Record Newspapers Football Player of the Year: ‘He was on a mission’ Oswego’s Evan Brown left it all on the field in last season

As a kid, Evan Brown earned the nickname “LT.”

Growing up, every Sunday Brown would go over to an elementary school with his older brothers and their friends for back yard football. The older guys called Brown “LT,” after former NFL running back LaDainian Tomlinson.

“All the guys were much older than me and gave me a ton of attention,” Brown recalled. “When I started youth football and they asked what number I wanted, I asked for 21, like LT.”

Brown’s number has been called a lot the past two years.

He’s answered the call each time.

An All-Area linebacker as a junior, he backed it up with a stellar senior season, even if it was shortened. Brown at linebacker made a team-high 60 tackles, 21 of them solos. Johnny on the spot, he recovered three fumbles in a win over West Aurora.

He saw time occasionally at running back, coming to the forefront in Oswego’s biggest game. On the game-winning drive at Minooka, the Panthers repeatedly called Brown’s number for running plays. He scored the winning touchdown with less than a minute left, bowling over a defender with a determined second effort, as Oswego clinched the Southwest Prairie West championship with a come-from-behind 21-14 win.

“A lot of people have heard the phrase ‘Put the team on your back,” and we had 10 other kids wearing white doing their part, but he just seemed to put the team on his back,” Oswego coach Brian Cooney said. “It’s hard to describe, unless you have seen the kid play. There’s just a whole another level of attitude and effort.”

Highly technical with a high motor, Brown was a kid that Cooney in two seasons never had to tell something twice. A natural leader by example, disciplined, coachable and highly intelligent, evidenced by his 4.6 GPA, Brown spent almost all of his junior season helping a young defense get lined up.

“Evan didn’t need to do that as much this season, but he does all the little things you can easily point to on film and it shows,” Cooney said. “The guys in the film room see it. He doesn’t just turn it on on Friday nights. It’s how the kid practices.”

Cooney called Brown a kid “on a mission” during this unprecedented six-game pandemic season with no playoffs. Brown, deflecting credit, said his teammates were his motivation.

He grew up with two teammates, linemen Carter Anderson and Dylan Mahon, within two blocks, and lifted with them and defensive lineman Matthew Leah throughout quarantine, even if it was a 5:30 a.m. lift on Saturday morning.

“I think it was really easy for a lot of people to feel bad for themselves, a lot of reasons or excuses people could use,” Brown said. “The guys that I was around, they didn’t take the easy way out. Whenever I got the chance to be with them it was really motivating.”

While the season was far from normal, Brown and his Oswego teammates and coaches treated it with the seriousness of a normal season.

“From our guys there was total dedication and focus,” Brown said. “We wanted to accomplish something.”

Brown speaks like a young man proud to wear the Oswego uniform, with good reason. His dad, Craig, was an Oswego standout in the 1980s who went on to play at North Central College. Craig once had five interceptions in a game and was on Karl Hoinkes’ first playoff team at Oswego.

“Growing up, he definitely talked about it a lot, he was around all the coaches and been around the program. I was familiar with a lot of people intertwined with the program,” Brown said. “I got a glimpse of what the program was about, which was huge. He pushed me a lot and he was a huge source of inspiration with everything that he accomplished. I did my best to reciprocate that.”

Evan Brown, himself, does not plan to play in college. He plans to to go the University of Tennessee to study nuclear engineering. A whiz at math and science, he’s been in the engineering program at Oswego since he was a freshman and has always been interested in the various engineering disciplines.

Ever since Oswego’s practice this spring, Brown played with the thought in the back of his head that time was running out on his football days.

“I’m super proud of our guys, with everything we had to go through and what we accomplished,” Brown said. “It was definitely a different year and with our team in particular there was a different level of focus and dedication.”