Orlando Brown driven to uphold father's legacy with Ravens
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — When it comes to Father’s Day, Orlando Brown Jr. doesn’t do anything special since his dad died seven years ago.
Brown will call his mother as well as his brothers and sisters.
“I just take time and remember,” Brown said.
For Brown, he honors his father’s memory beyond one day. Every time Brown steps onto the Baltimore Ravens practice field, he is following his father’s footsteps.
Brown is playing for the same team, lining up at the same right tackle spot and wearing the same No. 78 as the 11-year veteran affectionately known as “Zeus.”
An important piece of that legacy is still hidden on the football field. The biggest symbol of Brown’s emotional bond with his father is a bandanna that’s tucked under his helmet and can be traced back to one of his saddest days.
On Sept. 23, 2011, his father died in his Baltimore home at the age of 40 from diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that can lead to kidney failure or cause fluid to build up in the brain. When Brown arrived there, he noticed a Ravens equipment bag on the bed that was filled with football gloves and cleats. It also included a white bandanna, which struck a chord with his son.
“He always told me and preached that, ‘You play offensive line; you have to have your own swag. You have to make yourself noticeable, because nobody notices offensive linemen,'” Brown said. “So it was just something [that] I adapted, and from there, it just holds a lot of value.”
Orlando Brown Jr. started wearing a bandanna to honor his father, in whose steps he’ll follow with the Ravens. Jamison Hensley/ESPN.com
Brown remembers his father always wearing that white bandanna, sometimes tying it around his ankle or wrist. To Brown, that piece of cloth represented a piece of his father.
At every practice and game, Brown would wrap a bandanna around his head before strapping on his helmet. This past season, he went with a black one that sported red roses, his father’s favorite flower.
“That became his signature because that was his dad’s, and his dad was a warrior,” Brown’s mother, Mira, told ESPN last year. “He wears that bandanna because this is what my dad would’ve wanted me to do.”
The Browns are the 40th known pair of father and son to play for the same NFL team and the fourth current one, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
Brown and his father have similar gargantuan size — 6-foot-8 and 340-plus pounds — and a similar playing style, with a nasty edge. But they’re different players with different pedigrees.
