Coach Fran Brown carries Camden and its players with him as he leads a turnaround at Syracuse

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — From the second season of his playing career to his final snap as a Western Carolina defensive back in 2006, Camden native Fran Brown was always selected as a team captain. The realization that he was viewed as a leader among his football teammates and peers hadn’t crossed his mind as he sat back in the leather seat at his desk in his Syracuse office on a dreary Wednesday earlier this month.

As a coach, Brown has leaned on his playing experience, from his days as a two-way player as Camden High’s quarterback and defensive back to his time as an all-conference cornerback for the Catamounts. He still does in his first season at the helm of Syracuse’s football program. But for the 42-year-old Brown, who was joined by his wife, Teara, for an interview, being himself has been the constant theme in his coaching career, which included stops as an assistant at Temple (twice), Baylor, Rutgers, and Georgia.

“I don’t try to go and be someone else, and a lot of people don’t have that authenticity to be able to do that, so I think that helps,” Brown said. “Playing helped on being able to show [the players], knowing that I’ve done it and they like that. Because now, it’s not like all of your lines on the board don’t mean you know what you’re doing. Those lines don’t mean it’s got to work. What makes it work is being able to get out there and show them and teach them, and as they do it, you being able to adapt.”

» READ MORE: Camden’s Fran Brown is ‘committed’ to making a splash at Syracuse

But make no mistake about it: Brown’s journey has been far from a straight-line path. He speaks about life’s “trials and tribulations, ups and downs” along the way. Not long after Fran Jr., his eldest son, was born, Brown recalled, he and his wife had bats in their Mantua Township apartment on the top floor of an engineering firm’s building about 20 minutes south of Camden. They vowed to make a better life.

Those days are behind them, but Brown doesn’t take the experiences for granted. It’s a big reason he has been able to connect with players in the South Jersey area, especially Camden, because he’d been in their shoes before. And he wants to make sure they’re not just good football players and says “they’ll all be good husbands and good fathers, because I’m pushing that, and they see that every day.”

“Everybody wants to associate themselves with, ‘I’m from the trenches, or I’m from this, and I’m from that,’ and you naturally know [that] I am,” Brown said. “So I was there. … But I know what it takes to get out of it. And I know how to stay out. And I think that’s the most important piece that a lot of people forget about. It’s cool to make it out. Everybody does, but show us how to stay out. Show us how to bring other people out.”

Brown walks in those words. He has a reputation as a great recruiter, and there are seven players on Syracuse’s football team from Camden, and countless others from the South Jersey and Philadelphia area. There’s a culture shift happening in upstate New York and Brown is at the center of it.

How deep Brown’s roots run in this Philly and South Jersey football season can be traced back to Fran Jr., who now plays for St. Francis (Pa.) in the Football Championship Subdivision.

Brown got his first coaching job with Paul VI High in Haddonfield, at the same time Fran Jr. was playing youth football. After spending the 2010 season with Paul VI’s team, Brown was one of his son’s coaches, along with his two brothers-in-law, both of whom “love little league football.” And in traveling with them to see other games, Brown began to build connections with several players who would later become his players at Syracuse.

Among them were several current Orange players who were part of the Next Level seven-on-seven team in South Jersey, including Alijah Clark, Fadil Diggs, and Duce Chestnut, all from Camden, LeQuint Allen from Millville, and others who have gone on to play Division I football.

Brown helped train young football players shortly after he finished his playing career, including a few who played on that seven-on-seven team.

» READ MORE: Camden to ’Cuse: Local signees share why they are on board the Fran Brown express

“From going to [Fran Jr.’s] games to working kids out and going to watch high school ball, once I got into college [coaching], it was like, ‘Oh, he was with us. He’s one of us, like he came up that way, he did it with us,’” Brown explained. “I think I might be more like motivation and inspiration to them. … I’m inspiring them to be able to continue to go on into it.”

One player Brown left an indelible impact on was Clark, who played both ways in high school at Camden High. Clark remembers Brown getting on his case during a Rutgers camp about him running routes as a receiver instead of showcasing his skills at defensive back. “He came up to me, like, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you playing receiver? You’re not going to school for that,’” Clark recalled. A few years later, while Brown was a defensive backs coach at Rutgers (2020-21), Clark elected to play for him, signing with the Scarlet Knights out of high school. Then the pair reunited when Brown got the job at Syracuse two years after Clark transferred to the school. Clark calls Brown “my role model.”

“He’s detailed, accountable, relentless, and tough, and that’s something he taught to us,” Clark said. “And that sounds real big to me; I never quit what I’m doing, just because I see how fast the jump Coach Fran was able to make in so little time and still be successful.”

» READ MORE: From 2020: New Rutgers assistant Fran Brown off to a quick start in recruiting

Chestnut, who like Clark grew up in Camden and played for the same high school as Brown, said his coach had been going to his games since he was 5 years old. But what makes Brown special, Chestnut said, is his ability “to always keep it real with you.”

“It’s a different type of bond that we have with Coach Fran and he knows that,” Chestnut said. “A lot of people love him, and he’s like a legend in our city.”

But no bond Brown has with his players may be as strong as the one he has formed with quarterback Kyle McCord and his family, and that extends to Brown’s wife, as well.

If you’ve followed Syracuse this season, you probably know that Brown traveled to Columbus, Ohio, not long after the former Ohio State player entered the transfer portal last year. But their relationship goes back more than a decade. Teara Brown and McCord’s father, Derek, worked together while she was in school training to be an anesthetist. Derek sold medical equipment and was a former college football quarterback himself. Teara recalled hearing about Kyle from her brothers, and Derek would show her videos of his son, a young quarterback playing for the Pennsauken Youth Athletic Activities football team.

“We just always happened to be in the same room together, and we would get to chatting while the surgery was going on, and we always talked about football,” Teara said. “My brother would always come and tell me about the games every weekend. And that would be our thing. … So it was pretty cool, and it’s nice to see now. And that it came around again, and we’re all connected [again].”

» READ MORE: Former Ohio State QB Kyle McCord put in 10,000 hours for those 85 seconds at Notre Dame

That was Fran Brown’s first touch point with Kyle McCord, and it wouldn’t be the last. McCord also had played for the same seven-on-seven team as Clark, Chestnut, Allen, and others. And by the time McCord’s recruiting process during high school was underway, Brown was at Rutgers and tried to persuade the quarterback, then at St. Joseph’s Prep, to take a chance on him and the Scarlet Knights. “For a quick little bit, maybe a day, Kyle thought about coming to Rutgers because everything was well, but he was always respectful,” Brown recalled.

McCord went off to Ohio State for his first three college football seasons, but once Brown became Syracuse’s 31st football coach and McCord went into the transfer portal, the familiarity and mindsets the two men shared formed a perfect quarterback-coach pairing in upstate New York. Brown calls McCord “one of the most important pieces of our program.”

But it took a little persuasion from McCord’s mother, Stacy, once Brown made his pitch.

“I know me and my family appreciate the McCords for trusting in us and believing that we knew what it takes inside of us to be able to run a program. So very thankful that they did that, and honestly, very thankful for his mom, because she’s the one who made him commit,” Brown recalled with a laugh. “I remember we were sitting there together, and he was like, ‘I need a few days.’ And she was like, ‘Why?’

“I’ll never forget her saying, ‘Why?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, why?’ She wanted to know why because it felt good to her. And she just was like, ‘This is what you need and this is what we’re looking for.’ He didn’t know why, he just wanted to not have to make a decision in front of me. She said, ‘This is where you belong.’”

Added McCord: “I think the reason why [Brown] recruits so well is he’s just extremely genuine, extremely personable guy off the field. I think we all feel comfortable talking to him like he doesn’t feel like, necessarily, a certain typical head coach. … It’s not intimidating to go and sit in his office and have a conversation. He genuinely cares about all the players, like he meets with all the players throughout the week. I think having a coach like that is rare. And when you have that relationship with your coach, I think it makes you want to win for him and compete for him and play hard for him, knowing that he has your back.”

McCord has starred this season at Syracuse with Jeff Nixon, who has coached at Temple and with the Eagles in his 28-year career, calling the offense. McCord has had nine games of 300 or more passing yards, and has nearly surpassed his season totals in every major category except touchdowns from last season with two games remaining. And he needs just 274 yards to become Syracuse’s single-season leader in passing yardage.

Fran and Teara Brown are raising three children together: Fran Jr. (20), Brayden (12), and Ivy (3). At the center of Fran’s success has been his family. Brayden is always at the football facility after school, and the rock throughout Brown’s coaching career has been his wife.

» READ MORE: Camden native Fran Brown is next up as Syracuse football coach.

Brown kept going back to the phrase “climbing together” in reference to his partnership with his wife and his family’s growth over this journey. When he was at his lowest points, Teara was there to pick him up, and vice versa. The love between the couple is palpable when they’re in the room together, and that love carries over into coaching and whenever his family is around the football team — which is often. The players know that, too.

Coaching under Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Brown learned that holding everyone accountable is a key to being successful. He adopted it as one of four pillars in his coaching motto, called “D.A.R.T.” — detailed, accountable, relentless, and tough. It’s something he preaches constantly to his players.

“I feel like all the guys have really been buying into that, trying to live their lives that way,” McCord said. “I think when you have that same kind of background as just guys and the same shared experiences, it makes it easier for me to preach that same message and just kind of be another voice to the team by extension.”

With two weeks left in the season, Syracuse sits at 7-3 overall, 4-3 in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Brown has been on the job for nearly 12 months now, and his program is already in better shape than he found it.

Brown, in his players’ words, is loyal, authentic, and real. In a profession where constant turnover is the norm, the Camden native is looking to bring stability and success to a program that hasn’t seen consistent winning in decades. He has won everywhere else he’s been, from Temple under Matt Rhule to becoming a national champion with Georgia and everywhere in between.

And long after Clark is gone, the senior defensive back believes Brown will be winning a lot of games inside Syracuse’s JMA Wireless Dome for years to come.

“This is honestly probably going to be the worst year that he has, and this obviously is going to be a good year, because you see how we’re doing. So it’s only going to keep going getting better from here,” Clark said. “He’s a great person. He’s a great father. … So whatever Coach Fran is selling is probably past the roof. He’s a champion. He’s a winner. So that’s what Syracuse is going to get the next couple of years.”