, and he also served as offensive coordinator at Hyde Park Baptist High School from 2003-2005. He joined coach Ray Woodard’s Lamar staff last year after playing a final pro season with the CenTex Barracudas.