Durham may have saved Antonio Brown
Imagine being away from home for the first time, just a teenager in a new state, surrounded by a bunch of people you don’t know. Now picture a few months into your time in your new state, a state where you are slow to trust those around you, not one, but two of your best friends are murdered less than a month apart. That’s the real world nightmare Antonio Brown faced when he arrived in Durham in the winter of 2014. A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Brown grew up in an area where, as he put it, people were trying to make a name for themselves by any means. Those means weren’t always positive. Sometimes a way out, or a way to become well known was sports. Other times, more times than not, it was through violence, earning a reputation on the streets one way or another. “It’s not a lot of stuff for us to do, period,” Brown said. “Especially not positive. Most of the kids down there see ball or rapping as their only way of getting out. At my high school not even football is a way out, so...
