Late father remains an inspiration to Redblacks’ QB Brown

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This article was published 12/06/2024 (805 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — When Dru Brown walks onto the turf at TD Place Thursday night for what will be his first start as the No. 1 quarterback for the Ottawa Redblacks, he will be experiencing a multitude of emotions.

There won’t be time in the moment to truly reflect, Brown said, but once his heartbeat is back to a normal rate and the adrenaline has moved through his system, he’s sure it will be a memorable point in his football journey.

What he is certain of, though, is his biggest fan, his late father Dave, will be there supporting him. Even if it’s not exactly the way he envisioned it.

“He’s watching over me,” Brown told the Free Press following the Redblacks walkthrough at TD Place Wednesday. “He’s got the best seat in the house.”

Dave Brown passed unexpectedly in northern California last summer, midway through Brown’s third season with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Brown missed several days, including one game, to head home and be with his family.

It was his dad who pushed him into football, having played the game himself, first as a quarterback before switching to linebacker when he joined Washington State University. Dave encouraged Dru as he rose through the ranks from high school to community college, to playing NCAA DI at Hawaii and Oklahoma State, to becoming a pro in the CFL.

His support, Brown said, was always done with love. Like Brown, his father wore his heart on his sleeve and wasn’t afraid to tell people what he felt.

“There’s been moments and there will continue to be moments for the rest of my life that I wish he was here, Earth side. But that’s something that I have to deal with, and my family has to deal with,” Brown said. “It’s one of those things that I never forget what my dad instilled in me, and I can hear him. I can hear him every day. But it’s been a process, kind of pushing through that, that grief. It doesn’t go away. It’s just something that is the new normal, and something that you got to deal with.

“There will be an aspect, I’m sure, when I reflect back on it and that will be a little bit sad. But at the same time, he spoke this into existence for me. He always saw myself doing things like this and I feel somewhat a sense of urgency to continue to press on because when no one believed me, he did. So, it’s hard, but it’s also, if I use it the right way, I think it can be really special.”

The Redblacks traded for Brown in the offseason and then signed him to a two-year contract, making him the club’s official starter. Brown had excelled in Winnipeg, but with Zach Collaros entrenched as the Bombers No. 1, he needed to leave town to get his first shot at running a CFL offence.

The reviews from his head coach, Bob Dyce, as well as his Redblacks teammates, are glowing. They admire how Brown was able to settle in with the team, leading first by example before getting comfortable enough to hold his peers accountable. He was voted one of the club’s six captains.

It’s fitting the biggest moment of his pro career would come against the team that gave him his first shot. Brown is about as calm and collected as they come, so it’s believable when he says he’s not getting caught up in the hype around a game dripping with juicy storylines.

He credits that to his dad, too, who told him years ago not to get too caught up by all the flash of the game and instead appreciate the process and collective effort required to have success come game day.

“He used to always tell me, that as a young kid, you’re so caught up in all the bulls- -it, like statistics and doing this and doing that and thinking about what people are saying,” Brown said. “To be honest, dude, he would say, ‘f —- that.’ He’d say, ‘Just win, baby. Compete. Lose yourself in the cause of winning.’ When he told me that, when I was in college, everything changed for me, because it doesn’t matter.

“People don’t remember yards, they don’t remember touchdowns, they remember wins. And you remember wins and you remember the beers in the locker room, with the boys, knowing what you just did that was physically and mentally exhausting. That’s the stuff that you remember. It isn’t, necessarily, the trophies, it’s the relationships and the moments, and those moments are wins. It’s really kind of molded my frame of mind and my mindset.”

Win or lose, Brown will go on as he always does, aiming to get better each day. He’s excited about what the Redblacks have built and the potential the roster has this year.

What excites him the most is the people he gets to be around each day. He had that camaraderie in Winnipeg and knows how important it is to build a winning culture.

“There’s the whole football aspect but the most important part is having the right people in the building, and I believe we have the right people,” Brown said. “From a football aspect, practice takes care of itself. Meetings take care of it, as well. You’re always communicating on the field, off the field and, obviously, with how much we’re here during training camp, we get that opportunity (to build chemistry). And on a personal level, it was important that I just came in and was myself.”

Jeff.Hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jeffkhamilton