A former Oklahoma running back has been living on the streets in Norman, but his life wasn’t always like this.
Chris Brown, who was teammates and eventually followed Adrian Peterson in the Sooners backfield from 2006-2009, is now homeless and hoping for a fresh start.
Following his senior year, Brown would find himself in Denver, but would be cut from the Broncos before the season even started.
Via OKCFox:
“I ain’t have no plans so I just went back to campus and enrolled and took some more classes,” he said. “I thought really heavy about coaching, but I never pursued it.”
Brown not only continued his education, but also his training, hoping a team would contact him, but that call never came.
“I was hoping that somebody else would come up and give me some more practices and some more drills, but nobody else did,” he said.
Brown ended up dropping out of school and he continues to state to this day that he needs to complete six more credits to get his degree. Things only went downhill from there as he moved back to Louisiana.
“I was getting in trouble,” Brown said. “As soon as I got home, I was getting in trouble.”
Brown says he was hanging out with the wrong crowd, struggling with drug addiction and stealing.
“I’m out there and I’m taking stuff that you can sell to have money and stuff like that,” he said. “I would be by myself smoking some crack. Just got in trouble with it and then the habit wore me out.”
All the money he made, he used to buy drugs, food and clothes.
Brown says he would stand around car washes, offering to wash people’s car for money, but he was getting caught for trespassing. He also got arrested more than once for stealing, charged with theft and landing himself in jail – the longest stint lasting eight months.
“The few times I went to jail, the judge gave me a couple months,” Brown said “My grandparents were like you need to get away from around here because everything you do, you’re getting in trouble.”
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Nearly two years ago, Brown returned to Oklahoma hoping for a fresh start and he says he’s been sober his return.
“I’ve been sober and in the right mindset and not letting it tear me up and eating me up and throwing me away,” he said. “Understanding that was something I had to ease up off of.”
Brown, who was once on top of the college football world, was now at one of the lowest points of his life, dealing with homelessness.
“Well a lot of faces has seen me up in Norman and dealing with where I was going to stay here and stuff like that,” he said.
Every night, wondering where he would stay, and thinking about football.
“I do be thinking about the game,” Brown said. “Just gaining experience, gaining toughness and experience on the field.”
While Brown still has hopes of getting back on the field one day, he says his focus right now is taking each day as it comes.
“I’m walking step-by-step now,” he said. “I didn’t let all my habits and stuff take off. I’m focused on getting some type of job.”
But if it were up to him, the job and football would one in the same.
“If I had to pick a job right now, I’d probably be a part-time coach at Oklahoma,” Brown said.
In four years at Oklahoma — Brown took 627 carries for 2,923 yards (4.7 average) and 42 touchdowns, adding 44 passes caught for 323 yards (7.3 per reception) and three touchdowns.
