A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
In 1988, at the end of my first season with the Raiders, everything about my life in football seemed to be falling into place. That was definitely not the case, however, with my personal life.
I’ve already mentioned that starting in high school, I discovered something most guys figure out sooner or later—I really liked girls. Christy was my first girlfriend and I was smitten. She was everything I thought a girl should be. But she was also, as they said in the day, “fast”—faster than me by a long shot. After we’d been together for many weeks, my friends began giving me a hard time for not going all the way with her. They teased me in the hallways at Woodrow and called me a punk in front of other girls.
I knew the score from my Sunday school lessons—premarital sex was a sin. If you wanted to truly walk with God, you did not engage in sex before marriage. The long-term consequences, both to your health and to your relationship with Him, were not worth the short-term fun. My mind understood this, but my body seemed to have other ideas. I resisted for as long as I felt I could, but whether it was teenage hormones, peer pressure, or the fact that I believed I was in love, I gave in. Christy lived with her aunt, who often wasn’t around when I visited their house during the evening. After I turned sixteen, Christy and I had sex, and lots of it.
If you’re a young man reading this, I want to say right here that you shouldn’t and don’t need to take the path I took. There’s a simple solution to the problem, which is to stay out of tempting situations. Tell your girlfriend where you stand on the issue, then figure out a strategy for avoiding potential trouble—that is, being home alone—and stick to it. The Bible says, “But run away from the evil desires of youth” (2 Tim. 2:22 NCV). That doesn’t mean hang out for as long as you think you can and plan to walk away when things get too hot. It means run, right now! It’s not easy, but you can do it.
At the time, I didn’t feel guilty about what Christy and I were doing—that was one of the consequences that would come later. But I knew it was wrong. I realized my mom would be disappointed if she knew (while my dad probably would have given me a high five). But the worst part was understanding that God was displeased with my actions. I didn’t see it at the time, but the longer it went on, the harder it was for me to be close to God. It drove a wedge between us that halted my spiritual progress for far too long.
Christy and I stayed together all through high school. I was still devoted to her when I entered Notre Dame. How devoted? I was the guy walking around campus wearing a T-shirt with our picture on it. At the end of my freshman year, however, I came home to devastating news. Christy confided that she’d been unfaithful.
I was brokenhearted and distraught. How could she? I’d been working hard at school and staying committed to Christy, and this is what I got in return? Christy’s revelation that summer changed me. The anger that still simmered against my dad roared into a fire. I was mad at him, at Christy, even at God. When I returned to campus in the fall, I did little to pursue a relationship with Him. I rarely attended church services and never went to the famed Notre Dame Grotto to light a candle or pray.
I did, however, pursue relationships with other women. The better I played on the football field, the more opportunities I seemed to find around campus. Christy and I continued to date when I was home and I still saw us as a couple, but I was no longer the committed boyfriend I used to be. I remained too angry to worry if what I was doing was right or wrong.
That’s how things stayed all the way up to the Heisman ceremony in December of my senior year. Back then, unlike now, the trophy winner returned to New York a few days after the announcement for a formal introduction into the fraternity. So on that second trip, Christy joined us.
With the Heisman Trophy in hand, graduation around the corner, and a pro career looming, this was one of the happiest times of my life. It was, at least, until that evening in New York. In my room at the athletic club, Christy and I got into a massive argument about my commitment to football and to her. We had very different ideas on what our future together would look like. By the end of that night, I think it was clear to both of us that our relationship was ending.
After seven years, it was tough to break up with Christy. But it left me free to spend as much time as I wanted with other girls during my last months on campus. That included romancing a beautiful sophomore I’ll call “Ally.” We quickly grew close. I was crazy about her.
On a May afternoon just before my graduation ceremony, I drove Ally to a South Bend bus stop so she could go back to her New Jersey home for the summer. Just before she got on the bus, she handed me a note. “Don’t read it now,” she said. “Wait until you get back to your room.”
I kissed Ally good-bye, watched the bus drive off, and sat in my car in the bus stop parking lot. I was too curious about the note to wait. I unfolded the paper.
Ally was pregnant.
Oh, man.
I don’t know how I managed to drive back to campus that afternoon. I couldn’t see or think straight. When I got to my room, I sat on the sofa and cried. I was disappointed that we hadn’t been more careful. I was disappointed that I’d put myself in this position in the first place by having premarital sex. I was sure God was pretty disappointed in me too.
I was twenty-one years old and definitely not ready to be a father.
I didn’t tell anyone at Notre Dame about it. After I got home, I didn’t tell anyone except my sister Gwen, and I swore her to secrecy. Over the phone, Ally and I talked about our options: keeping the baby, adoption, even abortion. I knew God wanted the baby to be born, but the final decision was Ally’s. Later that summer, we met in St. Louis, where Ally told me she’d decided to keep the baby.
I could barely wrap my mind around it. Ally was going to have a baby—our baby.
Right after my first season with the Raiders, I told my mom what was happening. In her gracious way, she let me know that she was disappointed in me. The worst of it, she said, was that I probably wouldn’t be around enough to be the father my child would need. That hurt, but she was right.
A few weeks later, on January 22, 1989, I was in Miami to watch the Super Bowl. I was about to leave the hotel for Joe Robbie Stadium when I received a page to call Ally. I found a phone and learned that we had a healthy new son: Taylor Donell Brown.
Wow. The news put a smile on my face. It also made my knees buckle for a moment. My world was about to change in a big way.
Several days later, after I’d played in the Pro Bowl, I was able to fly to Newark and see Taylor and Ally. I’ll never forget that moment of holding Taylor in my arms and looking into his eyes for the first time. He was a beautiful little guy. It was mind blowing. Suddenly, it was all real.
As I held my new baby, my mother’s words came back to me and I started to tear up. I knew I could stay for only a couple of days. Here I was, responsible for beginning this new life, and I wasn’t going to be around to raise or even influence him. Even though I’d had difficulties with my dad, he had always been there. If he hadn’t been around, I easily could have been pulled onto a destructive path. Who was going to prevent Taylor from doing that?
Back in Dallas a couple of months later, I heard a news report saying that because of the violence there, Newark was the worst city in America to raise an African-American boy. This wasn’t where I wanted my son to grow up.
That report gave me an idea. Why should Ally and Taylor have to stay in New Jersey? Why couldn’t they live in Dallas where I could keep Taylor during the offseason? I knew my family would welcome them with open arms. It might be hard for Ally’s family, but I thought it was the best thing for Taylor. I called Ally and it wasn’t long before she agreed with me. It would be another year before we made it happen, but I’m so glad we did.
Just before training camp in 1989, I returned to Newark so I could bring Taylor home to Dallas for a few days. We got him bundled in a car seat and I headed for the airport. At the terminal and on the flight, it seemed a hundred people stopped me to ask, “Where’s the mom?” Every time I said she was home in New Jersey, their eyes widened and they said, “You have this baby by yourself?”
It wasn’t a big deal to me. I’d always been good with kids. When I was younger, I used to babysit, change diapers, test the milk, do whatever needed to be done. I’d always hoped to have lots of children after I settled down and got married. The first time Mama heard that I might be a first-round NFL draft pick and come into some real money, she said with a groan, “Oh, Lord.”
“What’s the matter, Mama?” one of my sisters asked.
My mother responded, “Timmy’s always said he’d have as many kids as he could afford!” She must have pictured me with about twenty little babies running around. That would have been a bit much even for me, but everyone knew I loved kids.
In May 1990, when Taylor was sixteen months old, we finally made the big move. Ally and I had picked out a place for her to live. I still lived with Mama, Dad, and Kathy during the offseason, so Taylor moved in with us until it was time for me to go to training camp. That became the routine for the rest of Taylor’s childhood. He lived with me for half the year and with his mom for the other half. We both tried to give him as normal a childhood as was possible. It was the best solution for an imperfect situation.
Ally and I even tried to give our relationship another chance, but it just didn’t work. We didn’t connect in the way I’d hoped, and she had no interest in church. (Today, I’m happy to say, she’s a strong believer and fully involved in her church.) But we helped each other as much as we could. She didn’t go to the media about the pregnancy or put pressure on me to be there during the football season. I provided for her and Taylor financially and also made it very clear to my family and friends that Ally hadn’t tried to “trap” me with a baby to extort money. She was a smart girl who’d given up a full academic scholarship at Notre Dame to have and raise Taylor, and she was someone I cared about.
I never thought about bailing on Ally and Taylor. I know it happens all the time in this country. A guy fathers a child out of wedlock and disappears soon after. But I couldn’t imagine missing out on being Taylor’s dad. More than that, I knew it wouldn’t be right. I’d created this situation. I had to step up and take responsibility for it.
It was great having Taylor every year from January into July, and I missed him terribly when the season started. We were able to arrange a visit once or twice a season, but it was pretty tough to watch other players with their kids in the locker room and feel that Taylor should be there too, hanging out with me.
We established a regular phone routine during football seasons. I called Taylor every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night. We often traveled on Fridays, and Saturday was my game preparation day, so I didn’t schedule calls then. But on the other nights, we’d talk for ten seconds, ten minutes, or two hours, depending on what was on his mind. If I couldn’t be with Taylor physically, I at least wanted to stay connected with him. I knew how important it was to be a regular presence in his life.
I’m so proud of Taylor today. As I write this he lives with us in Dallas, where he’s studying nursing at Baylor University. He is incredibly smart (he gets that from his mother) and has grown up to be an amazing young man. Most of the credit for that goes to him, but I’d like to think that some of the choices his mother and I made also had something to do with it.
Take responsibility for your actions. That seems to be a problem for too many boys and men today. They make a mistake, whether it’s spilling the milk or cheating on their wife, and their response is out of whack. They make up excuses. They blame someone else. They lie about it. They pretend it didn’t happen. What they should be doing, however, is admitting that they screwed up and working double time to clean up their mess.
It’s been an issue for us humans from the beginning. In the garden, after Adam and Eve both took a bite from the forbidden apple, Adam tried to blame it on Eve and Eve tried to blame it on the serpent. God’s been listening to our excuses for a long, long time.
It isn’t made any easier for us when our role models let us down. A young boy watches his father accidentally scrape someone’s fender in the parking lot and quickly drive away without leaving a note or trying to find the other car’s owner. What life lesson do you think that boy takes away from his trip to the store with dad?
I’ve been fortunate. I can’t imagine my parents or Pastor Whitley or Lou Holtz trying to cover up a mistake like that. They were there for me as I grew up and matured into a man, and they provided the example I needed. Of course, whether we have a good role model, a bad one, or none at all, the decision on how we respond to our mistakes is up to us.
I’m also fortunate in that I had the financial resources to take care of Ally and Taylor and move them to Dallas. I realize that many men wouldn’t have that option. But I’m a firm believer that sons and daughters need their father whether they live with him or not. We need to find a way to physically be there as much as possible, whatever it takes.
I’m reminded of an incident at the end of my junior year at Notre Dame. Unlike most colleges at the time, Notre Dame’s football players lived in the same dormitories as the rest of the students. Juniors got first choice of available rooms for their senior year, and under our lottery system I had second pick for my preferred dorm. Everyone wanted one of the two rooms with a private bathroom, including me. I was already looking forward to my leisurely morning showers.
Sign-up day arrived. I happily made my pick at the selection table and went back to my room. A few minutes later, one of my classmates showed up.
“Tim, what happened, man?” he said. “I thought you were going to take the room with the bathroom.”
“I did.”
“No you didn’t. I got 408. You took 403.”
I suddenly realized I must have got the numbers wrong. I couldn’t believe it.
My classmate saw the look on my face. “Hey, it’s no problem. I know you were going to take that room. Let’s just go down to the rector, make the change, and move on.”
That sounded good to me, so off we went. We were laughing as we approached the rector. I figured we’d straighten out this little problem in no time.
“Hey, I made a mistake and chose the wrong room for next year,” I explained to the rector. “But we’ve agreed to switch.”
The rector just looked at us, unsmiling. “No,” he said.
“Um . . . what do you mean by ‘no’?” I said.
“You’ve made a mistake,” the rector said, “and now you’re going to have to live with it.” He even told us there would be consequences if we tried to change rooms without telling anyone.
Did that seem rigid and unfair at the time? Yes, it did. But did it teach me something? Absolutely. When you make a mistake, you have to deal with the fallout. That means confessing to what you’ve done, doing what you can to repair it, and accepting the result. It doesn’t mean making excuses, getting angry, or pointing fingers at someone else. The problem isn’t the person you’re pointing at, but the person you see when you look in the mirror.
Part of the issue, for men, is pride. You don’t like to admit that you’re fallible, and neither do I. It feels weak to say you’re wrong about something. But I can guarantee that you’re going to be wrong many times in life and that you’re going to make plenty of mistakes. You might as well decide now how you’re going to handle it when it happens.
Hopefully, you have a voice inside your head that lets you know when you’ve messed up and need to ’fess up and take responsibility for what you’ve done. Many people call that voice their conscience. For me, that voice is God. No matter how bad I’ve blown it, I know that when I listen to Him, He’ll show me how to make it better.