What a journey for Penn State football star-turned-NASCAR pit crew member Brown | Bohls
Journey Brown couldn’t be more appropriately named.
The son of Buffy Brown and Larry Quinn was given his first name because his mother told him she’d been through two years of personal “trials and tribulations” that he didn’t specifically detail.
“She just said she’d been through a long journey to have me,” Brown said this week.
So has he.
Like mother, like son.
The remarkably upbeat, 25-year-old Pennsylvania native isn’t sure of his eventual destination. Who is? But he’s gone from eye-popping running back in Meadville, Pa., to budding sensation for Penn State to rookie member of a NASCAR pit crew for a race team that will compete in this weekend’s Cup Series EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas.
Oh, yeah, and with a potentially deadly heart condition that derailed his promising football future in between.
His has been a wilder ride than that of Zach Smith, the driver of Spire Motorsports’ No. 71 Chevrolet Camaro, for whom Brown will be working Sunday.
On a weekend when he once assumed he’d be preparing for another NFL season, he’ll be changing front tires for the Spires Motorsports team.
An unexpected diagnosis forces a decision
His star was certainly rising in college football as one of the premier backs in the Big Ten, and his stock really took off after he ran for a Penn State bowl game-record 202 yards as the MVP of the 2019 Cotton Bowl against Memphis. He averaged 6.9 yards a carry in that game and had run for 890 yards and scored 12 touchdowns that season. He was approaching his redshirt junior season that fall and had a life full of joy and promise.
But a quick summons to his coach’s office in September 2020 took him by surprise. He thought to himself that he hadn’t missed any classes or gotten into any trouble. But when he arrived to find his head coach, trainer, strength and conditioning coach, position coach, and two very serious-looking doctors there, he quickly understood the gravity of the situation.
He’d been to the doctor’s office before, same as all the Penn State players during the height of the pandemic when the Big Ten mandated safety precautions for all players and demanded EKGs and MRIs for any hint of illnesses. When one of Brown’s four roommates contracted COVID-19, he got tested.
He even razzed a group of doctors in the lobby afterward and joked to them, “My heart looking healthy and beautiful?”
When they said it was uncertain, he took the news pretty hard. He’d always been told by his grandma Helen Wescott, with whom he had grown up alongside his mom and sisters Bailey and Music, to trust his gut. So he became very uneasy.
A week or so later, when James Franklin beckoned him to his office, he was on edge. That’s when he was told he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the walls of the heart and a big risk for cardiac arrest.
As a football player, he was done. He medically retired.
'Football was my world. Still is.'
While Franklin called it “heartbreaking,” Brown took it equally hard.
“I was in shock,” Brown recalled. “I was at my peak. Well, no, because I knew I was only getting better. I was very angry, very sad. A lot of emotions took over my mind. Football was my world. Still is. That was my whole identity at that time. I had to figure out who I was.”
He has.
A couple of months later, he was told he ought to look into NASCAR. What he knew about car racing was limited to the Dale Earnhardt Jr. flag for the No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro that his neighbor in Meadville had flown. That and Will Ferrell’s “Talladega Nights.”
To be honest, this driven young man all but ascribed to Ricky Bobby’s philosophy in life: If you ain’t first, you’re last.
Journey Brown doesn’t do last, but he knew he had to find a way to help provide for himself and his 4-year-old daughter, Aleigha.
He had no idea his travels would have taken this ambitious young man to a profession he never even dreamed about. But instead of worrying about a 4.4 time in the 40, he’s consumed with switching out a front tire during a NASCAR pit stop in 9 seconds.
“If you can do it in 9 seconds, you’re fine,” Brown said. “If you do it in 8, you’re phenomenal.”
And if it takes you 10 seconds to make the change?
“I’d be fired,” he said, chuckling.
Finding a new team role in NASCAR
His football career has better prepared him for this life because NASCAR actively recruits football players and other athletes for the quick reactions and athleticism required of pit crew work. The average pit crew member makes about $39,000 a year.
So now, after pitting 15 races last year and five this year, the young man can envision becoming the next Danny Myers, instead of the next Saquon Barkely, who was actually once his teammate with the Nittany Lions.
Myers, of course, once was a leader of the pit crew of the late stock car legend Dale Earnhardt Sr. as part of the famed “Junk Yard Dogs,” who helped him win his 76 races, 34 of them at Daytona, where he lost his life in that tragic crash in 2001.
"Journey is an incredible athlete, even better human being. He has picked up tire changing as fast or faster than anyone we ever had in the program," said Shaun Peet, vice president of Culture & Pit Crew. "His strength is attitude. Life has dealt this kid a pretty rough hand, and still he comes through the door every day dancing. This kid is a light, and everyone who is around him comes away from him for the better."
Brown still longs for the days when he played running back and once saw his NFL draft stock soar before the game was taken away from him.
He knew little about HCM, a thickening of the heart walls that limits blood flow. The condition is found in 1 of 200 to 500 Americans and is very often genetic in nature.
For a long time, Brown thought he was positioned for greatness in the NFL. After all, he’d rushed for 7,000 yards and 106 touchdowns in his prep career before going to Penn State, where his career was off to a blazing start. The 5-foot-11, 216-pound back had been a three-star prospect and the No. 15 recruit in Pennsylvania, according to 247Sports, and people underestimated his drive and passion.
He’ll be in Austin this weekend for the first time, but he wishes it’d been much earlier. After all, even though he grew up far away in Pennsylvania, he always had a soft spot for the Longhorns.
“I’m a big Texas Longhorn fan,” Brown said. “I was for the longest time. I thought it’d be pretty cool to play for them.”
When he first laid eyes on Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley at his grandma’s house and watched them do their magic on a football field, he was smitten.
“I just fell in love with the Longhorns,” he said. “Still, to this day, they’re my second-favorite team. I think Colt McCoy’s the best quarterback who ever lived.”
Despite that type of hero worship, Brown never came close to becoming a Longhorn. He scored 10 touchdowns and ran for a staggering 722 yards in one game that ended 107-90 in 2015, but Texas never called.
“They didn’t recruit me,” he said, laughing. “They’ve got enough players down there to fill the whole roster. There’s no space for a Pennsylvania kid.”
There is on the Spire Motorsports race team. He was a bit “standoffish” when first apprised that he might be perfect for pit crew work but made the trek to North Carolina to audition at Trackhouse and was blown away by the professionalism. And even the ultraclean garages.
“It was crazy,” Brown remembered. “It was state of the art. Just mind-blowing. Hey, I’m from Pennsylvania, where we have football, wrestling and basketball.
“No offense to the NASCAR commuity, but I just thought people were down here drinking beer and changing tires and racing cars around the circle. But it’s a lot more than cracking beers and having a good time. I can tell you that for sure.”
And who’s the reigning Patrick Mahomes of pit crew members?
“i’d say Marshall McFadden,” Brown said, “because he’s on my team.”
And Brown’s all about being on a team. His journey continues.
NASCAR at COTA
Friday-Sunday, Circuit of the Americas; tickets — weekend passes from $79 grounds to $220 main grandstand club, $25 Friday only, $30-$90 Saturday only, $70-$185 Sunday only
Friday: Speedway Childrens Charities laps, 8-10 a.m.; Fan Zone opens 2 p.m.; Truck Series practice 2:30 p.m. and qualifying 3 p.m.; Xfinity Series practice 4:30 p.m. and qualifying 5 p.m.
Saturday (FS1): Cup Series practice 9-10:30 a.m. and qualifying 10:30-11:30 a.m.; XPEL 225 Craftstman truck race 12:30 p.m.; Focused Health 250 Xfinity Series race 4 p.m.
Sunday (Fox): Entertainment, driver Q&As 10 a.m.; Riley Green pre-race concert 12:45 p.m.; military band performance 1 p.m.; EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix NASCAR Cup Series race 2:30 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: NASCAR pit crew member Journey Brown starred for Penn State football
