No one is more surprised than Brown himself. School was a problem. His neighborhood was getting worse and worse. Many nights, he would lie in bed and count the number of gunshots he could hear outside his window. Graffiti litters the sides of the buildings.
Gangs hang out in the parking lots.
Brown figures he had a big advantage. Brown says he learned there to stay focused on the positive, even when you are surrounded by the negative. By the time he got to Milwaukee Vincent High School, Brown was focused on academics, earning mostly A's. He played quarterback for the school football team. It was scary at first, he says, going to school with all those kids who had come from wealthy neighborhoods and prep schools.