In a remarkable introductory press conference Monday, new Syracuse coach Fran Brown bared details of his hardscrabble upbringing and outlined his vision moving forward for the Orange program.
Brown spoke about his roots, of growing up with a teenage mother, of the neighborhoods around Syracuse and of his desire to have everyone push together to get the Orange football program back to a better place.
Brown said Syracuse officials were familiar with his recruiting prowess but wondered aloud how he would find lesser-recruited players and develop them.
"'What about the diamonds in the rough? What about those guys that people overlook?'," Brown said he was asked. "How am I gonna forget about me? I can't forget about me.
"My mother had me at 13 years old turning 14. By the age of 21 she had four boys. So you're talking about hard, I was the dirty kid that kids tried to crack jokes on. I was the guy that went to school and didn't have all the stuff that everybody else had. But what I knew was that I wasn't going to do, because I've got an uncle named Charles Brown, he told me, 'Don't ever, ever, ever allow your situations to dictate your outcome. You make the best of them. Dominate. Get up and walk every single day with the next foot forward.' And I bust my butt. Lot of tears. I got a lot of pain inside of me guys. This isn't just for me. This is for the community.
"I see why when I asked one of the coaches would he come here and he said, 'I'm not sure about the neighborhood.' This is the neighborhood I need to be in. This is the neighborhood I can make a change."
Brown said he witnessed his first Syracuse game in ninth grade on a school trip that saw the Orange play Wisconsin in New Jersey, noting that, "Ron Dayne went on to win the Heisman, but his butt got shut down that day."
Hired away from Georgia, Brown first made his way out of his native Camden. N.J., when he went to play football at Western Carolina.
He thanked Matt Rhule and Geoff Collins, among others, but Brown invariably circled back to how he arrived at Syracuse from his meager roots.
I just held up a jersey with Jim Brown's number on it," Brown said. "I'm from Camden, N.J. Those things don't usually happen unless you're willing to go push. ...
"Now listen guys, like I told y'all earlier: I'm from Camden. Every coach gets up here and says, 'This is home. I'm never going anywhere.' And then three years later, he's trying to get a new job or a new contract.
"Guys, I come from Welfare, baby. I'm good. I don't have to have that family-first card no more. I'm here for life. I promise you that. I got that little girl, until she turns about 12 or 13 years old, she's 2, that's when I'm going to step away and go take care of my daughter."
Brown then asked for community support to help rebuild the Orange.
"You've got my word: My name is all I got," Brown said. "I've been taught that my whole life. I will be here. I will bust my butt to be the coach. I watched other teams in the ACC a few years ago win national championships here.
"So, it's going to happen here. We've just got to all be on the same page. We've got to all push."