Note: Bryce Brown has granted permission for the limited, general discussion of his academic involvement.

Just before the spring semester of 2019, I got an e-mail from Student-Athlete Support Services. A student-athlete who was an interdisciplinary studies major wanted to do a senior thesis that focused on sports broadcasting, and they asked if I would direct it.

I replied that I was glad to help (with a joke that I hoped it wouldn’t have anything to do with Stephen A. Smith). I was told that Bryce Brown would be coming my way with the paperwork.

The emergence of Auburn as a basketball power came 5 years after the school hired Bruce Pearl, previously at Tennessee, as its head coach. Pearl had been fired from Tennessee in 2011, for lying to NCAA investigators, and Auburn’s success was a personal comeback for him. Bryce Brown had himself progressed from 3-star recruit to 3-point scoring machine, and was a crowd favorite.

I was familiar with Bryce academically, because he had been enrolled in my online Sports, Media, and Society class the summer before and had done an excellent job. He particularly was interested in issues of race and social activism. It had been only two seasons since Colin Kaepernick had refused to stand for the national anthem. In a class discussion, Bryce cited him and two Olympic athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who were stripped off their 1968 Olympic medals because they had raised their fists during the national anthem.

Bryce and a couple of other athletes talked about the courageous athletes who came before them and paved the way for them to be able to participate at the collegiate and pro levels. They considered Kaepernick an extension of that legacy and wanted to make a difference like that in their own lives. For the other students in the class, it was healthy to see an alternative to the “shut up and play” narrative that dominated a lot of the discourse, especially at a school like Auburn.

Bryce had chosen athletes and social activism for his final paper topic, and finished the semester strong. So I suggested that he focus on that for his senior thesis. Do additional readings on the topic and then interview Auburn athletes anonymously, to get their thoughts on the contemporary athlete’s role in promoting racial justice. After doing the readings, Bryce would develop a list of questions, conduct the interviews, and then identify consistencies and contradictions, to determine areas of consensus and areas of continued debate.

As the semester continued early on, this was a pleasant process for me, and I think for him. It was enlightening to see him process the lives and messages of athletes like Muhammad Ali and to see himself within that legacy. He was eager to learn what his fellow Auburn athletes thought.

By early March, of course, things began to change. First, after an embarrassing loss to Kentucky on Feb. 23, Auburn finished the season with a four-game winning streak, and then won four SEC tournament games in four days, including an 84-64 victory over a strong Tennessee team. They had some momentum heading into the NCAA tournament as a No. 5 seed.

Early on, however, although I was a sports fan in general and an Auburn fan in particular, and taught sports-related topics, I told Bryce our times together would be a “no basketball” zone. We would talk only about his topic, and this would give him a break from the intense focus that Auburn was beginning to find.

I remember on one occasion early on, Bryce was running late. I looked out my Tichenor Hall window and saw that he had been delayed by two students wanting to talk basketball. I opened the window and called out, “Bryce, you’re late!” Almost immediately, he was in my office. “Thank you,” he said, noting that it was tough to avoid fellow students who were getting more excited about the season.

March Madness took hold on campus after Auburn ran through Kansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky to make the Final Four. During that time, in one meeting, Bryce needed a power source for his Mac. He had forgotten his, and his laptop was running low. I retrieved one from the CMJN office.

After our session, I suggested that Bryce return the power source to our office administrative assistant. He gave it to her and expressed his thanks. It went something like this.

Bryce: I wanted to thank you for letting me use this.

Office staff member (flustered): Oh, Bryce! Sure, uh, Dr. Milford said you needed it …

Me: Hello. I’m not Dr. Milford; I’m Dr. Carvalho.

Voice from a nearby office: IS THAT BRYCE?

As Auburn prepared for the Final Four weekend, a crew from CBS came to film our weekly meeting for a possible feature. We were discussing how well the topic had come together. Not everyone wanted to be interviewed, but he was making progress in gathering data. I looked over his list of interviews and saw that one had lasted for more than a half-hour. “Good stuff?” Bryce shook his head, and told me that the unnamed athlete was cracking jokes the whole time, and it took him that long to get enough to work with. We laughed at that, as well as his annoyance.

After the crew left, I asked Bryce to stay for a few minutes. I told him that this whole process was certainly exhausting, and so much was expected of him over those four weeks of tournament play. Immediately after that, he would begin preparation for a pro career. For him, this was the prime earning time of his life. I offered to work with him to finish the project after things had calmed down, perhaps over the summer.

Bryce would have none of that. He was going to graduate at the end of spring semester, the same semester that his Auburn basketball career would end. His parents were insistent on that, and he was just as determined to not disappoint them, no matter the distractions.

Bryce would finish his thesis and present it. And he would graduate in May. Whenever I hear from those whose assumptions about scholar-athletes, particularly those of color, can sometimes be racially coded, I remind them about Bryce. Like many athletes, he was at Auburn to earn a college degree, and he did it.

Back to basketball. Every Auburn fan knows what happened that Saturday of the Final Four.  Bryce was defending Ty Jerome of Virginia as time ran down with Auburn leading. Jerome double-dribbled, the refs blew the non-call, and Virginia won on free throws. Auburn’s season was over, and an athlete from a different team was profiled that Monday for the NCAA final game.

The next week we met, and for the only time, I asked a basketball question. Bryce was part of such a colossal moment in NCAA history.  In front of a stadium that held 73,000 fans and a huge nationwide television audience, it was him, Jerome, and a referee. As a sports journalism professor, I had to ask: What was that like?

Bryce’s short answer: “I’m still mad,” he said, shaking his head.

So are Auburn fans, Bryce. To this day, so are Auburn fans.