Michael Brown has traveled a long and interesting road to get to this point on the West Virginia Mountaineers football team.

The possible starter at left guard for West Virginia exiting the spring didn’t play any high school football – at all. Not a single snap, as he had heart surgery to repair a valve as a youth and was denied the opportunity to play contact sports by his doctors.

So despite his size, Brown didn’t even attempt to play the game of football for obvious reasons despite multiple attempts to convince his parents to allow him to do so. While his brother Joe was making a name for himself on the gridiron, Brown had to choose a different path.

So he took up another calling with his faith and decided to take on a two-year LDS Mission in the Philippines.

That was an eye opener for Brown as he traveled to all areas of the Southeast Asian republic seeing both the affluent and the impoverished all while preaching the gospel.

“It was normal if you had a scooter, but you were rich if you had a car,” he said.

Brown recalls traveling mostly by bicycle seeing the various animals littering the countryside, dirt roads and of course overcoming the language barrier but he made it his primary focus to give it his all during his stay in the foreign land. So the 6-foot-3, 360-pounder did just that during his two-year stint.

Once he returned to California, Brown was ready for a new path. Strong in his faith, Brown credits that attitude overseas as one of the primary reasons things changed for him on the football front. During a check-up following the mission, doctors gave him the news that he was waiting for in that he could finally play the game that had so long eluded him for health reasons.

Still the biggest hurdle was still ahead.

“Getting my dad to let me play was the hard part,” he said.

Eventually he relented and Brown made his way to the now defunct Eastern Arizona J.C., where he tried out for the football team and received a scholarship. He didn’t know much about the game but he knew how to block, something his size would aid him in doing at that level of football.

Colleges started taking notice as well and while understandably raw, Brown had potential if he was willing to put in the work to reach it. That meant not only learning about the game itself, but reshaping his body so he can handle the rigors of a full season at the college level.

But it was going to take some time as he learned how to play the position outside just punching the defensive lineman lined up across from him. There was a lot to learn when it came to techniques and fundamentals that weren’t nearly as essential at the junior college level.

“I can blow a guy off the line that’s easy but it was more ‘hey you’ve got to remember your assignment and this and that’,” he said.

West Virginia offered a scholarship to Brown and his brother Joe and the two accepted following an official visit to campus. Brown initially had committed to Kansas, but the draw of Morgantown as well as playing with his longtime mentor on the field in his brother was too much.

But now the hard part began as Brown was given a crash course on the game that he had little experience playing. He appeared in a handful of snaps during that first year but was often overwhelmed by the amount of things he had to learn in order to be effective on the field.

It was a humbling experience and one where Brown realized how hard college was going to be.

“Playing in JUCO I was a starter right off the bat and coming here it was new because I didn’t know a lot. There was a lot of fundamental things I had to be taught,” he said.

So after a season, Brown was awarded a redshirt given the new NCAA rules and entered this winter dead set on becoming a better player. He was able to get into better shape, which helped significantly, and was starting to play more without having to stop and ask questions.

The game is quite different between the two levels and now instead of just hitting defensive lineman, there are multiple ways to attack and his self-taught aggression often worked against him.

“I’d get impatient and try to attack them and I’d move and it’s a missed assignment,” he said.

By mid-spring, Brown had developed into one of the most improved on not only the offensive line but the entire offense as a whole. He took to the teachings of new offensive line coach Matt Moore and he made sure that he was understanding what he needed to do.

“Mike has probably progressed more than anybody on the offense,” Moore said. “He’s really progressing. He studies really hard; he’s up here twice a day. He’s constantly studying film. He’s constantly trying to make himself better.”

And one of his biggest weaknesses in experience actually helped Brown when it came to the field. That’s because he didn’t have a lot of bad habits so he could respond to coaching.

Still, the hurdle of getting into the best shape possible remains a concern as he must get to the stage where he can play 80 plays as effectively as he can 10. That means watching what he eats and maintaining a clear plan. The goal is to be able to sustain his movement over the course of a game.

It’s been an interesting journey so far, but one where Brown is starting to see that his work is coming together and a dream of making an impact on the football field is within reach. He closed the spring as the starter at left guard and it’s not inconceivable if he continues at this pace he could hold onto it.

“If he’ll continue to progress, I can actually see him staying in that position as the starting guard,” Moore said.

Not too bad for somebody that never played a down of high school football.

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