ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Before Dr. Steve Brown was "Coach Brown," he was a kid in Washington, D.C. who dreamed of the Olympics but wasn't good enough — yet — to earn a track scholarship. So he walked onto the team instead. He played football on scholarship, went pro for a hot minute with the Chicago Bears and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and then came home to a truth a lot of us avoid: the dream doesn't always show up the way you pictured it.
What he did with that truth is the whole episode.
Steve went on to become a two-time All-American, an Olympian, and eventually Dr. Coach Brown — founder of the Steve Brown Academy, where he uses his trademarked "Complete Your Square" curriculum to help student-athletes build more than a highlight reel. In this conversation, he and Lorraine get real about failure as data, the pressure young people carry in the social-media-and-NIL era, why "you can do anything you want — to a point" is actually good advice, and how a single teacher who saw something in him changed the entire trajectory of his life.
If you've ever felt like you were behind, off-track, or not enough — this one's for you. And if you're raising, coaching, or mentoring someone who feels that way, it's for you too.
🎧 New episode of the iBuild America Podcast — building workforce success, one story at a time.
