Wonderful story!
Jason W. Brown (born May 5, 1983 in Henderson, North Carolina) is a former NFL center and current farmer. He played college football at North Carolina and was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the fourth round of the 2005 NFL Draft.
Brown attended Northern Vance High School in Henderson, North Carolina, where he was a member of the National Honor Society. He was a standout not only in football and also track and field. He holds four state championships; three in discus and one for shot put.
Brown chose to walk away from football in 2012 at the age of 29 to become a farmer in Louisburg, North Carolina. He walked away from a 5-yr $37.5 million dollar contract.
He maintains a 1,000-acre farm where he grows produce such as sweet potatoes and cucumbers. He donates these crops to local food pantries, having given away over 46,000 pounds of sweet potatoes and 10,000 pounds of cucumbers. Brown began learning about farming practices in 2012 by watching YouTube videos.
From CBS News:
LOUISBURG, N.C. – At one point number 60, Jason Brown, was one of the best centers in the NFL.
At one point he had a five-year, $37 million contract with the St. Louis Rams.
And at one point he decided it was all meaningless – and just walked away from football.
“My agent told me, ‘You’re making the biggest mistake of your life,'” said Brown. “And I looked right back at him and I said, ‘No I’m not. No I’m not.'”
So what could possibly trump the NFL?
You wouldn’t believe.
Jason Brown quit football to be a plain, old farmer — even though he’d never farmed a day a in his life.
Asked how he learned to even know what to do, Brown said:
“Get on the Internet. Watch Youtube videos.”
He learned how to farm from Youtube.
Thanks to Youtube and some good advice from other farmers here in Louisburg, N.C., this week Jason finished harvesting his first, a five-acre plot of sweet potatoes.
“When you see them pop up out of the ground, man, it’s the most beautiful thing you could ever see,” said Brown. He said he has never felt more successful.
“Not in man’s standards,” said Brown. “But in God’s eyes.”
But God cares about the NFL, right? There are people praying to him on the field all the time.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of people praying out there,” said Brown. “But, when I think about a life of greatness, I think about a life of service.”