Whether he's in his home state of Wisconsin, Maryland, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts or Louisiana, Journey House Youth Center Director Charles Brown aims to soak in whatever he can about the game of football.
Just a year ago, Brown travelled from Milwaukee to Indianapolis, Foxborough and New Orleans to attend USA Football coaching schools hosted by the Colts, Patriots and Saints. This year, he made another lengthy trip to attend schools run by the Baltimore Ravens, Jacksonville Jaguars and Green Bay Packers. Although his long voyages included various locales and multiple NFL franchises, there remained one constant factor: Brown's quest to absorb as much football know-how as possible.
"I want to learn," said Brown, who recently attained a USA Football membership. "I want to know as much as I possibly can about how other people do youth football and I want our program to be top notch. I want to build a program where people will recognize that it's a sound, solid football program that's not only about football but also about the development of our kids. I'm looking for techniques... and I'm looking for ideas. Don't get me wrong--there are people here that do some great things, too, but there are states around the country that are football states and I wanted to know how they do some things."
For Brown, traveling approximately 6,450 miles around the country was a necessity to improve his Journey House football program and keep up with the evolution of the sport.
"Many of us are operating on football knowledge that is very old and the game has evolved and changed," Brown said, who serves as General Manager and Chief of Operations for Journey House's youth football program. "I think one of the things that I need to get [the parents and coaches] to understand is that they don't know everything and that all of us need education-it's an ongoing thing. I want my coaches to think, ‘I want to get better.'"
Brown, who retired from the Air Force after 26 years of duty and six as a master sergeant, has been implementing his newly-acquired knowledge from his recent trips into his effort's at Journey House as he's been trying to redirect the youths that reside in the near South Side of Milwaukee--also referred to as the Clark Square area-- to football.
"Basketball is what really rules in Milwaukee," said Brown. "When I first got down there to the youth center and I started talking about football, some of the kids were telling me how soft it was and I said, ‘well, were going to change that around here.' [Football] wasn't alive on the side of town where we are. There were kids outside playing the game on the street, but most of the people came to the youth center to play basketball. The other part of that is soccer is a huge part of our town."
So far, Brown feels he's made an impact on the youths that play in his league and the surrounding community since joining Journey House in 2003. Two years after his arrival at Journey House, he orchestrated the inception of the organization's first youth football team for children of ages 6-8. Since then, Brown has helped construct two more teams--one for 9-11-year-olds and a squad for those who've aged 12-14 years.
"Football is growing, and what I'm trying to do is grow football in the city and on my side of town and see [Milwaukee] become more of a football state like Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida where football rules," Brown said. "Football doesn't rule [in Milwaukee], but I'm hoping to change that."
Using football as a platform to mold the lives and minds of youths was an idea that came to him during his Air Force days, as he participated in intramural flag football games with other soldiers and studied education at Waylon Baptist University when he was off-duty. To further his plight, he's fused those experiences with the memories of his playing days as a youth and high school student-athlete in Baltimore, Md. as fuel to add more to the growth of his program and football as a whole in Milwaukee.
"I love the game of football and I'm very passionate about it, but the fact that you can have a positive impact on kids and teach them about life skills, responsibility and teamwork with the great game of football really stands out in my mind," Brown said. "I want parents and folks in the city to know that we have a group of kids who know how to play football, have a great attitude about it and who can win on and off the field."