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.

I retired from the Auburn faculty a year ago. I anticipated writing a farewell column with all of the insufferable self-importance of 44 years of work, 29 of them on a college faculty.

But nothing emerged worth writing, so I wrote nothing–though I took the last look out the empty office window pic.

Now, however, I’m ready–thanks to Paul Finebaum.

Paul and I graduated from SEC schools and began our journalism career in 1978. For the last almost 20 years, after I returned to Auburn, we became friends. Not “stop by and see you” type friends, but also not Trump-level “I don’t know who that is” dismissal.

On Thursday night, I listened to Bryan Curtis’s interview with Paul on his podcast, “The Press Box.” It’s definitely worth the listen; Paul speaks candidly of his long career.

He provides particular detail to that whirlwind of late 2012-early 2013, where Paul broke through from regional sports talk radio to ESPN/SEC Network media personality and best-selling author. As he describes the events, you can tell that he still hasn’t caught his breath, even as he proved equal to the moment.

The catalyst was a December 2012 feature in the New Yorker, by Reeves Wiedeman. I read through the longform article looking for my quote(s). Then I remembered that even though I was interviewed for almost an hour, I was not quoted. Reeves told me that my quotes had ended up on the cutting room floor, but so had Terry Saban’s, so I was in elite company.

(My memory conflated the New Yorker article with Jack Dickey’s January 2012 feature on Paul in Deadspin. I had a single quote in that article, poorly phrased, that I’ve regretted since.)

Remembering that New Yorker article, 10 years later, caused me to lapse into a futile “what if?” mode. What if I had been quoted in the article? Would I have become more recognized as a sports media history expert? Would my academic career have been different–maybe not on the same trajectory as Paul, but with a little higher profile?

I’ll stop there, as I did Thursday night. That reflection is as regrettable as the Deadspin quote. I share it only for its relevance to this column, not for my own embarrassment.

I stopped there because, well, here comes the retirement jabbering: Of course, my career–both professional and academic–was blessed beyond what anyone could deserve. To finish it with 18 years at Auburn, retiring with two books (one written and one edited), at the rank of full professor, with the memories and experiences I’ve had all 44 years, is plenty.

But I’m not done with Paul. As I said, Paul has been a friend, and was always a wonderful help to me and my students. He would always respond to interview requests–so reliable that I would warn students, “Be ready, because he will do the interview.”

Perhaps the high point we shared was in September 2019, when Paul had lunch with my Sports Reporting class. SEC Nation was in town for the Mississippi State game. Here is a Twitter video from the event. On Friday, a busy broadcast day, Paul was extremely generous with his time. It was such a great experience for him and for our students, and his interview afterward reflected just how much it meant to him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun at one of these SEC trips than today, because the students were so curious, so interested and such great listeners,” he told Brandon Etheredge, a videographer from the College of Liberal Arts who created that excellent Twitter video. “They really wanted to learn, and that just totally blew me away and inspired me to want to continue to do things like this.”

I didn’t tell Paul this, but after that, I began toying with the idea of bringing him in for a spring semester as a visiting professional. I mentioned it in to our school director as something I wanted to work on. Yes, I recognize that it would have drawn criticism, but I think that where Paul was in his career and life would have made it an ideal opportunity, and I would have gladly defended it.

Unfortunately, soon after, Paul had the follow-up interview with Harvey Updyke that he references in the podcast. Everything went five times sideways where Auburn was concerned, and I had to shelve the idea temporarily. Then came COVID, and everything got shelved. (COVID also took so much out of me that by Spring of 2021, I was not interested in extending my academic career.)

Recalling Paul’s words in 2019, I can see that to many folks, Paul included, teaching college students is an enviable career on many levels. I would add that teaching sports journalism at an SEC school is even better.

And so I came away from the podcast with some unexpected reflections that ended up in a good place. First, the retirement stuff:

Do I miss being on the Auburn faculty? On the one hand, it’s a little sad to be on campus (I still teach adjunct) and know that I am not as involved as I used to be, with the fellow faculty and students I enjoyed so much. On the other hand, there was a lot about the job–some meetings, memos, e-mails, administrative stuff–that I don’t miss.

So I’m OK with stepping aside, especially in an ever-evolving profession like journalism. I started in a print world with hard copy, cold type, and sized photos. I retire from a print-digital world with social media, constant deadlines, and multiple outlets. Others who grew up in today’s world are better equipped to teach it.

On the other hand, Paul talked in the podcast about his distaste with the thought of retirement (and yo did he have some opinions about golf!). But he handled that 2012-13 ride quite well, and it’s great to see him do so well with the amazing opportunities presented. Why retire now?

Could my career have turned out differently? Could a single interview left in a major magazine feature have made my life better? Perhaps. But when we focus on what we lack, we forget those things we have that are literally desirable to others.

I can’t change the past; I can only reflect on how the past has changed me, for the better. And I’m good with moving on, having experienced the better.