AUTUMN SATURDAYS
Michael Mayfield, retired Chair, Science Division, and Instructor of Biological Sciences at the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities at Ball State University, shared the following memory of Timmy Brown on Jan. 5, 2023.
Autumn Saturdays, in my youth, meant Ball State football at the field across from Ball Memorial Hospital. There were open bleachers, so you sat right down on the field and up close. It was small college football at its finest. At the end of the game the kids (of which I was one) rushed the Ball State bench as the players were leaving. The kids were after a souvenir of the day from a local hero. This was generally a chin strap from one of the player’s football helmets. The most prized of these when I was little being from Tim Brown. The first kid who got to a player got the chin strap and then afterwards we’d gather and compare our successes and failures. I remember once I got the prized Tim Brown chin strap. I was 5 or 6 and most of the kids were a few years older and bigger. I remember Mr. Brown looking down at the group of kids surrounding him and jostling each other. Unsnapping his chin strap, he reached down and picked me out of the group. Later, as we gathered, I stood tall despite my age among my peers. I still have the chin strap, along with one of the fondest memories of my youth.