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NATCHEZ — Ben Brown, a former Ole Miss and current New England Patriots center, shared a message of faith, trials and triumph as the guest speaker for the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame’s annual Scholastic Awards Banquet on Tuesday evening.

Ben Brown is the grandson of the late Allen Brown — third-round pick of the 1965 NFL Draft of the Green Bay Packers — and Margaret Burkes Brown of Natchez. A native of Vicksburg, Brown recalled a lesson he’d learned playing football at St. Aloysius High School against his dreaded rivals, the Cathedral Green Wave of Natchez.

After a near-perfect 13-1 season, with one solitary loss against the Greenwave, St. Aloysius was headed to the 2014 MHSAA Class A State Championship, where they would again face the Greenwave for the state title.

Brown took to the field dreaming of winning the title, earning an athletic scholarship and perhaps one day living the pro football dream himself.

“As I look out at our soon-to-be high school graduates, I almost feel like I should be sitting right where you are right now instead of up here behind this podium,” Brown said. “It seems like yesterday it was Dec. 5, 2014, a pivotal day in my life. I was a sophomore … and I was playing in the very last football game that I ever played with my older brother Bash. … We both realized the significance of this one last football game, this one last chance to play together, and so we played our hearts out. Some of you know exactly which game I’m talking about.”

After repeated losing seasons, the Vicksburg Flashers finally had a shot at the title.

“Each team had everything to win that day, and everything to lose on that cloudy day in Starkville. One team would bring home their school’s first state championship in football, and the other team would return home on a long bus ride, feeling utterly defeated. You probably know how this story ends. Cathedral, led by legendary coach Ron Rushing, soundly defeated the Flashes, riding us 49 to 14. What a terrible loss.”

Brown said he’d received wise words from his father after that game that still guide him today in his career.

“As everyone else filed out of the locker room, including my brother, I stayed behind alone … still dressed in my full pads, refusing to accept the reality of the loss until finally my dad came to give me. I’ll never forget what he told me that day. He said, ‘Son, you’re going to face many more trials and tribulations that will be much more difficult than today.

“’God has a plan for your life … but you have to get up, accept when has happened, and choose to follow the path that God has set before you, whether it’s football or something else.’”

While those were the last words Brown wanted to hear, they were exactly the words he needed, he said. Brown did indeed face trials worse than the humiliating fall to the Natchez Greenwave.

He became the seventh member of his family to play college football for the University of Mississippi. He redshirted as a freshman and played the rest of his freshman year as a starting player in every game, not allowing any sacks on 446 passes. Brown transitioned to being a center full-time for the Ole Miss Rebels in 2020 and had been added to the watchlist for the Rimington Trophy as the best center nationally. However, he missed the last half of his senior season after suffering a potentially career-ending injury.

“My agent had told me I had a lot of eyes on me. It was a nationally televised game and the perfect opportunity for me to solidify myself as a high NFL draft pick. … on one of the last plays of the game, I fully tore my left bicep from the bone. … I could barely use my arm at all. … I forced myself to finish the game with one arm. In that moment, I knew the dream I had for myself had been taken away in the blink of an eye.”

Determined to prove himself, Brown retore his bicep a few months post-op.  After his injury, he went unselected by the NFL and signed with the Cincinnati Bengals as an undrafted free agent, where he reinjured his bicep for the third time in his first game of the season.

“I was crushed, but I stayed in the game until the very end,” he said. “I asked God to give me the strength to push forward and finish the game because I thought I’d never play again. Multiple surgeons suggested that I not undergo surgery because they thought it was unlikely that I would ever regain full function in my arm. I also knew that even if I did regain full function, it was unlikely that any team would take a chance on me after three severe injuries, but I was determined to try.”

During a long rehabilitation, Brown said he began to realize that there was more to his life than football. He learned to put his trust in God through his anguish and signed on to practice squads with Seattle and Las Vegas before finally signing to the New England Patriots’ active roster in October of 2024.

He made his first career start as a center in week six against the Houston Texans and remained the starting center for the next 10 games before a concussion put him out of the game three days before Christmas, he said.

“Now, I’m here talking to you,” he said. “So if my story teaches you anything, I hope that it is this. Nothing in this life, not even football, is forever. … Believe me, trials will come, and you will find yourself in the desert.”

Brown said that through all the hardships he faced, his faith only grew.

“I’ve learned to persevere in faith through trial and adversity. I’ve learned to trust the Lord is always doing something good. … The Lord will carry me through this life and will carry you, too. You just need to ask for his strength to carry on through whatever trials you face because all he asks of us is that we try our best and glorify him with the talents and gifts that he blessed us with. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and fortune forever.”