Every now and then you are given a reminder that college football is often about establishing meaningful relationships on the recruiting trail. Troy head coach Neal Brown is responsible for the latest example of that.
Troy finished the 2017 season with a record of 11-2, earning a split of the Sun Belt Conference championship and ending the year with a victory over North Texas in the New Orleans Bowl. Recently, as the team has been getting their championship rings for winning a share of the Sun Belt title, Brown made sure to let the family of one former player know he was thinking of them.
Brown sent a championship ring to the family of Nathan Harris, a former Troy football player who passed away two years ago after getting into a motorcycle accident in Alabama at the age of 19. Brown sent the ring with a note to the parents of Harris.
“Thinking about you all. Nate’s impact is still being felt in our program,” Brown said in his note, which was shared via an Instagram post by Harris’s high school football coach, Ben Blackmon. “I’ve enclosed a championship ring that he earned. You all are very much a part of our Troy football family.”
Harris may be gone, but this gesture by Brown proves he has not been forgotten.