Reginald Dwayne Brown (born September 28, 1974) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). He was

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...

ed in the first round (17th overall) of the

1996 NFL Draft The 1996 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 20–21, 1996, at the Paramount ...

by the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...

. He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

Texas A&M Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

. Brown suffered a

spinal cord The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the spi ...

contusion A bruise, also known as a contusion, is a type of hematoma of tissue, the most common cause being capillaries damaged by trauma, causing localized bleeding that extravasates into the surrounding interstitial tissues. Most bruises occur close ...

in the final game of the 1997 season. The injury nearly left him

paralyzed Paralysis (also known as plegia) is a loss of motor function in one or more muscles. Paralysis can also be accompanied by a loss of feeling (sensory loss) in the affected area if there is sensory damage. In the United States, roughly 1 in 50 ...

, and it ended his professional football career.

College

Brown played

for

. He earned first team All-Southwest Conference honors for his senior season efforts, during which he recorded 90 tackles and two interceptions.

Professional career

Although not initially expected to be highly drafted, Brown's performance at the NFL combine boosted his stock. Brown was selected 17th overall by the Detroit Lions in the

. In his second season, he recorded 2.5 sacks to go along with two interceptions, both of which went for touchdown returns. Brown ultimately played in 26 games. In his final game, Brown suffered a

while assisting on a tackle of

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...

halfback

Adrian Murrell Adrian Byran Murrell (born October 16, 1970) is a former professional American football running back. He was drafted by the New York Jets in the fifth round of the 1993 NFL Draft after playing collegiately for the West Virginia Mountaineers. ...

in the final game of the 1997 season, the same game that saw

Barry Sanders Barry Sanders (born July 16, 1968) is an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League (NFL), from 1989 to 1998 for the Detroit Lions. Sanders led the league in rushing yards four times and ...

cross the 2,000-yard mark for the season. He lay motionless for 17 minutes on the turf at the

Pontiac Silverdome The Pontiac Silverdome (also known simply as the Silverdome) was a stadium in Pontiac, Michigan. It opened in 1975 and sat on 199 acres (51 ha) of land. When the stadium opened, it featured a fiberglass fabric roof held up by air pressure, ...

, briefly losing consciousness, with

CPR Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure consisting of chest compressions often combined with artificial ventilation in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore sponta ...

saving his life. Emergency surgery, rehabilitation, and use of a special back brace saved him from using a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Post-football career

Brown is mobile and active. In November 2015, Brown gave a presentation hosted by Texas A&M's sports medicine department in which he detailed the recovery from his spinal cord injury.

References

1974 births Living people Players of American football from Austin, Texas American football linebackers Texas A&M Aggies football players Detroit Lions players {{linebacker-1970s-stub