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Offseason key for WR: Summer workouts help SU's Brown improve this year
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By Jeremy Stafford -- jstafford@nvdaily.com
WINCHESTER -- In the city of Virginia Beach, there is a long, forest green hill that stands 60 feet high, and marks the center of Mount Trashmore Park.
A former landfill, the park itself is spectacularly eco-friendly: Mounds and hills comprising compacted layers of waste and soil form luscious hills similar to those found on a rolling English prairie.
And every Friday over the summer, Shenandoah wide receiver E.J. Brown would run laps around that 60-foot hill, warming up his muscles and preparing his body for perhaps the most rigorous series of conditioning drills it's ever gone through.
Brown would run up the hill, not once, not twice, but 12 or more times. He would sprint to the top and cruise back down to the bottom. He'd run it forward; he'd run it backward. Then he'd set up cones and zigzag his way to the crown of the pile of reused trash.
"It helps out a lot, basically with your speed and your endurance," Brown explained. "I mean, you already know how hard it is to run up a hill. And just to keep doing it, working on your technique and what not, it gets you a lot better and faster."
It would take him about an hour to complete the workout, after which he'd jog once more around the hill, and around the surrounding lake, to cool his aching body.
The first time Brown ran the sloping gauntlet, there was no time to recover before his body lashed out.
"I threw up the first time, man -- it was terrible," the senior laughed. "It was just like, 'Well, I know where I need to be.'"
And wherever Brown's conditioning needed to be, he certainly got it there. Every Friday morning his brain pleaded with him to give it a rest -- to do anything but run up the Mount Trashmore hill. Yet every Friday, whether he was soaked by a cool summer rain, or baked by a 95-degree blaze, Brown sprinted up and down the forest green hill.
"This summer I worked harder than I ever have before," Brown said. "I was going to the weight room four days a week, going to the gym, running, going up to Mount Trashmore, running up the hill, eating right, staying in shape.
"Just putting in a lot of hard work."
Indeed, Brown has come to be known throughout the Hornet locker room as one of the hardest working players on the team. The proof of it lies in the fact that he's only been a wide receiver for three years.
As an athletic, versatile quarterback at Green Run High School, Brown every-so-often lined up at wide receiver, typically on a trick play in which he took a lateral from a wide receiver before heaving the ball downfield. But there was the rare occasion, when Brown lined up against a slower, heavy-footed defensive back, when he'd feel a rush of excitement take hold before he bolted downfield.
"I made them look really bad because I was fast," Brown joked. "I kinda enjoyed both positions, honestly."
Still, Brown came to Shenandoah as a quarterback, and though he loved the position, the college game was incredibly fast, and Brown was an afterthought on the Hornets' depth chart.
So Brown moved to receiver, where he could get more playing time, and where he felt he could better help the Hornets' offense. The fact that the wide receiver position was hardly a glamorous one in SU coach Paul Barnes' run-heavy system was of little concern for Brown.
"It was ... something I had to deal with," Brown said of the likelihood that he wouldn't get many balls thrown his way. "I was like, 'You could choose to sit on the sideline, or be on the field -- at least go out there and hit somebody, even if I'm not catching the ball.'"
But Brown, in his sophomore season, was a raw talent: Quick and agile, yet inexperienced as a run-blocker. In Barnes' system, a blocking receiver is a starting receiver.
Brown worked on his blocking, earned playing time in the final four games of his sophomore season, and started all 10 games as a junior. Recently, though, he's become the essence of what a Shenandoah wide receiver should be.
"I thought last year was his turning point," Barnes said. "He really turned the corner last year, I thought. Most kids, once they turn the corner, just go a little bit [further] -- he went tremendously past that.
"He came in a lot better than he was last year ... and I'm proud of him."
Brown led the Hornets in receptions last season, and has perfected the art of the wide receiver block this season. He's learned to blast through a cornerback's chest, rather than to stop and stand in his way. And he's made his intent on the field perfectly clear.
"I want people to fear me blocking," he said. "Even if I don't catch the ball, just know I'm on the field somewhere, lurking to hit you and make you miss the tackle."
And Brown's teammates have taken immediate notice.
"He's gotten a few player of the week [awards] from the team because of his blocking," linebacker John Redmond said. "And I strongly believe if he wasn't doing his blocking downfield, that [tailback Keone Kyle] wouldn't have as many breakaway runs as he has had thus far this year."
Today Shenandoah (1-5, 0-4 USA South) travels to Averett (5-2, 3-1 USA South), a team that beat the Hornets 33-21 a year ago, scoring 27 points in the second quarter alone.
For Brown, today's game is as much about playing for pride as it is about playing for the Hornets' second victory.
"I just gotta go all out," Brown said, speaking for his team as well as for himself. "I can't leave nothing behind, because in the back of my mind, after the game's over, or after the season's over, I'm gonna be like, 'Dang, I shoulda' did this or, I shoulda did that. I'm just gonna go full speed the whole time, even if I get tired or winded.
"If we lose, we lose 100 percent."
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