The underdog rookie free agent is skying high to catch his NFL dream, driven to continue putting on a show in the Jets’ preseason opener Thursday night against the Browns and stand tall as an inspiration and symbol of hope to those back home in West Point, Miss.
“All I ever wanted was an opportunity. … I know what type of player I am and what type of player I’m about to be,” Jason Brownlee told The Post.
He was asked what type of player he is about to be, now that he has Aaron Rodgers throwing him the football.
“Like something that they never seen before,” Brownlee said.
He has an infectious laugh and a playful nature and a bright-eyed vision for a future he saw for himself first at East Mississippi CC and then at Southern Mississippi. But he considers himself blessed because too many others couldn’t make it out of mean streets that snuff out dreams in the blink of an eye … or the deadly pull of a trigger.
And so the memory of his high school teammate and friend, Jerni “Shug” White, won’t ever leave him.
“He got shot and passed away, and that’s just something that just stuck with me,” Brownlee said. “I know he’s watching over me, I know he’s happy, I know he’s proud of me of what I’m doing right now. His name is gonna forever live on as long as I’m living. Every day I don’t take life for granted ’cause I know one second it could be gone. He didn’t deserve it and I’m gonna still like hold it down for him ’cause I know he’s watching over me.”
Shug White was 22. He was a wide receiver, too.
“Like every time I came home, I’m calling him, ‘Let’s go to the field.’ Ten o’clock, 11 o’clock at nighttime, he’s coming. Flat tire, he’s coming,” Brownlee said. “He was like that to everybody too, though. Had a good heart. He always just wanted to see people succeed.”
A little before midnight last Sept. 25, Brownlee got the phone call that Shug White was gone.
“I had a game coming up that weekend, too,” he said. “And I just broke down. Asking ‘Why? How could that happen to such a genuine, caring person who didn’t do nothing to nobody?’”
Brownlee’s mother, Marie Patterson, remembers that fateful night all too well. She raised five children as a single parent working day care. Jason is her oldest.
“I’ve never seen him down like that where he called me crying that night. … It was devastating. He took it hard,” Patterson said. “I’ve never in my life hear him cry until that night. When something like that happened, it was like a whole different side of him that I’ve never seen before.”
She, too, was fond of Shug.
“He was like Jason, very humble … head on the right path … he was a very good kid,” she said.
According to a report in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, West Point Police Chief Avery Cook said Shug was killed when during an altercation between a large number of people which escalated to gunfire. Two other people were shot, though neither died.
I asked Brownlee: Wrong place at the wrong time?
“Wrong place at the wrong time, yeah,” he said.
Nearly a year later, Jason Brownlee feels fortunate to find himself in the right place at the right time. With the right quarterback.
“It’s like a dream to me, honestly,” Brownlee said. “He’s like a robot out there, like the flick of his wrist, the way he throws the ball, the way he carries himself, the leadership … ”
He made a one-handed catch on Tuesday in practice that opened eyes wide again in training camp. It makes sense that, as a 6-foot-2, 199-pound receiver, he has modeled himself after Dez Bryant and Mike Williams. See the ball in the air, go get the ball.
“I’m thinking it’s mine, like 99.9 percent chance that I’m gonna come down with that ball,” Brownlee said. “So every time the ball goes in the air, I’m going to high point it, I don’t care who’s defending me, I don’t care who it is, I don’t feel like nobody can jump with me.”
He is well aware that it’s a big jump from Southern Mississippi to the NFL. But he has the right mindset.
“Keeping your head down knowing that you got that chip on your shoulder,” Brownlee said. “There’s no room for error, so every day you gotta take advantage of your opportunity ’cause you never know when your last opportunity might come.”
Marie Patterson remembers her son telling her when he was in high school that one day he would be on the cover of the Madden video game. Of course she will be watching her son’s NFL preseason debut.
“It’s gonna be a sight to see,” she said, “ ’cause he’s always been like that. He just reaches for the ball and they just fall right in his hand.”
He is as proud of his mother as she is of him.
“Coming up it was kinda hard for her,” he said. “Just seeing her go through the things that she went through, and seeing her overcome adversity in life made me who I am today. She’s the reason why I go so hard, she’s the reason why I do what I do.”
The magnitude of the moment doesn’t scare him.
“I’m ready to put on a show,” Brownlee said.
Though Brownlee thought he would be drafted, he was left to be a free agent.
“I wasn’t disappointed at all,” he said. “I’ve been an underdog my whole life, so I know how to overcome adversity, and I know what it takes to get to that point where you want to be at. I got that blue-collar work ethic, you know? I’m always trying to find ways to get better. Just having that work ethic gonna take me a long way.”
And he’ll be taking Shug White along with him. On his Twitter page: #LLSHUG.
