Dru Brown is back with his football family and his return to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will undoubtedly give him strength and provide comfort as he navigates through a tough spell.
Brown’s father Dave died suddenly last week and Dru returned home to be there with his mom and sisters as they grieved. That process never truly ends, but being home and then getting back to Winnipeg certainly can help with the healing.
“Being there for my family was really important to me and coming back was something I wanted to do,” Brown told an assembled group of media following Blue Bombers practice on Wednesday. “Having the family that I do – I have two older sisters and one flew back from Australia and one flew back from Seattle – I wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving if they didn’t come back and decide to stick around for a while.
“I’m really appreciative of them, my mom included. We’re all pretty tough. We’ve been through a lot as a family and I think us all being together, we all found peace in the situation.”
Brown spoke glowingly of his father – just as Adam Bighill did last week after losing his dad – and the role he played as he grew up both on and off the football field. And as Brown explained Wednesday, that role transformed from dad to dad/mentor to dad/mentor/best friend.
“He’s one of the main reasons I’m here. He pushed me, but not in that over-bearing dad way that you picture in your head,” he explained. “He kept his distance, but he played at a high level (as a linebacker at Washington State) and he knew what it took to play at a high level. So, it was just subtlety holding a standard to me and learning that standard from a young age.
“He loved his family, and he wasn’t afraid to say it. He lost his dad when he was 10, so I feel really lucky that I had him for 26 years and some change. I find a lot of peace, my family finds a lot of peace, in that. We know where he is, and we know that we’re going to see him again one day.”
Brown was exceptionally composed in speaking of his father after practice and offered one example of the many stories he’ll remember about their relationship. It was during his first year at the University of Hawai’i and in one of his early starts in a game against San Diego State when… well, let’s have him tell it.
“It was my sixth or seventh start, so I had no idea what I was doing,” Brown said. “I play in that game and probably drop back 40 or 50 times and have no clue what I’m looking at. I throw three interceptions, two to the house – so, I have done that before – but I called him after the game after a few days. You go through things in football, but three with two going to the house is pretty rough, especially when it’s your first time away from home and the fans are going crazy.
“I called him, and I was like, ‘Hey, this is tough. Where do I go from here?’ He was like, ‘What are you trying to say?’ And I told him, ‘I don’t know if I like this.’ He said, ‘You can come home and work for UPS.’ It gave me some perspective that I should be grateful that I get to play this game. If he was here, he would have said, ‘Don’t come home. Handle your business.’
“That’s a story that pops in my head. We talk about it all the time – misery loves company – and we complain, everybody complains, but s—, man, you’re getting paid to play football. It’s the best job in the world.”
Brown has long displayed that big-picture perspective since arriving in Winnipeg in 2021. He also has a healthy relationship with everyone in the Blue Bombers clubhouse, and especially so with the men in the QB room in Zach Collaros, Dakota Prukop and offensive coordinator Buck Pierce.
So much of that, he’ll insist, comes courtesy his father’s influence.
“We were very open with each other,” Brown said. “We exceeded the father-son (relationship) and for the past two or three years it was like we were really good friends. He was my best friend, and it was really cool to be able to get to that point with him. I really appreciate what he meant to me, and my family and I like to think moving forward the goal is to just honour him, his name, and keep doing what I’m doing.”
OUCH REPORT: Brown’s return coincides with LB Kyrie Wilson, CB Winston Rose, DB Jamal Parker and FB Konner Burtenshaw all seeing increasing workloads after being on the injured list. Guard Pat Neufeld wasn’t at practice on Wednesday due to ‘non-football related’ injury reasons and was replaced by both Tui Eli and Liam Dobson. Also not practising on were SB Nic Demski, LBs Tanner Cadwallader and Brian Cole.
The latest injury report:
Injury Report: July 12, 2023#ForTheW pic.twitter.com/wjxgaQusCo
— Winnipeg Blue Bombers (@Wpg_BlueBombers) July 12, 2023
FYI:
Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea on both Brown and Bighill having to deal with the sudden deaths of their fathers: “It’s not easy. It’s a good thing they’ve got teammates – that’s what they’re there for. They fill in for him when he can’t be here and they give him what they need when they’re away.”… O’Shea when asked to describe Greg McCrae’s role in the offence: “Evolving. It’s sort of chameleon like… whatever he is able to do I’m sure we’re going to be able to ask him to do it.”
ENCORE:
More on Demerio Houston, whose ball-hawking talents were mentioned earlier this week as part of this piece from O’Shea:
“He gets there. In football you’re rewarded if you get to the football. Biggie makes a lot of tackles because he gets to the football more often than other guys do. Being in the middle helps, obviously, but it’s the guys across any football league who are always getting the football always get rewarded.”
