The Iso: Trent Brown

The Players’ Tribune is introducing a new series called The Iso. With so many of us keeping our distance from each other in a variety of ways, we decided to ask some of our favorite athletes to share how they’ve been dealing with life in the Covid-19 world, and how they’re spending their time away from their sport.

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Once we started hearing actual, proper information from people other than our Reality TV President, that’s when I got serious. We started getting the right info from experts and doctors, which helped everybody else get in gear.

I was kind of downplaying it at first, just like everybody else, probably. Wasn’t really taking it that serious because the government — the people we count on to give us the right information — was saying, Oh, the flu is worse than this.

When I first got hip to how serious it actually was, I was at home at my parents’ house in Georgia. My dad is a police officer, so he helped heighten my sense of urgency. We went out together and tried to stock up on items that were needed. 

I’m driving from Georgia, headed back to Texas. It’s about 13½ hours, probably about 15 with all the stops. I left Albany, Georgia, this morning (March 20) — about almost 10 o’clock — made it to Atlanta about 12:30, and then I left about 1:30, or so. I’m probably 2½ hours in.

I actually made the final decision to go ahead and head back this morning. I’m not sure what’s about to happen with the government and everything, so I wanted to head back to my house to make sure I have all the essentials that I need.

I have two kids, they’re young — one and two. I’ve been having my hands full, in daddy-day-care mode. I think I’ve watched just about every kids’ show on Netflix and YouTube. Their favorites are the YouTube Cocomelon channel and Baby Bop. My daughter goes crazy for those.

I received a text from our team logistics guy this morning, and he said everything has been canceled indefinitely, as far as our off-season program. So, I’ll have to continue my training regimen at home. (I’m really not mad about it because I kind of feel like the off-season program is a waste of time, especially for vets. I can understand it for younger guys, but it is what it is.) I’m a team player, so I always attend them, but I would definitely love to spend more time at home.

With us being inside that six-week period before OTAs, we have to be cautious about our training. Usually guys would have already started training, with the regimens progressively getting more serious. So, having picked up the tempo a bit with our trainers, we have to scale back now because we don’t want to peak too soon, and we don’t want any injuries or anything like that. My trainer, Jay Hill — he’s in Austin — we’ve scaled back to three training days per week and two active recovery days.

All of my teammates that I’ve been talking with, they’re pretty content with being at home. We’re all the same type of guys — birds of a feather do flock together, I’m a firm believer — and so, really, everybody’s kind of happy with the family time and being able to enjoy their kids. I’ll be fine at home. That’s really all I do anyway. The only time I usually leave the house on a day-to-day is to go work out. I’m a homebody.

My only thing is the TV. Like a dummy, I watched the whole second season of the series All American already, so I’m kind of mad about that. I may have to go back and watch that all over. And I’m definitely going to use the theater in my house that I haven’t used yet.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve never been a video game type of guy. I’ve always been more of an outdoorsman. My brother was the gamer, but he grew out of it, so nobody that I hang with plays video games like that. But I may have to get back into it during this quarantine.

I have a couple of audio books that I want to listen to. There’s a book by T.D. Jakes called He-Motions. With my kids, I haven’t really been able to pick up my books and just read. 

I’m really just concerned for my kids more than anything. It’s pretty much unknown who has coronavirus, where it may be or how long it lives. I feel like I’ll be able to fight, but I want to make sure my kids are safe and sound, clean and out of harm’s way. My main concern up front was trying to make sure my family was straight.

Me and team have been working on some things to do to help — giveaways and stuff like that. That will be at the top of the to-do list in the coming weeks, to get some things in motion, especially for Vegas. I haven’t heard anything yet about anybody giving anything to the city of Vegas, or my hometown. So, we’ll see what direction we head in, in these coming days.

I definitely want to say to the world and everybody out there: Let’s take this thing seriously. The faster we all get on the same page about social distancing and quarantining, the faster we can get this thing under control and get back to our normal lives.