Cougar State Champion Ricy Brown Benefits from Contrasting Coaches

Countryside head track coach Evelyn Givens and assistant coach Ray Freeman are stark contrasts in coaching style and personality.

However, those styles align to form a very effective recruiting partnership.

If not for their combined efforts, they might never have coaxed senior Ricy Brown off the football field.

“I grew up playing any sport I could in the neighborhood," Brown said. "That most often wound up being street football."

Brown was always looking for something to play as a youth, growing up in St. Petersburg.

“I know it sounds weird but I literally played kick the can when I couldn’t find anything else to do. I would race people on the street; anything I could do, I would do it,” Brown said.

Brown and his mom moved around a lot, trying to find a neighborhood that afforded some measure of safety and security.

“We even moved in with my grandmother at one point. I think we moved thirteen times from when I can remember to when we finally ended up in Clearwater,” he said.

His mom was the only constant in a sea of change during Brown’s childhood.

“She always gave me everything I needed. Even when times were tough, she never showed it,” Brown said.

He finally found an outlet for his athleticism when he joined the local youth football league. That’s where football caught hold of him. He stuck with football even though he was not one of the better players on the team.

When he came to Clearwater, Brown tried out for the Countryside Cougars football team and made it. He was happy to play an organized sport but was not excelling the way he thought he ought to.

Brown's great stamina helped him endure two-a-days in the summer heat. He could run receiving patterns all day long but it was not opening the door for him to become a dominant athlete in that sport.

Then it happened.

“I injured my groin my sophomore year and my knees were bothering me," Brown said. "I couldn’t explode. I couldn’t get the power from my legs that I needed to compete in football."

It was a good thing Freeman made a habit of scouting football practices for track talent. Freeman found what he thought was a talented distance runner in Brown.

Freeman ought to know what he’s looking for. He was a track and cross country star at Gaither High School in Hillsborough County.

“Freeman would always mess around," Brown said. "Teasing me about how I wasn’t any good at football and telling me I’d be great at track."

"He would change tactics and all out beg me to come out for the team. I talked to coach Givens and she was the exact opposite. All she would ever say was, ‘you have to do what’s best for you’. Eventually they wore me down and I went out for the team.”

It took a little while to find his running niche. Brown started out in the 100m and 200m and even the 400m but he was not great at those distances. Additionally, they aggravated his groin injury.

Finally, during his sophomore year, he ran a leg on the 4x800m relay team in 2:07 minutes.

“That’s when coach Freeman said, ‘Ok, you are running the 800m from now on’,” Brown said. “And then the seconds just started falling off.”

The 800m was a perfect race for Brown. It enabled him to exploit his stamina and it did not aggravate his recovering groin injury. Brown became an 800m specialist, as well as delving into other events he found he was good at.

“I started to think, ‘I can do this,'" Brown said.

As a junior, Brown made the state finals in long jump, 4x800m relay, open 800m, and 4x400m relay; the maximum number of events any one athlete can enter.

Most athletes are lucky to qualify in one event, let alone four events. Brown’s stamina is the big reason he is able to be competitive. This year he was back at states in all four events.

“They (Givens and Freeman) are the best. Coach Givens was like a second mom to me, more of a friend than a coach and Freeman was always there too. If I need a pair of track spikes, he’d just give them to me. It was funny how different they both were but how they both did everything they could to help me succeed,” Brown said.

Brown’s transition to track is paying huge dividends for him.

He signed a letter of intent to attend Bethune Cookman College on a full scholarship May 5.

With AAU championships coming up and a collegiate track career further down the road, don’t expect this is the last of this tremendous athlete.