Welcome to MarkBrownPT

Coach,

Thank you. Thank you for all of it, all the memories, all the talks, all the screaming and yelling. All the love.

Thank you for taking this small boy and making him feel bigger than I have ever felt. For taking all of us small boys and making us better than we could have ever been on our own.

Every person deserves the kind of memories I have about football. If football is a religion, then I grew up with the Gospel of John, and man were you passionate about preaching the word.

Thank you for the setting a standard, for making a tradition when you played as a Miner and passing that tradition on to the rest of us when we played. You made being a Miner special, because you too were one.

You had a power, a special power, the kind of power that some coaches don’t have. You made us all believe, not only in ourselves, but in the team, in the town, 

One team, one town, one dream.

Movies have been made about football. Grown men cry at what football has done for them. Football has that power to move men to tears, but it isn’t about football really, it’s about love.

Football is just a thing. My memories of football move me because I was surround by friends that became my brothers, and the only reason that process even happened was because of you, and other coaches like you.

There is a fine line between love and hate. I hear stories of players from other places that hated their coach, that dropped out of sports because of a coach. I see it today and it saddens me.

You were not that coach. 

Even with all the yelling, and pushing, and hard practices, I knew I was loved. I knew you cared about me and all the other boys out there.

I suppose it was living in a small town that you knew all of us, that you knew all of our stories. You grew up there. You knew the same battles we fought on and off the field. You knew how special football was to us, and you did everything in your power to make us feel special.

You taught me to hit. You taught me to take a hit. You yelled at me to hit harder and you yelled at me to get up. I am able to walk tall today because you never allowed me to stay on the ground then. 

You didn’t teach me about football, you taught me about love. 

Love for my fellow teammates. Love for my school. Love for my town.

Harshorne is a special place, the center of my universe and the dirt from which I come from. You made that place special to me. You are the reason I still go back to watch games. 

I can sit in the stands and watch a new crop of kids play the game I loved on the same field that I played on. I can see the passion and the love that they have for it. 

Once a Miner, Always a Miner.

They don’t know you, you are only a name to them, but you aren’t just a name to me and my teammates. You are part of the magical power that haunts the weight room and the practice field. You are the spirit that lifts them up.

You are now part of the light that they see in the distance on Friday nights when they cross the tracks and put on the helmets.

You are now part of the prayer they pray before the game.

I pray that you find the Heavenly peace that you so humbly deserve. I hope that when you get to the end of the tunnel you see a couple familiar faces, a couple of other coaches that I feel the same way about. I hope that Coach Beare and Coach Jennings are the ones to greet you, to take you one the tour. To show you the locker room.

I can hear Coach Beare in his booming voice and kidding smile say “welcome home Johnnie”. 

Tell him thank you too, from all of us. 

Miner Fight Never Dies, it gets passed on….thank you for passing it to me.