Troy’s ‘Godfather of Soul’ takes care of business

TROY — Troy coaches were looking for a left tackle to replace all-conference player Chris Jamison this season, but found the Godfather of Soul.

Well, not that Godfather of Soul, but his namesake. When quarterback Levi Brown first saw James Brown, a 6-foot-5, 345-pound sophomore left tackle for the Trojans, his eyes lit up. His level of excitement raised after watching game film of last week’s 47-21 win over Florida Atlantic. The Trojans (8-3, 7-0 Sun Belt) play at UL-Lafayette (6-5, 4-3) Saturday at 6 p.m.

“We rewound and replayed a couple of plays of him blocking people,” Levi Brown said. “He’d block them all the way to the sideline and then slam them. It was pretty good stuff.”

James Brown has heard the references to the entertainer who bears his name since he was 10 years old. Troy’s James Brown was named after his father.
“Everybody messes with me all the time about my name being James Brown,” he said. “I’ve been hearing that all my life.”

He’s quick to give his impressions of the singer, and said his favorite James Brown song is, “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” but, other than singing in the shower, the musical aspirations aren’t there.

“I think I’m going to stick to football,” James Brown said.

That’s a good thing for the Trojans, who plucked him out of Southwest Mississippi Community College after just one semester. Brown, from small Liberty, Miss., didn’t get much recruiting interest out of high school because of exposure.

Ole Miss wanted him until then-head coach Ed Orgeron was fired. Southern Miss was interested, but he got in a wreck on the way to a visit and the Golden Eagles pulled their offer because it was late in the process, he said.

So James Brown went to SMCC, and Troy coaches got him before he was likely to get even more interest by staying there two years. It didn’t take long in spring practice for him to win the starting left tackle job.

“He’s got a chance to be as good or better than anybody in this conference and he’s got a chance to make some money one day,” offensive coordinator Neal Brown said.

“The only time he gets beat right now is when he loses his technique or he’s exhausted. When he loses his technique, usually he’s exhausted.”

Brown came to Troy at 350 pounds, but says he’s around 345 now, though he carries it well. Still, coaches want him to get the weight off and have an offseason strength and conditioning plan for him to get down to around 320 in the offseason.

“Coach gets on me all the time about trying to get down to 325, but I don’t know why it’s so hard to lose the weight,” James Brown said.

If so, in three years he could start or continue a trend of Trojan offensive players getting drafted into the NFL.

“When he gets to 320 and his technique is good, he’s going to get paid to play football,” Neal Brown said. “He’s got the size and all the intangibles.”