Former Miami safety Hurlie Brown is another one of those unsung hero, under the radar, old school Canes. The type of guy you remember for his on the field play during a dominant era of UM football – 1988 through 1991, where he earned two national championships – but one that slipped into the background soon thereafter.
While other former Miami players made their mark in the NFL, Brown took a shot as a free agent in 1992, came back to UM as a grad assistant under Dennis Erickson, and spent the next half decade in the Canadian League before his return to coaching. Brown spent some time at Dillard High, his alma mater Merritt Island and earned a spot as special teams coordinator / defensive backs coach at Florida International in 2001, where he remained until 2006, before taking over the secondary at Louisiana-Lafayette, where he coached through 2010.
Last January head coach Al Golden brought Brown home, with a full-time gig at ‘The U’, where he holds the title “senior football operations coordinator”, which was described on today’s Michael Irvin radio show as ‘general manager’ for the Canes football program.
The Irvin / Brown piece is must-listen radio (check it out here) for countless reasons. For starters, the bond between the two Decade Of Dominance-era Canes is a reminder what this #UFamily is all about as Brown immediately takes a moment to thank ‘The Playmaker’ for reaching out to him in that upperclassman / underclassman dynamic over two decades ago.
Brown talks about the work ethic Irvin helped instill, which carried him through both his playing and coaching years, and is something he now passes down to modern-day Canes, as well.
Brown recaps a story of Irvin waking him at midnight and taking him to a stairwell where they ran sprints with a weight vest and routes with a resistance rope, helping instill a belief in hard work that he still carries to this day – to the point where he literally thanks Irvin’s lesson for helping put food on his family’s table all these years later.
Irvin then goes on to talk about his dynamic with Brown, as well as recent NFL Hall of Fame inductee Cortez Kennedy and the fact that he wouldn’t let the big man sign with Arkansas over Miami.
As fans these are the stories almost take on a folk-like vibe; little pieces of the puzzle and steps in the journey of Miami football that give outsiders a warm and fuzzy feeling, but to the players who lived it, it’s their history, their legacy and that intangible which made the Canes a notch above the rest.
The most exciting part of the Brown piece was listening to him gush about Coach Golden and these thirty-three new signees. Brown compared it to the glory days when great talent stayed home and the best of the best were recruiting and pushing each other.
“These kids want to be Miami Hurricanes regardless of what’s being said, regardless of who’s recruiting them,” Brown said. “These kids got together and it was amazing to see these kids go out there and say, ‘hey, let’s do this’.”
“When Deon Bush got on the podium and said ‘it’s time for me to put my city back on the man’, that was the epitome of the Miami Hurricanes. That was it, right there. ‘It’s time for me to put my city back on the map’. It’s time for me to get my brothers together – all these guys that are playing football down here in the state of Florida – are going all over the country and recruiting.”
Brown goes on to talk about the change in culture and attitude, to a throwback mentality where this newest crop of Canes was simply tired of seeing guys leaving South Florida and taking their talents elsewhere while the Miami program remained down.
A contingent of local kids finally decided that it was time to get on board with the hometown program and to bring a championship home to their friends and families. As any long-time Cane will tell you, that’s the first step towards being great again and Brown couldn’t stop his legitimate gushing about the kids Golden and staff reeled in.
Irvin talked about these new kids, as well, talking about incoming receiver Malcolm Lewis being the show recently and a challenge the past Cane gave the then-verbal commit about rounding up his teammates and other local stars, selling the Miami program and keeping the best kids home.
Lewis’ response; “I’m working on it”, in regards to five-star corner and Miramar High teammate Tracy Howard, who wound up signing with the Canes down the stretch.
Brown also recalled Irvin’s speech about every player making a commitment to each other that they would get their job done. It was a speech that Irvin again dropped on the Canes before a season-opener against the Noles, in Tallahassee back in 2005 (Miami fell, 10-7) and according to Brown, UM finally has the type of kids who will buy all-in to that mindset.
Regarding the second-year Miami head coach, Brown calls him “unbelievable”. The quickness at which things come to Golden and his ability to ‘get it’ is something this class is buying into.
These kids are all in on upholding the legacy, which has been Golden’s mantra since day one, as outlined in his 300-page “Deserve Victory” binder. The Miami brand, the U Family, the guys who put this program on the map – the kids Golden and staff are going after are the type who buy into the past and want to be a part of the future.
That’s an easy sell on the right kid – a kid who wants to be a part of your program, despite a 6-6 season, pending sanctions and negative recruiting – but to some current Canes that are holdovers from the old regime, that’s a tough belief to lay on someone who doesn’t think or feel that way.
Golden reeled some in last year. Guys like Denzel Perryman, Anthony Chickillo and Phillip Dorsett – who proved to be impact players year one, standouts and future stars. In fourteen months on the job, Golden and staff have hauled in fifty new Hurricanes and while the roster is still a mismatch of kids who helped go 35-29 between 2006 and 2010, the program took one step closer to building the type of machine that won’t let that garbage happen on their watch.
Put aside twenty-five minutes and listen to Brown and The Playmaker go off about what makes Miami football tick. It’s the U Fam at its best and it’s the type of piece that reminds you why this program is so deeply embedded in your DNA. – C.B.