School: Upper Dublin
Basketball
Favorite athlete: Kobe Bryan
Favorite team: Denver Nuggets
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Scoring 35 points against Wissahickon the first time we played them. That’s the most points I ever scored in a game.”
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that happened competing in sports: “In the game against Cheltenham, I got dunked on. Their big 6-8 player dunked the ball off the miss, and I was right next to him. It was kind of embarrassing.”
Must on iPod: Lil Wayne, Meek Millz, and “slow dance music from the 90s”
Future plans: “Go to college, play basketball and do my schoolwork.”
One goal before turning 30: “Play in the NBA”
One thing people don’t know about me: “Before every game, I order chicken and broccoli because it makes me play better.”
Jamil Brown can create magic on the basketball court.
The Upper Dublin junior is a threat to score from just about anywhere. Brown , who has a pair of 30-plus games already to his credit this season, can bury shots from NBA three-point range, but he is equally comfortable breaking down his defender and taking the ball to the hole.
Ask Brown what he enjoys most, and his response is immediate.
“Defense,” he said. “I like stealing the ball, so I can get a fast break and dunk.”
The junior standout has been thrust in the role of leader of a young Flying Cardinal squad. Brown is reveling in that role, and if he’s frustrated when a young teammate makes a mistake, he certainly doesn’t let it show.
“There are times when I get a little upset, but I don’t yell at them,” Brown said. “I just tell them to pick it up and do better the next time.”
Or, he’ll compensate for that miscue by picking his team up and carrying it on his back.
“He can correct a lot of their mistakes,” coach Josh Adelman said of his only player with any varsity experience coming back this season. “When he’s out there, he hits a couple of shots, and he gets everybody else confident in their games.
“There are games where he has just taken over. He makes a three-point shot or he grabs a rebound and gets a putback. He’s been almost automatic at the foul line. He just makes the other guys realize – ‘He’s on our team, and he’s playing at such a high level. I want to raise my level.’”
Adelman has known Brown since he had him as a sixth grade student.
“Even as a sixth grader, he had a very likeable personality,” the Flying Cardinals’ coach said. “He wasn’t a troublemaker, but you knew him because he had an opinion on everything. He was a little outspoken in class.
“Growing up, I had a chance to see him mature.”
Brown didn’t actually begin playing competitive basketball until he was in seventh grade and went out for his middle school team.
“I watched a lot of basketball,” he said. “I watched the NBA a lot, and I just liked it and started practicing.”
Brown was dazzled by Kobe Bryant and the high-flying style of play of the upper echelon players. He began to develop his game on a basketball court near his house, and it wasn’t long before he gave up football and baseball to concentrate on his new passion.
“I started out average,” he said. “I was okay, but then I practiced and worked out, and I just got better.”
A bone chip in his knee forced him to sit out his eighth grade season, but that injury was a distant memory when Brown – who’d grown three inches the summer before - entered high school and was the first player off the bench for the varsity. He score 150 points as a freshman.
The following year, Brown came into his own.
“The improvements he made as a player were just amazing,” Adelman said. “The confidence, his jump shot – he has such consistency from three-point range. It is such a soft shot. He just didn’t miss very often, and being able to use both hands – that even improved.
“As a freshman, maybe he wasn’t finishing shots, but as a sophomore, he finished anywhere around the basket. He was just a bad matchup for everyone because he would hit shots from NBA range, and he would take it to the basket off the dribble.”
Brown averaged in the neighborhood of 16 points and seven rebounds a game, but because of a mistake that he admits taught him important life lessons, Brown was suspended from the team for disciplinary reasons in the season’s final weeks.
“It was tough,” he said. “I learned from my mistakes.
“I learned I needed to distance myself from certain people that make bad decisions.”
Brown watched from the sidelines while his team advanced to districts.
“It was tough to go to the district games and see him sitting in street clothes, wishing he could be part of what he helped get us to,” Adelman said. “It was a tough time for everyone.”
But Brown learned from that tough time, and he has emerged from that dark time a stronger and more focused young man who is a special talent on the basketball court.
“He’s a jokester, and he has a great personality,” Adelman said. “He makes everybody laugh, but when he steps onto the basketball court – you love the kids that you know are good basketball players, but he works so hard.
“He really loves the game. If there’s a basketball nearby, he’ll grab it and shoot. He’ll be the first one on the court to shoot around. After practice, he’ll stay around and shoot. He just loves to play.”
Brown has his sights set high, and while he dreams of one day playing in the NBA, for now he is focused on his final high school seasons and then moving on to play at the collegiate level.
“That’s my goal,” he said. “To go to college and play basketball and do my schoolwork. My schoolwork is the most important part.”
