Malcom Brown has reached the pinnacle of every level of football.

He played in the high school state championship game as a five-star prospect from Brenham. He became an All-American defensive tackle at the University of Texas. He’s a two-time Super Bowl Champion with the New England Patriots. 

But Brown isn’t content to walk away from the game he loves. He’s starting back at the bottom rung of the football ladder as the head coach at St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School in Austin, which has an enrollment of 400 kids. 

Brown might be entering his second year as a coach, but he has a wealth of knowledge from legends like Mack Brown, Bill Belichick and Sean Payton. His biggest takeaway wasn’t the Xs and Os; it was that he needed a signature knockout speech. 

“Every coach I’ve ever played for gave good talks that made you want to run through a brick wall for them,” Brown said. “My biggest thing as a coach is to build trust in my players.”

His players have Googled all his accolades, but Brown shares with them what most don’t know - how close it was to never happening. His football career nearly ended in ninth grade when he was kicked off Brenham’s football team. 

Brenham head coach Glen West believed Brown would play professional football as a freshman. He was already such a special athlete that West put him on the varsity. But that season proved that even though Brown was physically ready, he wasn’t prepared mentally. 

Brown came down with a bad case of tonsillitis mid-season. He couldn’t shake the high fever or stop losing weight. By the time he healed, Brenham was on a run four rounds deep in the playoffs without him. So Brown stopped showing up, opting to play hooky with his friends. One afternoon, his defensive line coach caught him. The next day, the coaches told him they didn’t think football was for him. Brown walked out of the office shell-shocked. 

The coaches gave him another chance to prove himself with after-practice conditioning. Brown quit in the middle of it. West told him that if he left now, he would be off the team. Brown was 14 years old, walking off the turf for what he thought would be the final time.

Brenham’s playoff push taught Brown that no matter how gifted he was, the team - and life - moved on without him. He went back to West for one last shot. He was done doing it his way and ready to do it the Brenham way.

“If you miss one practice, you’re never going to get another chance,” West told him.

Brown never missed another practice, not at Brenham, Texas or in the NFL. 

“There’s so many kids that have the ability,” West said. “I’ve seen a million where it’s like, ‘If that person just understood what he could be…’ Malcom was able to be exactly who he should’ve been. He would do beyond what you asked him to do.”

By the championship game of his sophomore year, he weighed north of 305 pounds. College recruiters told West that they’d offer him, but they feared Brown would get too big by the end of high school. If he could get down to 288, that’d be perfect. One year before, Brown wouldn’t have listened. But that summer, West would drive down the road around noontime on a blistering day and see Brown running. He dropped to 286 by his junior year.

Before the season, Brenham did a mile-run conditioning test. Brown would finish with the running backs and wide receivers. He played both ways as a defensive tackle and tight end, rarely coming off the field. 

Whenever college recruiters stopped by Brenham’s football offices, West would show a play from Brown’s highlight tape where he chased a running back 60 yards down the field and tackled him.

“That’s usually when they told us, ‘Just turn off the projector,’” West said.

Brown always had five-star talent, but he developed five-star character at Brenham. 

Some former NFL players are unapproachable. They’ve accomplished so much that they lose relatability. But Brown hasn’t lost touch with that 14-year-old kid within himself.

“Coming from my playing career to my coaching career, I know how to take the steps to get to wherever you want to go,” Brown said.

He doesn’t know where he ultimately wants to go in his coaching career. Right now, he’s coaching at Austin St. Dominic Savio while he completes his degree at Texas. But he knows that wherever he ends up, this is the perfect place to start. 

“I’m used to seeing NFL guys who are working themselves all summer in the heat through a two-hour workout just because they want to be good, as opposed to a bunch of high school kids who aren’t as driven yet and don’t have the work ethic that you gradually grow to,” Brown said.

Brown has been fortunate to play at elite programs (Brenham, Texas, New England) at every level of his career. But the elite, by definition, is uncommon. Coaching at Austin St. Dominic forces Brown to recognize that, then figure out how to build it. And if he can do that, he’ll stop today’s high schoolers from falling into the same trap he almost did.