By Tom E. Curran
Troy Brown spent seven seasons as a bit player for the Patriots. Utility guy. Jack-of-all-trades. Swiss Army Knife.
Finally, at the age of 29, Brown caught a break on a moribund Patriots team taken over by Bill Belichick in January of 2000. And Brown was the team's best player for the next three seasons.
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What he did and what he represented are the reasons he will be inducted into the Patriots Hall of Fame this year.
Announced as the 2012 inductee on Monday, Brown was on a conference call Tuesday morning to discuss the honor.
After first thanking the Patriots fans who voted him in (the other finalists were Bill Parcells and former safety Fred Marion), Brown was asked if he reflects now on how long it took to get the chance to shine.
"I always look back on where I started from how shaky things were and how unsure things were for me for a long time wearing that Patriots uniform," Brown explained. "It felt like I had seven years in there where it was pretty unstable for me. I look back on it now and realize how much the fans really did appreciate what I was doing when it seemed like some other people around the organization didn't realize it. But when it comes right down to it, I always played hard for my teammates and my coaches no matter who it was. You really wanted to go out there and make the fans happy. To realize they appreciated how I played the game makes me feel really good."
Brown didn't get a start until his fifth season in the league (1997). He started six games. He didn't start a game in 1998. He started one game in 1999, the last of Pete Carroll's three seasons.
Then, over the next three years - the start of the Belichick Era - Brown started 41 of the 46 games he played and caught 281 passes for more than 3,000 yards.
Seen as too slow to be a wideout, Brown worked to get faster.
"I got better, I got faster and when I was 28, 29, 30 it showed," he said. "That was some of the best times ever in the 40-yard dash. Maybe I don't have all the things you think a guy my size would have but (as Bill Belichick said), 'When you have the heart and determination to get something done and you go out there and play the game like you love it you can make up for the things you don't have.
"Thank God for Bill Belichick and Charlie Weis for giving me the opportunity to be a starter in the NFL. It worked out for me and it worked out for them too," Brown added.
Brown said that the idea of being a Patriots' Hall of Famer did matter to him.
"Those are things that cross your mind from time to time," he allowed. "I'm not big on accolades or praise. I did my job and I'm proud of what I did and how I did it. But as a player you get to see all those (honors). I saw Stanley Morgan go in, I saw Ben Coates go in. Bruce Armstrong. And you see those things, I played with some of those guys. You walk into the Hall of Fame and see the displays - being a person who's not big on those types of things, when you see somebody's stuff hanging up in there it does make you feel special. You want to be a part of it. It did cross my mind."