Collegiate athletics is now the victim of consistent ridicule – a punching bag for old-school sports fans who criticize the “professional league” that the NCAA is becoming.
The transfer portal has absolved any sense of loyalty players have for their programs.
Returning players are becoming a hot commodity, and the traditional homegrown “four-year” veterans – like the Jaime Jaquez Jr.’s and Alex Karaban’s of the world – are few and far between.
Name, image and likeness has turned teenagers into entrepreneurs, as players cultivate a brand and social media presence. Athletes-turned-CEOs follow the dollar sign and leave at any hint of a better deal.
While fans feel the college basketball landscape has gone from Metropolis to Gotham, a dark knight has emerged.
And UCLA’s Bruce Wayne is new to town.
Enter: Jamar Brown.
“I call Jamar Batman because he’s a superhero, but he’s not – he’s human,” said Duane Eason, Brown’s head coach at Phoenix College. “Batman’s got gadgets. He can’t fly, he doesn’t have X-ray vision and he’s not super. He’s just a person with a work ethic and all of these gadgets that make him good. Jamar is not 6-foot-8. He doesn’t dribble the ball like Kyrie Irving. He’s a guy of average size with average ability.”
The fifth-year guard’s journey to Westwood is unlike most others on their path to Power Four basketball.
Brown was underrecruited coming out of Hamilton High School in Chandler, Arizona, due to missing his Spring AAU season because of COVID-19 and opted to attend Phoenix College – a junior college around 25 miles from his hometown.
After his first year, he wanted to transfer to a Division I program, but ultimately, the cards did not fall in his favor.
“We had a meeting with me, his mom and Jamar, and I said, ‘Look, we got some NAIA schools and we got some DII schools, and we should just pick one so Jamar can get three years out of university,’ and they looked at me like I was crazy,” Eason said. “And they’re like, ‘Coach, we want to play Division I,’ so his mom reached out to me after they talked, and said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to go forward for year two and we were going to do the things we need to do.’”
So Brown did the only thing he knew how to – work.
Whether it was getting shots up after practice or working on his body and athleticism, Brown put in the dirty work, never complaining and always staying humble – traits he learned growing up with a former athlete as a mother and two competitive brothers who both played college sports.
“Since we were little, we would go to any high school that was open, and we would run the stadiums, and we would run the track,” Brown said. “We had that work ethic built into us from when we were little, and I feel like it stuck with me throughout high school and throughout college.”
Brown’s work ethic – something coach Mick Cronin said he never has to teach the fifth-year transfer – was so strong during his time before UCLA, that Eason noted Brown missed no more than three practices over the course of his Phoenix College career.
And Marvin Menzies, Brown’s coach at Missouri-Kansas City, remarked that they had to intentionally build more recovery time into his schedule because he pushed himself so hard.
While Brown’s drive and work ethic in Phoenix led him to Kansas City, Mo. – and his dream of garnering a Division I scholarship – many realized the mistake they made in underestimating or missing the guard in their recruiting process.
“I probably took about 10 to 12 phone calls after his first year at UMKC, which were a combination of either, ‘We dropped the ball on that kid,’ or ‘Do you think the kid is ready to move?’” Eason said. “And that last piece is what speaks most about Jamar. He could have left our program after his freshman year, maybe to a better junior college or wherever, but he’s loyal, and that’s the way he was raised.”
After transferring to Missouri-Kansas City, Brown showed the nation what they were missing out on, starting in all 32 games as a junior while averaging a team-best 15 points per game and 6.1 rebounds per contest.
And just because he solidified his status as a leader on and off the court, this has not stop the guard from working even harder than he did before – something Menzies thinks will translate well to his role in Westwood.
“Fitting into UCLA is going to be seamless for Mick and (assistant coach Rod Palmer) Palmer as well,” Menzies said. “They’ll love the kid and drive home every day, going, ‘Well, you know what? He missed the shot, or he didn’t do this’, but they’ll never complain about his buy-in and his effort.”
Work ethic is integral to Cronin’s mantra of not coaching effort. And Brown should have no problem following in his coaches’ footsteps.
In a college basketball landscape marked by constant transfers and following the money trail, Brown defies the standard as someone who buys into wherever he is – whether it’s Phoenix, Kansas City or Los Angeles.
He blazes his own trail, digs in when things get tough and works even harder when hurdles approach.
Brown is cut from his own cloth, unafraid to tackle a journey and path that most others would veer away from.
Adversity is a bump in the road, and his work ethic is the motor that pushes him over the hump.
“Jamar has benefited from taking the correct path,” Eason said. “A lot of times it’s hard to convince somebody in this day and age that there’s a path that can lead to a place like UCLA that looks like the one he went on – which is really a testament to him. He’s truly an example that a lot of kids in this country need to follow and understand. There’s a very, very, very, very small minority of people who are willing to take the path that he took.”
Brown’s journey has reaffirmed who he is.
Someone who takes life day by day, challenging himself to be a better version of himself than the day before.
There is no challenge too big or task too small. He’s a hard worker through and through.
And pressure and resilience build diamonds.
“I’m a winner,” Brown said. “I will do whatever it takes for my team to win. I bring toughness. I lead by example. I feel like the things that I do are very impactful. I’m a very impactful person in many ways that might not be on the stat sheet.”
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