The St. Brown Brothers: Growing up Football

Meet the St. Brown brothers. They are not your typical young men. Instead, they grew up with a very structured daily routine.

The organized schedule and discipline made them the strong and talented men they are today. Two of them made it to the NFL as starting wide receivers, while the third is self-employed.

This story shows how the St. Brown brothers grew up around the sport of football.

You can learn how a football player is born through this story. They are usually full of love and self-discipline for football, as well as encouragement and support from those around them. If you are also a football fan, you can also keep encouraging yourself or your football-loving friends to keep going. Or to show your love and support to your favorite football player, designing them on a custom enamel pin would be a great option. These pins can be worn on denim jackets, hats, sweaters or backpacks. It would also be great to give them as gifts to those who share the same passion for the players and the sport!

The Beginning

When Equanimeous was 8-years-old, Osiris 6, and Amon-Ra 5, their father John Brown, bought them some feather light plastic PVC pipe at one of the big box stores and used it to instruct accurate form. When all three boys accomplished the exact procedure, they were instructed to use real bars and dumbbells.

St Brown formerly of usc/the Lions…His dad John Brown was a bodybuilder. Needless to say he had him Pumping Iron at 9 years old. He's a different type of dad, cerebral, off the beaten path but I like people who are different from the norm. #pushthelimits Put a few in the league pic.twitter.com/I17Urkz3fs

— hoodscout 😊 (@DeAnthony91) August 18, 2021

The boys lifted weights at least five days per week while in elementary school. These three little brothers were slowly turning into well tuned lifting machines. During bench press drills, one would lift the weights and the other two would be the spotters.

Stretching before a workout was not permitted in the Brown household, as was a diet high on fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. The alternative method of dieting was red meats, eggs and homemade shakes. This would help bring on muscle and stamina. The idea of this was to eat as much sugary and salty snacks, but it meant working out much harder to burn off the calories.

While Brown frequently had to support his out of the box training sessions against critics when the boys were little, it’s now impossible to argue the outcomes. While all three sons were prized high school receiving recruits, all three shined in college and two are currently playing in the NFL.

Naming Their Sons

Instead of naming their first son a mundane John Brown Jr., John and his wife, Miriam were brainstorming names and he came up with a bold name to sound good over the loudspeakers of a NFL game and look great on a jersey.

He used the name “Equanimeous” from a character that was in one of his friend’s books. He then named his next two sons “Osiris” and “Amon-Ra” after Egyptian gods.  That shows why he added St. to their sons’ last names.

Toughening Them Up

Brown also brought with him a special parenting style which would help put a stamp on the football world learning his son’s names. Beside the weightlifting, Brown also went miles to toughen up the boys.

Once a week, Brown took his sons to a football camp in the city of Compton, to give them exposure and play against kids from a tougher area of California. Osiris told Yahoo Sports that the camp was working, but that it was the Compton boys who were more scared of the St. Brown brothers. It turns out the boys were so strong that the Compton boys were more intimidated by the St. Brown brothers, rather than the opposite.

We have often seen the perception of what happens of exposing young children to tough workouts and being pushed very hard. But not once did any of the sons oppose John’s parenting strategy. The only minor rebellious act the boys gave their father was a random eyeroll when he wasn’t looking when he ordered they chug down just one more protein shake, early workouts, or to complete just one more set of cone drills.

Developing Other Interests

While Equanimeous and Osiris picked up other skills besides their football talents, Amon-RA was more intense and well defined like his father. He was the brother most interested in watching film of other NFL receivers or into doing extra drills.

Amon-RA likes to tell the story of why he reels in 202 balls from the Jugs machine. It goes back to his dad, John walking up to the father of a well-handed receiver Amon-RA’s age to learn more about the boy’s ways. The father explained to him that his son owed his exceptional hands to catching 200 passes a day on a Jugs machine. After that, Amon-Ra agreed to do the same- only pledging to do 1% better.

Then entering the 10th grade, Amon-RA transferred to Mater Dei high school which is the Premier high school football program in Orange County. He had already become a top wide receiver recruiting prospect.  John asked Mater Dei coach Bruce Rollinson to place his youngest boy on JV to make him fight his way up the latter.

John was upset when he arrived to Mater Dei’s first practice and found out that Amon-RA and Osiris were both performing with the varsity team. He remembers Coach Rollinson timidly saying, “I’m sorry Mr. Brown, but I’ve never seen nobody get out of their car, put their shoes on, and then two seconds later, they’re in my end zone.”

Miriam Brown takes over

Just like John was strict with the boys as a father, Miriam Brown was strict with not their football talents, but with their brains. Mama Miriam wanted her three little boys to receive straight A’s in school and also demanded that her sons grow up trilingual.

When the boys were at the age to enter elementary school, Miriam sent her sons to a French academy in Los Angeles. Feeling that wasn’t enough for the boys to pick up the French language, she took her sons to Paris, started them in school for a semester and they were forced to speak French to converse.

At home, Miriam spoke nothing but German to her sons and wanted them to only speak German back to her. Even if the boy’s had their friends over, she still spoke German.

College Offers

The siblings high test grades and NFL caliber talent had college coaches knocking on their door. Ex-USC football coach now Georgia Southern head coach Clay Helton remembers feeling amazed when he found out the youthful receivers he was recruiting spoke three languages and bench pressed the amount of weight college offensive lineman typically do.

Helton sadly lost Equanimeous to Notre Dame and Osiris to Stanford, but he knew landing Amon-Ra was high priority. John told Helton that Amon-RA might be the best of his three sons even before Amon-Ra became a five- star prospect.

Amon-RA committed to USC and then arrived to campus in June 2018. He said to the Los Angeles Times that his goal was to win the Heisman all “three years” and yes, he was truthful about it.

As a freshman, he led the Trojans in receptions playing in the slot. Then after Michael Pittman, Jr. graduated, he moved to the outside and again was the team’s head playmaker.

Transforming let down into Purpose

Amon-RA woke up on April 30, 2021 expecting that it would be the day that transformed his life forever.

Comments made from NFL front offices claimed that the ex USC receiver was a day two draft pick hands down. As a way to celebrate, he invited friends and family to his girlfriend’s house in Newport Beach for a draft day party.  ESPN came to film his joyful reaction to a team drafting him.

What instead happened was the beginning of concern and a long night ahead as five receivers were off the board in the second round, but not Amon-RA. Five more then were selected in round 3, but again, no Amon- RA.

The party then went bleak after the Denver Broncos passed on Amon-RA in the final pick of the third-round. Disappointed and angry, Amon-RA said goodbye to his friends and family as they were uncomfortably heading home.

After the let down, Amon-RA went home and headed right for the JUGS machine. He caught his normal 202 passes before he hit the sack for the night.

One team, one goal, #OnePride 🙌 Grateful to join the @Lions. Let's get to work! Check out my new #PaniniInstant card here #WhoDoYouCollect #RatedRookie #NFLDraft https://t.co/yff1HKOtuI pic.twitter.com/42J5w1D4gi

— Amon-Ra (@amonra_stbrown) May 1, 2021

When the sun rose the next day, all that anger turned into motivation and readiness as the Detroit Lions selected Amon-Ra with the seventh pick in the fourth-round. John spoke with Amon-Ra, where he told his boys while they were growing up that he’d always speak his truth. This usually meant letting them know about a horrible practice or an uninspiring workout. In this situation, he reminded his youngest boy how gifted he was and how talented he could be in the NFL.

Eighteen months have passed since Amon-Ra was drafted and he has so far let his play do the talking. Any worries about a slower than expected 40-yard dash time have quieted and so have the concerns about whether he can play outside and the slot receiver positions in a passing league like the NFL.

Amon-Ra blossomed as Jared Goff’s best option, hurling in eight or more passes in his final six games and gathering 560 yards along with five touchdowns. In year two, he has been even more dynamic now being Goff’s number one receiver.

The memory of his somber weekend in the NFL Draft is what keeps Amon-Ra going during the advancement of his NFL career.

In his two years with the Lions, Amon-Ra has shown he is a man for the big occasion with consistent excellent performances for the franchise.

Fans of the team are finally getting hyped about what he brings to their team and they think highly of him. After he was drafted back in 2021, fans of the Lions were jubilant about his acquisition as they see him as an acquisition one step closer to making an appearance in the elusive Super Bowl.

Despite winning Championship games between 1935 and 1957, they have not been able to reach the flagship game of the NFL in the Super Bowl era.

Two years on, St. Brown is regarded as the top talent that could put the team on his back to make their first appearance in the Super Bowl.

The fans of the Detroit Lions are so confident that their team could go all the way to the Super Bowl this season with wide receiver playing consistently. Some have even gone as far as far on placing wagers on the Lions to go all the way.

A few who are not brave enough prefer to back the Lions one game after another, and if they make it to the Super Bowl, there is a possibility that they go all out for their darling franchise. There is inherently more value in that given the long list of betting offers for the big game.

As for Equanimeous, his NFL career began in Green Bay where he played for three-years. Now, he is on the Chicago Bears and has caught 13 passes as we speak. The oldest boy also has 280 yards receiving and 1 touchdown, averaging 21.5 yards per catch.

Meanwhile, the middle child Osiris is in the business world after four-years and is doing very well.

John believes he only has one remorse about how he raised his sons. He should have made all three of his boys get minimum wage jobs at McDonald’s during the summer, so that they learned the worth of a dollar.

Despite that, John says he wouldn’t change a thing, including having them begin lifting weights in elementary school, to toughening them up in Compton, to loading them up on protein at every meal.

He believes that the kids who don’t have parents like himself to push them, would miss out on all the talent they may have, and that their potential would be wasted.

What do you think? Do you agree with John and Miriam’s parenting skills?

Please let me know.