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Welcome to another edition of The Forgotten Quarterbacks. I'm your host, w Earl Kitchens, and today what we want to do is bring you a real tribute to one of the most outstanding black quarterbacks who played in the indoor professional football league and. This all falls under that banner of Arena Football League, indoor Football League. They're basically one in the same. But what we wanna share with you today is the story, I guess, about this outstanding young guy who played and had a phenomenal career in the IPF with an ongoing trend of not drafting black quarterbacks the. National Football League was not much in the future of former Texas Longhorn Star quarterback James Brown. While his time in the Canadian Football League was not much better, but not discouraged by finding a place with the two major professional football leagues in the world, brown found his place in the IPFL Arena League. NFL Europe and the intense football leagues before quality. It quits the talented quarterback from Beaumont, Texas, and three year starter for the University of Texas between 1995 and 1997. Finished with 30 Longhorn records, including passing yards of 7,638, total offense, 8,049 yards and touchdown passes of 53. His record as a starter for Texas was 25 13 and one Brown became the first Longhorn quarterback in 20 years to earn first team All Southwest Conference when Texas Win was in the, uh, Southwest Conference, uh, since Marty Aikens in 1975 and was also named the SWC Offensive Player of the Year. He was also named the team's MVP and the Blue Gray All Star Game MVP in 1997. His professional football journey would take him to the leagues, played indoors and internationally. He led two different teams to League Championship. The Texas Terminators of the. Indoor Professional Football League and the Frankfurt Galaxy of the former NFL Europe League, while performing with Stellar ability and earning MVP Honors. He first signed with the Texas Terminators leading them to the indoor professional football league conference championship game in 1999 and was named the IPFL Offensive Player of the Year. His performance. Earned him a spot in the arena football where he played for five seasons. In 2000 and 2001, he was the backup quarterback and a defensive back with the Nashville Cats and with the cats. Went to the Arena Bowl. The Arena Bowl, not the Super Bowl, but the Arena Bowl, both seasons. In 2003, brown was signed again by the Georgia Force. But he only played in two games before leaving the league for NFL Europe, but he started the second game in place of the injured Donnie Davis and led the team to an upset win over San Jose, becoming the game's MVP. Three days later, he left the team to join the Scottish Claymores, but instead wound up as a starter for the Frankfurt Galaxy. As the co starting quarterback for the Galaxy, along with teammate Quinn Gray and Quinn Gray played his collegiate football at Florida a and m. University Brown helped lead the Galaxy to a six and four record, the division title and the league championship in the World Bowl. Isn't it interesting how. It seems as though championship games basically take on a title of a major bowl, super Bowl, indoor, uh, football, professional football league, bowl, arena, bowl, world Bowl. They're all bowls. So World Bowl 11 was his last game in NFL Europe. He was then released. By Georgia before the 2004 Arena League season was over, though they resigned him halfway through the 2004 season as a wide receiver and defensive back, but he was used sparingly after several years away from playing. He was preparing to play for the All American Football League, another league for indoor football, but it never materialized and was then signed in 2008. By the Syntex Barra, recruiters of the Intense Football League as a mid-season replacement. There, he led the team to six wins in eight games and a spot in the league semi-finals. James Brown, the former University of Texas quarterback, who set many records for the Longhorns, played most of his time. In the indoor football leagues, except for the couple of years he played over in NFL Europe. Now, we were able to identify his career stats, uh, most of them anyway, where he played, uh, in the arena league, in the indoor professional league in the intense league. But most of his stats were. Pretty much made when he played in NFL Europe, and as you heard, there was a big gap between the time he last played for a indoor football league team and the time he played for the last team he ever played for, which was the syntax Barracuda. But in 2002, he played with the Scottish Claymores. And that year he, uh, only compiled 364 yards and threw one touchdown. But in that championship year of 2003, he passed for 1,402 yards and five touchdowns in helping Frankfurt win the Whirl Bowl. Uh, that same season as, as you can pretty much tell, uh, these guys were able to play in two different leagues. They could play indoor. And if they were fortunate enough and got an opportunity, they also played, uh, NFL Europe. So he finished out the 2003 year by playing for the Georgia Force, uh, but only had 219 yards for through for touchdowns. But James Brown was an exciting and awesome quarterback during his time. It's unfortunate that he did not get the opportunity. That many guys are seeing in today's football, especially since there are so many leagues around the world. Uh, his talents definitely, uh, deserve a little bit stronger of a look, but it was not to be for this outstanding quarterback. And, you know, it's again, interesting to note that. Many of the colleges, uh, over their history did not start seeing, of course, black quarterbacks until, you know, many of them, at least in the South, did not start seeing black quarterbacks until, uh, the early to mid seventies. But in the nineties, I would venture to say that James Brown. Like some other guys we've seen or, or know about who've played in the old Southwest conference, uh, when they had Oklahoma playing in that conference. And you know, we are going to probably have one of our, our episodes talk about the black quarterback legacy of the University of Oklahoma. But there were a couple of quarterbacks back in the day at Oklahoma who had that persona. Of being that dual threat quarterback? Well, James Brown was no different. He was a guy who had the ability to run the ball when pass protection broke down, or just run the ball when his number was called, but could also, you know, throw passes 50, 60 yards. So he made the best I would say. Of his opportunity at the leagues that gave him the most opportunity to play. And as we continue to bring you history of the black quarterbacks that played in the Arena League overall, you'll get to see that their opportunities. Are just as qualified as their counterparts and they had opportunities to do outstanding things. So we would like to acknowledge James Brown for doing an exceptional job in a short amount of time, probably under some very difficult circumstances, because it's not easy to, you know, have to go to work. A full-time job and then perform or go to practice after your job for a couple of hours before you have to make an effort to get some rest and get up to go back to that job again. And that is probably the only downside of playing, uh, I guess in the Arena league, is that un, unless you are like. One of those positions, IE quarterback, you are going to have to find another way to make a living because these salaries are not, you know, as compatible to the NFL and or the CFL. But all in all, these guys made their marks. And here at quarter five back and the forgotten quarterbacks, we just wanna make sure that. The legacies and the history of a guy like a James Brown is not forgotten. So an outstanding quarterback at Texas. We will bring you that episode about the black quarterbacks from Texas, but just to find guy who put it all together, won some championships, played some games, and had a career and made the best of it so. We are thankful that we were able to bring you this story about this gentleman today, and we hope that you'll continue to tune into more episodes of the Forgotten quarterbacks. I'm your host, W Earl Kitchens, and until next time, have a great week. Weak. Thank you for joining us here on the Forgotten quarterbacks with Host w Earl Kitchen. Join us as we discuss more about the legacies of black quarterbacks who've played the game of American football.