Two receivers, two sides to a Super story

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© St. Petersburg Times
published January 31, 2002

NEW ORLEANS -- Two men. One is reaching toward the stars. The other has fallen to earth.

Troy Brown sits at a round table, somewhere near the top of the world. He leans forward, looks into a camera and smiles. Everyone else does, too. Brown talks, and two dozens pens spring into action. Ah, yes. This is the life.

There are a lot of tables around Brown, and they have this in common. Terry Glenn isn't sitting at any of them.

Two men. One is the MVP of his team. The other is MIA.

There was always distance between Troy Brown and Terry Glenn. In life, as in football, they seemed to line up on opposite sides of the ball. Brown started at the bottom and was determined to climb a mountain. Glenn started at the top and seemed determined to step off a cliff.

Two men. One makes you wonder where he came from. The other makes you wonder where he has gone.

From now on, every receiver who joins a team in the NFL should know about the story of Troy Brown and Terry Glenn. It is a story of one man seizing an opportunity and another allowing it to slip from his fingers. It is the story of one man taking nothing for granted and the other taking everything.

Once, their roles were opposite. Five years ago, the last time the Patriots managed to get to a Super Bowl, it was Glenn who made the pencils dance. He was a rookie then, and quarterback Drew Bledsoe said that more than anyone else, it was Glenn who was responsible for getting the team to New Orleans. His future seemed limitless.

No one wrote about Brown. Why should they? He was a special-teams player, for goodness' sakes. He was one of those corner-of-the-room players, and if anyone asked him anything at all, it was directions to Glenn's table. As it turned out, a double-hernia would keep Brown from playing in that Super Bowl. No one noticed.

Two men. One will be on television Sunday. The other might watch it.

Glenn is not with the Patriots this week. He is home, in Columbus, Ohio, serving his third suspension of the season. That might not be far enough away for some Patriots fans, who regard him as the team's last unpleasant memory. Glenn's season has been a never-ending series of turmoil: the missed drug test, the tug-of-war about $91/2-million worth of signing bonus, the chronic tardiness, the headphones on the practice field.

Wednesday, as Brown smiled for the cameras, Glenn was filing a federal lawsuit against the NFL, saying his problems were caused by chronic depression.

Two men. One makes an impression. The other talks of depression.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. By now, Glenn was supposed to be a playmaker who turned defeat into victory. He was supposed to provide emotional juice for his team. He was supposed to be the best player on the team.

In other words, he was supposed to be Troy Brown.

Whatever Glenn has dropped, Brown has picked up. Whatever Glenn was supposed to be, Brown has become.

Strange, the way life works. Glenn was the seventh pick in the draft; Brown was an eighth-round pick. Perhaps that is the first clue to the different ways they approach the game.

"When you're treated like a star in high school, and in college, maybe you start expecting to be treated that way," Brown said. "As soon as something doesn't go your way, it's harder to handle."

Brown, of course, is guessing, because he never has been treated like a star. He was blessed by having to work for every moment of playing time, and he still approaches the game that way. Brown still plays on most of the special teams. Watch. If the Patriots have a big play Sunday, Brown will be right in the middle of it.

"He's the ultimate character guy," said Ivan Fears, the wide receivers coach. "He's spent his entire career fighting uphill."

Gee, you say. What if Glenn had Brown's approach to the game?

Fears shakes his head sadly.

"Then we'd be spending a lot of time talking about Terry Glenn," he said. "A lot of time."

Brown came by his work ethic early, loading cantaloupes and watermelons onto trucks. He was the product of a single-parent home, living in a trailer in Barnwell, S.C. Yes, he will tell you, there were times he wondered if there was going to be something to eat, or if there was going to be heat.

"I remember where I came from," he said. "I know there are players who look down on people just because they make more money. That isn't me. There are people who can show you a picture of my trailer."

Not even football came easy for Brown. He remembers pee-wee football, where he wanted to play tailback. But a kid named Jerome Daniel beat him in a footrace, and Brown became the fullback instead.

Even when Brown reached the NFL, the Patriots weren't quite sure what they had. They released him his first season. It was his third year before he caught a pass.

This season, however, he became a star. He caught 101 passes. He returned two punts for touchdowns. More than anyone, he guided the Pats to New Orleans.

Two men. One makes you smile at his production. One makes you sad about his wasted potential.

The Patriots had envisioned them together. Even now, Fears smiles at the prospect of it. This season against San Diego, for instance, Brown caught 11 balls for 117 yards and Glenn caught seven for 110. But the partnership lasted only a moment, and then Glenn was gone again.

There is a lesson here. The game will care about you for exactly as long as you care about it. Go long, or go away.

Two men. One will make memories on Sunday. The other is all but forgotten.

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