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From Football To The Farm Field: Meet Jason Brown

Courtesy of Jason Brown

When he first started playing football, Jason Brown saw it as a business decision. He wanted to get a scholarship to college so that he would not be a financial burden for his parents.

Brown received a full ride to theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hillwhere he excelled on the football field. He got drafted to the Baltimore Ravens and later played for the St. Louis Rams. Brown played professionally for seven seasons and was well poised to continue playing and padding his bank account.

But on his 27th birthday, something snapped. Several years earlier his 27-year-old brother was killed serving in the military in Iraq, and as Brown reflected on the beginning of his 27th year, he felt disappointed in himself. He did not think his football career amounted to anything when compared to his brother’s sacrifice.

Two years later, Brown hung up his pads and bought 1,000 acres of land in Franklin County, where he opened a farm that grows crops to give away. Host Frank Stasio talks to Jason Brown about First Fruits Farm, and why he left football for a farm field.

 

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Amanda Magnus is the executive producer of Embodied, a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships and health. She has also worked on other WUNC shows including Tested and CREEP.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.