Sharing a name with a famous athlete can be an adventure.
Just ask Antonio Brown, a senior running back/linebacker for Jacobs.
“I definitely hear about it from the little kids at camps and stuff,” Brown said. “I would go on Twitter and get tweets about what he did in an NFL game, and they’d tweet at me.
“It’s funny.”
Since entering the lineup as a running back during the playoffs last season, Brown has been making highlights of his own.
Through two games this season, both wins for Jacobs, he has rushed for 305 yards and five touchdowns on 33 carries. He ran for 140 yards in Week 2.
“He’s starting to trust his instincts,” Jacobs coach Brian Zimmerman said of Brown. “He’s very fast. He’s a bruiser too. He’s a good-looking kid. He’s very put together.
“‘AB’ has done a great job. I didn’t know he ran for that many yards Friday since we spread it out so much.”
Brown started at linebacker last season but didn’t play offense due to a cast on his hand.
When Jacobs’ starting fullback went down with an injury during the first round of the playoffs against Hersey, however, Brown was pressed into action.
It didn’t take long for Zimmerman and the staff to realize what they had on their hands.
“The first run he had in the Hersey game, it was like, ‘We have a player,'” Zimmerman said. “It was hard for kids to bring him down. He won’t go down. He just wants to play.”
The Golden Eagles were blessed last season with a pair of senior tailbacks in Nasir Canty and Ben Ludlum that helped the team run for over 3,000 yards.
Adding Brown to the mix with no advance film on him was an advantage Jacobs used to help reach the quarterfinals.
“It opened my eyes a lot because those were my first carries on the varsity level,” Brown said. “Going into this year, coming off of that, it definitely gave me a lot more confidence in my running game, knowing how fast I am.”
With the graduation of Canty and Ludlum, Zimmerman already knew Brown would be ticketed for tailback this season along with fellow linebacker Joey Scrivani.
Zimmerman just got a sneak preview for three games in the postseason.
“For him, it’s just getting used to the carry load,” Zimmerman said of Brown.
Now, Brown is balancing the workload of playing both ways. He said in the coming weeks, he’ll see more time at linebacker.
“Playing both ways in the playoffs prepared me for that,” Brown said. “We’re starting that slowly this year, but I’ll definitely be in there. That’s something I’m working on in conditioning. I’m looking forward to it.
“I had a lot of fun in the playoffs. It fired me up a lot. I’m trying to get out there and make it count in my last year here.”
After reaching the quarterfinals for the first time since 2016, the Golden Eagles (2-0) are feeling good heading into Friday’s game at McHenry.
“If we clean things up, I’m confident in our team,” Zimmerman said. “You look at McHenry — they’re not going to roll over. They’re a very good football team.
“Right now, we’re 2-0, and that’s always nice. We’re just going to take it one game at a time. McHenry is tough.”
After experiencing the playoffs for the first time, Brown wants more.
“It brought more life into the community,” he said. “We just feed off that. We need that for the rest of the season. We aren’t letting up. We have to get stronger by the week.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.