J.T. Brown doing '23 proud,' just like his father did

When your dad is a long-time former National Football League star, telling him you're no longer playing the family sport might seem a little daunting.
Unless he already knows.
For Wild forward JT Brown, it was a conversation he remembers well. A freshman in high school at the time, hockey had become his passion. It had also become a goal for him to make it his livelihood.

"If you talked to him, he'd tell you he knew when I was a kid," JT Brown said. "To be up at the crack of dawn for practice as a mite or a mini mite, the younger you were, the earlier your practices were. I'd be waking him up at 6 or 7 o'clock telling him to get going to practice."
Ted Brown, a former Minnesota Vikings running back, smiles thinking about the conversation.
"I knew it was going to be hockey when a kid can get up at 5 o'clock in the morning for hockey practice but he can't get up at 10 in the morning for football practice," Ted said. "That was a sure sign that he wasn't much interested in football."
Hockey was the furthest thing from Ted's mind when he was growing up in High Point, North Carolina. After starring in high school on the football field, Ted Brown was a four-time All-Atlantic Coast Conference running back at North Carolina State University, earning All-American honors as a senior in 1978.
He was drafted by the Vikings 16th overall in the 1979 NFL Draft and trekked north. He played eight seasons in purple, the first three of which came at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, where the Vikings had one of the best home-field advantages in the league.
Teams that came to Minnesota late in the season dealt with frigid temperatures and wind-whipped sidelines that dropped the mercury well below freezing.
Ted Brown didn't know it then, but those freezing cold days on the gridiron would prepare him for a post-playing career as a hockey dad, following J.T. around to countless frozen rinks in Minnesota and beyond.

"Those days at Met Stadium] are ones you'd like to forget quickly," Ted said. "But it did bring back some memories of those days being out in the cold, and we had to play some games where it was really, really cold. But being able to do that for your kid, I'd definitely do it all over again."
When J.T. began playing hockey, Ted says he didn't know the first thing about the game. So he learned by going to practices and watching games in arenas and engaging other hockey parents about the sport.
Soon enough, he was no different than any of the thousands of other hockey moms and dads around the state.
"I sat in enough cold arenas and warming houses that eventually I learned," Ted said. "I learned a lot just by going to his games and seeing him play."
J.T. was born four years after his father had ended his NFL career, so he never got to see him play in person. He never felt pressured to play football, even when he was playing both sports, and the advice he says he got from his dad was always preached without a specific sport in mind.
Instead, it was always about effort and teamwork.
"He always told me to play smart, play hard and play together," J.T. said. "That's kind of stuck in me. Especially at the beginning, hockey wasn't his forte. Obviously, football, maybe more the Xs and Os part he could teach me. But he could always watch the game and tell how hard I was working and being able to judge it off that."
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To his credit, J.T. Brown has had to
adapt his game
over the years. A standout at Rosemount High School, he scored 114 points, including 56 goals, in 51 games over his final two seasons with the Irish.
His second season in the United States Hockey League, J.T. scored 34 goals and had 77 points in 60 games with the Waterloo Black Hawks.
J.T. went on to the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he played two seasons, scoring 16 goals and 37 points as a freshman in helping the Bulldogs win their first-ever national championship at Xcel Energy Center. For his efforts, he was named the Frozen Four's most valuable player.

The following season, J.T. posted 24 goals and 47 points in 39 games before turning pro, signing as a free agent with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
A big-time offensive weapon his entire life, J.T. changed his game to remain in the NHL. He played parts of six seasons with the Lightning, never posting more than 22 points in a season. He was traded to Anaheim last year and scored one goal and three points in 23 games there before signing with the Wild on July 1.
Early on in his tenure with Minnesota, Brown has been counted on to bring energy to the fourth line. J.T. has never had an issue providing that, thanks in part to lessons ingrained in him by his father.
"There's plenty of translate between sports, whether it's communication, your effort level, there's things that no matter what sport you're playing, or what environment you're in," J.T. said. "Obviously, the harder you work, the more successful you're likely to be. You're just trying to put yourself in the best position you can be, and you're not going to get there unless you're working. It's been nice to have him push me."

As an ode to the man who's been so impactful in his life, J.T. changed his number at the start of the season.
Issued jersey No. 71 upon signing, J.T. was able to change to his dad's old No. 23 when the Wild traded Gustav Olofsson to Montreal the day before the first game of the regular season.
He even asked the old man for permission before doing so.
"I gave him the stamp of approval and told him to do that 23 proud," Ted said. "And so far, he's done that."
Related:
- Kurvers, Brown reunite in Minnesota - Off the Ice Q&A with J.T. Brown - Brown's evolution continues with Wild