Small town embraces hero with big heart
BY ARMANDO SALGUERO, asalguero@herald.com
CARTERSVILLE, Ga. - The Burger King on Highway 41 has a picture of him hanging on the wall, as does the Capri restaurant across the street from the high school. The Meg Pie restaurant has a cappuccino drink named after him, and Mayor Mike Fields wants to give him the key to the city and honor him with a dinner on June 11.
This town, nestled amid northwest Georgia's rolling hills and cooled by breezes that carry friendly greetings for strangers, has a favorite son.
His name is Ronnie Brown.
The Cartersville love affair with Brown began long before the Dolphins made the powerful running back their first-round draft pick two weeks ago. It began before he was a big-shot running back at Auburn University or a record-breaker and team leader for the Cartersville High Purple Hurricanes.
It began when Ronnie Brown was poor and small and hungry -- but still full of the same endearing qualities that folks see today.
"Ronnie's a very positive person. He always looks at the glass and says it's half-full," said Stuart Chester, who was Brown's high school baseball coach. "He's quiet, he sacrifices for people, he's pleasant, he's respectful. He's humble.
"I guess what I'm saying is he's the type of young man you want your daughter to bring home and your son to be like. And even though as a coach I'm older than him, he's the type of person you emulate. He's just good people. You just want him to be part of your family."
EARLY WALK
Brown was born to Joyce and Ronnie Brown on Dec. 12, 1981, at 12:12 in the afternoon. "Yep, he came at 12:12 on 12-12," the elder Ronnie Brown said. "When it happened, I felt this sharp thrill all over. I felt like a tingling went through me."
Before he was nine months old, the man who would earn a living on his feet already was walking.
"He would walk on his toes," Joyce Brown said. 'He wore out all his shoes at the toe before he outgrew them. My momma would see that and say, `This boy's going to be fast on his feet.' "
When Brown was 6 years old, he announced to his parents he was going to play in the NFL. His parents encouraged the idea rather than dismiss the dream. That positive reinforcement remains part of Brown's personality today.
Two weeks ago when Joyce complained that she simply couldn't quit smoking, Brown stopped her before she embraced the thought.
'I told her, `Don't say that, momma,' " Brown said. 'The word `can't' is not in our vocabulary."
Brown admits he is reserved. But he makes friends easily. That's how he connected with Justin Tripp when the two were playing pee-wee football.
'One day after practice, Justin comes over and says, `You know that fast little black boy? Well, he needs a ride home. Can we give him a ride home?' And that's how it started," said Andy Tripp, a Cartersville veterinarian.
"Ronnie was just likeable and fun. We loved him, and he loved us. So we'd give him rides, take him out to eat, then he started spending the night and became part of the family. He was just easy and fun, and he never took advantage. We'd ask if he wanted to get something to eat and he'd say, `No.'
"Then we'd stop anyway, and it turns out he was hungry. That's the kind of kid he was."
The Tripps -- Andy and his wife, Chris -- since have gone from being strangers in Brown's life to almost an extension of his family. Brown calls Chris "Momma Tripp." She calls herself Brown's "other mother."
Brown has a key to the Tripps' home. Brown included the Tripps in the decision-making process when recruiters and agents came calling, and he invited them to come with him to the draft in New York.
Brown spends part of the holidays with his parents and part with Chris and Andy and their kids Justin, Tatum and Jake.
"Yeah, if I have to work and can't show up, no one says a word," Andy Tripp said. 'But if Ronnie isn't there, everybody asks, `Where's Ronnie?' "
So why do the Tripps love Brown? Why do his parents have a miniature Ronnie shrine, complete with his picture and 18-inch-tall action figures surrounding their fireplace?
Why does Cartersville embrace Ronnie Brown?
"It's because of how he is, not because of who he is," Joyce Brown said. "Ronnie's really an easygoing person. Somebody asked me about the last time I saw him mad, and I really can't remember the last time. He hasn't been mad in a long time. He's just a good person."
A STINGY SIDE
Brown loves to eat lobster. But his tastes are not so refined, because he loves macaroni and cheese more.
"He loves new tennis shoes," Andy Tripp said. 'At Auburn, his second or third year when he didn't have a lot of clothes and was living in a little apartment without a lot of furniture, you'd go to his closet and it was rows and rows of tennis shoes. His brother said, `You need to let me have a couple,' and he said, 'Get away from there.' "
Brown wants to buy a home in South Florida and perhaps a townhouse in Atlanta's Buckhead area. But he can be "stingy," his mom says.
"Starting when he was 6 or 7, he would take his allowance money and pull the carpet up and hide the money under the carpet," Joyce Brown said. "He never spent the money. He takes care of us, but he's very stingy. That's why when he went away to college, I wasn't worried about him, because he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink and he saves his money."
His love for new sneakers aside, Brown is modest in both how he dresses and where he undresses.
"He doesn't care for all that jewelry," Joyce Brown said. "He's just plain.
"All his rings from the Sugar Bowl, his state championship high school ring, four or five other rings, his daddy has them all. He gave his daddy and his brother all his watches, too.
"He's never worn them. He just doesn't like stuff like that."
Even though Cartersville is landlocked, there are sizable lakes nearby, and that's where the locals here go during the summer to cool off and enjoy family outings. And that's about the only place Brown ever removes his shirt.
"Ronnie has the most muscular body I have ever seen, and he will never flex," Tatum Tripp wrote in her high school newspaper. "He never takes his shirt off and is modest about his body. The only time I have seen him without his shirt is at the lake or the beach."
ATHLETIC PROWESS
Brown's athletic ability is not in doubt, certainly not by Dolphins coach Nick Saban, who drafted him. But in Cartersville, Brown's athletic feats are the stuff of legend.
He was drafted by the Seattle Mariners even after he told them he was going to play football for Auburn. He once went a dozen Little League baseball games without making an out. Auburn recruited him as a running back while Clemson and Tennessee wanted him to play defense.
Recently, he went to the lake with the Tripps and rode the inner tube and wakeboard as it was towed along behind a boat.
When the boat reaches a certain speed, most people can no longer stand the opposing force pulling on the rope and simply let go. Brown is so strong he can hang on.
So on several occasions, the over-stressed rope simply broke.
"He's just so strong," Andy Tripp said. "But you should also put in there about how bad a wakeboarder he is."
Although Brown's athletic skills are unquestionable, Chester does not pause when asked what attribute makes Brown the right person to have on a team.
"I would have to say his heart," the coach said. "Here you have a guy that can run 4.4 [in the 40-yard dash] and bench press 225 pounds 30 times, but it's his heart that is his greatest physical gift. He never gives up, and he knows how to act in the face of adversity."
FACING TOUGH TIMES
Adversity and Brown are not strangers.
On Feb. 2, even as Brown was preparing to go to Indianapolis for the NFL scouting combine, his 53-year-old father fell ill. Already battling diabetes, the elder Brown spent three weeks in the hospital undergoing tests for various other diseases, including tuberculosis.
He was finally diagnosed with pneumonia and had surgery to extract fluid from his lungs.
"He had a lot of complications," Joyce Brown said. "We were afraid of how it would affect Ronnie, so we didn't tell him for a while."
Brown admits his father's condition concerned him. But it didn't prevent him from running the eye-popping 4.4 at the combine that vaulted him to the head of the draft's running back class.
During a high school baseball game his junior season, Cartersville was losing, and Chester was frustrated.
"Nobody was doing nothing, and one of my coaches tells me Ronnie is over at the other end of the dugout in tears," Chester said.
". . . Turns out he had a migraine and couldn't even hold his head up. So I told him to come out of the game, and he just wouldn't do it."
Chester said Brown went on to make a diving catch in right field that saved two runs and eventually got the game-winning hit.
"If he'd come out of the game, we would have lost," Chester said.
Brown then missed the next four days of school to get over his condition.
ACCOUNTABILITY
That's not to say athletics consumes Brown. He has his communication degree from Auburn and has shared his Christian faith during Bible studies and while doing volunteer work with at-risk youth.
But when the curtain opens for an important game, that becomes Brown's priority.
"His senior year, his team went undefeated and won the state title and he was Player of the Year in the state," said Frank Barden, the Cartersville football coach. "So he was good all the time. But the way he played in the playoffs, the whole team took on his personality, and those five playoff games were his best games."
Brown knows when the spotlight is on and handles that moment with a sense of personal accountability.
Chris Tripp remembers one game during Brown's senior year in high school when he scored a couple of touchdowns but also fumbled.
"Cartersville has a tradition that after the game the players gather at midfield to pray and the parents flock the field to be with their kids," she said. "I went on the field after that game and noticed something was wrong with Ronnie.
'I asked him what happened and he said, `I fumbled.' I told him it's no big deal, it happens to everyone. He said, 'You don't understand. I don't fumble. I can't fumble.' "
That accountability apparently is contagious. On one occasion when Jake Tripp was in Atlanta, about 50 minutes south of Cartersville, police stopped the vehicle in which he was a passenger.
Because beer was found in the car, no one in the car was allowed to drive home. The Tripps made the trek to Atlanta to get their son.
A couple of days later when Chris Tripp was on the phone with Brown, Jake asked if his mother had told Brown of the incident.
"I said I had, and Jake just stopped for a minute," Chris Tripp said.
'Then he said to me in a soft voice, `Could you please tell Ronnie I'm sorry if I disappointed him.' "
During lunch in Cartersville's Applebee's restaurant, several patrons stop by the table to congratulate the Tripps on Brown's draft success. Folks smile easily and wish Brown luck with the Dolphins.
"This happens all the time," Chris Tripp said. "People here just care a lot for Ronnie and want to see him do well.
"And so what we want more than anything is for Miami to love him like Cartersville loves him."
BY ARMANDO SALGUERO, asalguero@herald.com
CARTERSVILLE, Ga. - The Burger King on Highway 41 has a picture of him hanging on the wall, as does the Capri restaurant across the street from the high school. The Meg Pie restaurant has a cappuccino drink named after him, and Mayor Mike Fields wants to give him the key to the city and honor him with a dinner on June 11.
This town, nestled amid northwest Georgia's rolling hills and cooled by breezes that carry friendly greetings for strangers, has a favorite son.
His name is Ronnie Brown.
The Cartersville love affair with Brown began long before the Dolphins made the powerful running back their first-round draft pick two weeks ago. It began before he was a big-shot running back at Auburn University or a record-breaker and team leader for the Cartersville High Purple Hurricanes.
It began when Ronnie Brown was poor and small and hungry -- but still full of the same endearing qualities that folks see today.
"Ronnie's a very positive person. He always looks at the glass and says it's half-full," said Stuart Chester, who was Brown's high school baseball coach. "He's quiet, he sacrifices for people, he's pleasant, he's respectful. He's humble.
"I guess what I'm saying is he's the type of young man you want your daughter to bring home and your son to be like. And even though as a coach I'm older than him, he's the type of person you emulate. He's just good people. You just want him to be part of your family."
EARLY WALK
Brown was born to Joyce and Ronnie Brown on Dec. 12, 1981, at 12:12 in the afternoon. "Yep, he came at 12:12 on 12-12," the elder Ronnie Brown said. "When it happened, I felt this sharp thrill all over. I felt like a tingling went through me."
Before he was nine months old, the man who would earn a living on his feet already was walking.
"He would walk on his toes," Joyce Brown said. 'He wore out all his shoes at the toe before he outgrew them. My momma would see that and say, `This boy's going to be fast on his feet.' "
When Brown was 6 years old, he announced to his parents he was going to play in the NFL. His parents encouraged the idea rather than dismiss the dream. That positive reinforcement remains part of Brown's personality today.
Two weeks ago when Joyce complained that she simply couldn't quit smoking, Brown stopped her before she embraced the thought.
'I told her, `Don't say that, momma,' " Brown said. 'The word `can't' is not in our vocabulary."
Brown admits he is reserved. But he makes friends easily. That's how he connected with Justin Tripp when the two were playing pee-wee football.
'One day after practice, Justin comes over and says, `You know that fast little black boy? Well, he needs a ride home. Can we give him a ride home?' And that's how it started," said Andy Tripp, a Cartersville veterinarian.
"Ronnie was just likeable and fun. We loved him, and he loved us. So we'd give him rides, take him out to eat, then he started spending the night and became part of the family. He was just easy and fun, and he never took advantage. We'd ask if he wanted to get something to eat and he'd say, `No.'
"Then we'd stop anyway, and it turns out he was hungry. That's the kind of kid he was."
The Tripps -- Andy and his wife, Chris -- since have gone from being strangers in Brown's life to almost an extension of his family. Brown calls Chris "Momma Tripp." She calls herself Brown's "other mother."
Brown has a key to the Tripps' home. Brown included the Tripps in the decision-making process when recruiters and agents came calling, and he invited them to come with him to the draft in New York.
Brown spends part of the holidays with his parents and part with Chris and Andy and their kids Justin, Tatum and Jake.
"Yeah, if I have to work and can't show up, no one says a word," Andy Tripp said. 'But if Ronnie isn't there, everybody asks, `Where's Ronnie?' "
So why do the Tripps love Brown? Why do his parents have a miniature Ronnie shrine, complete with his picture and 18-inch-tall action figures surrounding their fireplace?
Why does Cartersville embrace Ronnie Brown?
"It's because of how he is, not because of who he is," Joyce Brown said. "Ronnie's really an easygoing person. Somebody asked me about the last time I saw him mad, and I really can't remember the last time. He hasn't been mad in a long time. He's just a good person."
A STINGY SIDE
Brown loves to eat lobster. But his tastes are not so refined, because he loves macaroni and cheese more.
"He loves new tennis shoes," Andy Tripp said. 'At Auburn, his second or third year when he didn't have a lot of clothes and was living in a little apartment without a lot of furniture, you'd go to his closet and it was rows and rows of tennis shoes. His brother said, `You need to let me have a couple,' and he said, 'Get away from there.' "
Brown wants to buy a home in South Florida and perhaps a townhouse in Atlanta's Buckhead area. But he can be "stingy," his mom says.
"Starting when he was 6 or 7, he would take his allowance money and pull the carpet up and hide the money under the carpet," Joyce Brown said. "He never spent the money. He takes care of us, but he's very stingy. That's why when he went away to college, I wasn't worried about him, because he doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink and he saves his money."
His love for new sneakers aside, Brown is modest in both how he dresses and where he undresses.
"He doesn't care for all that jewelry," Joyce Brown said. "He's just plain.
"All his rings from the Sugar Bowl, his state championship high school ring, four or five other rings, his daddy has them all. He gave his daddy and his brother all his watches, too.
"He's never worn them. He just doesn't like stuff like that."
Even though Cartersville is landlocked, there are sizable lakes nearby, and that's where the locals here go during the summer to cool off and enjoy family outings. And that's about the only place Brown ever removes his shirt.
"Ronnie has the most muscular body I have ever seen, and he will never flex," Tatum Tripp wrote in her high school newspaper. "He never takes his shirt off and is modest about his body. The only time I have seen him without his shirt is at the lake or the beach."
ATHLETIC PROWESS
Brown's athletic ability is not in doubt, certainly not by Dolphins coach Nick Saban, who drafted him. But in Cartersville, Brown's athletic feats are the stuff of legend.
He was drafted by the Seattle Mariners even after he told them he was going to play football for Auburn. He once went a dozen Little League baseball games without making an out. Auburn recruited him as a running back while Clemson and Tennessee wanted him to play defense.
Recently, he went to the lake with the Tripps and rode the inner tube and wakeboard as it was towed along behind a boat.
When the boat reaches a certain speed, most people can no longer stand the opposing force pulling on the rope and simply let go. Brown is so strong he can hang on.
So on several occasions, the over-stressed rope simply broke.
"He's just so strong," Andy Tripp said. "But you should also put in there about how bad a wakeboarder he is."
Although Brown's athletic skills are unquestionable, Chester does not pause when asked what attribute makes Brown the right person to have on a team.
"I would have to say his heart," the coach said. "Here you have a guy that can run 4.4 [in the 40-yard dash] and bench press 225 pounds 30 times, but it's his heart that is his greatest physical gift. He never gives up, and he knows how to act in the face of adversity."
FACING TOUGH TIMES
Adversity and Brown are not strangers.
On Feb. 2, even as Brown was preparing to go to Indianapolis for the NFL scouting combine, his 53-year-old father fell ill. Already battling diabetes, the elder Brown spent three weeks in the hospital undergoing tests for various other diseases, including tuberculosis.
He was finally diagnosed with pneumonia and had surgery to extract fluid from his lungs.
"He had a lot of complications," Joyce Brown said. "We were afraid of how it would affect Ronnie, so we didn't tell him for a while."
Brown admits his father's condition concerned him. But it didn't prevent him from running the eye-popping 4.4 at the combine that vaulted him to the head of the draft's running back class.
During a high school baseball game his junior season, Cartersville was losing, and Chester was frustrated.
"Nobody was doing nothing, and one of my coaches tells me Ronnie is over at the other end of the dugout in tears," Chester said.
". . . Turns out he had a migraine and couldn't even hold his head up. So I told him to come out of the game, and he just wouldn't do it."
Chester said Brown went on to make a diving catch in right field that saved two runs and eventually got the game-winning hit.
"If he'd come out of the game, we would have lost," Chester said.
Brown then missed the next four days of school to get over his condition.
ACCOUNTABILITY
That's not to say athletics consumes Brown. He has his communication degree from Auburn and has shared his Christian faith during Bible studies and while doing volunteer work with at-risk youth.
But when the curtain opens for an important game, that becomes Brown's priority.
"His senior year, his team went undefeated and won the state title and he was Player of the Year in the state," said Frank Barden, the Cartersville football coach. "So he was good all the time. But the way he played in the playoffs, the whole team took on his personality, and those five playoff games were his best games."
Brown knows when the spotlight is on and handles that moment with a sense of personal accountability.
Chris Tripp remembers one game during Brown's senior year in high school when he scored a couple of touchdowns but also fumbled.
"Cartersville has a tradition that after the game the players gather at midfield to pray and the parents flock the field to be with their kids," she said. "I went on the field after that game and noticed something was wrong with Ronnie.
'I asked him what happened and he said, `I fumbled.' I told him it's no big deal, it happens to everyone. He said, 'You don't understand. I don't fumble. I can't fumble.' "
That accountability apparently is contagious. On one occasion when Jake Tripp was in Atlanta, about 50 minutes south of Cartersville, police stopped the vehicle in which he was a passenger.
Because beer was found in the car, no one in the car was allowed to drive home. The Tripps made the trek to Atlanta to get their son.
A couple of days later when Chris Tripp was on the phone with Brown, Jake asked if his mother had told Brown of the incident.
"I said I had, and Jake just stopped for a minute," Chris Tripp said.
'Then he said to me in a soft voice, `Could you please tell Ronnie I'm sorry if I disappointed him.' "
During lunch in Cartersville's Applebee's restaurant, several patrons stop by the table to congratulate the Tripps on Brown's draft success. Folks smile easily and wish Brown luck with the Dolphins.
"This happens all the time," Chris Tripp said. "People here just care a lot for Ronnie and want to see him do well.
"And so what we want more than anything is for Miami to love him like Cartersville loves him."
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