🚜 Meet the NFL Star Who QUIT in his Prime to Become a Farmer

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You might notice that this week’s newsletter looks a little different. Instead of breaking down three sports business stories I’m following this week, I wanted to do a deep dive into one of football’s most fascinating characters:

Jason Brown.

If you’re a fan of the 2009 St. Louis Rams, you might recognize this name, but for everyone else, Jason is a unique case study for a different kind of athlete-led business.

One that doesn’t leverage a player’s success on the field, but rather thrives at the expense of their entire career.

Here’s the incredible story…

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Who is Jason Brown?

By the age of 26, Jason Brown was already the highest-paid center in NFL history.

But what if I told you that just three years later, he’d walk away from football in the prime of his career to become a farmer?

Well, that’s exactly what happened, but to better understand why he left millions of dollars on the table to pursue a career he knew absolutely nothing about, we have to go back to 1983, when Jason Brown was born as the youngest of three in Henderson, North Carolina.

Childhood: Even though Jason’s entire family is technically from North Carolina, dating back to his grandfather, they haven’t always lived there.

That’s because in the early 1960s, his grandparents were driven out of their home by the KKK. This resulted in Jason’s father, Lunsford I, being raised in Washington, D.C., before he eventually returned, nearly 20 years later, to his home state, just before Jason was born.

Now, it’s important to know that growing up, Jason wasn’t all that interested in football. In fact, it wasn’t until 8th grade that he played for the very first time. Instead, he spent much of his free time helping with his dad’s landscaping business, which he aspired to take over himself one day.

Jason recalls how he, his dad, and his older brother, Lunsford II, would often wait until the homeowner left for the day to start mowing the lawn and trimming bushes, so that they could get the satisfaction of seeing the customers’ genuine surprise when they got home.

Jason and his brother continued to help their dad landscape throughout high school, and even though it seemed obvious for the kid who grew to be 6’3” and over 320 pounds to play football, Jason decided that it wasn’t for him after playing that one year in 8th grade.

High School: Instead, he went out for the marching band during his freshman year at Northern Vance High School and focused on his academics, despite his high school coach’s best efforts to recruit him for the football team.

Growing up as the youngest of three, Jason became keenly aware of just how expensive college was as he saw his parents struggle to afford it for his older brother and sister.

And wanting to attend college himself, Jason realized that he could take a huge burden off his family if he earned an academic scholarship.

So, he studied hard and was eventually named to the honor roll. However, after one final recruiting pitch from his high school coach, Jason’s whole outlook on the sport changed when he learned that he could earn a scholarship by playing football.

Jason would go on to not only be a standout offensive lineman, but a 4x state champion in discus and shot put.

And by his senior year, he had earned himself a full-ride scholarship to UNC, which was less than an hour away from where he grew up.

However, unaware of it at the time, this was just his first step towards trading in his childhood dream for a brand new one, and it wouldn’t be long before he received his first of many wake-up calls.

Turning Point

College: Once Jason arrived at the University of North Carolina, it took him a year to figure out his place on the offensive line. Originally recruited as a tackle, the Tarheels moved him to guard, and then to center, where he went on to play in every game for the remaining three years of his college career.

But just as things started to look up for Jason, tragedy suddenly struck:

Jason’s older brother, Lunsford II, had been killed in Iraq.

At the time, Lunsford was just 27 years old, 7 years older than Jason, who was in the middle of his junior year.

Impressively, Jason never missed a game during his time with the Tarheels, not even the week following the death of his brother. And the following year, in 2004, he was named First-Team All-ACC as a senior, which skyrocketed his draft stock.

NFL: And even though Jason wouldn’t end up going until the fourth round to the Baltimore Ravens, his agent told him to think of this slight setback as a good thing.

After all, he’d now be able to hit free agency sooner and earn more over the entirety of his NFL career, and Jason did just that.

After starting 32 straight games for the Ravens in 2007 and 2008, Jason hit free agency as one of the best interior offensive linemen on the market.

But Jason didn’t just cash in with his new team; instead, his five-year, $37.5 million deal with the St. Louis Rams made him the highest-paid center in NFL history.

So, at just 26 years old, Jason, his wife, Tay, and their two young kids moved to St. Louis and bought everything you might expect, including a 12,000-square-foot mansion.

The Spiral: However, after a disappointing 2009 season and a year full of buying extravagant things, Jason woke up on his 27th birthday, looked in the mirror, and hated what he saw.

He was now the same age his brother had been when he died serving his country, and as Jason described, he began to measure everything he had accomplished against what his brother had accomplished, and to him, there was no comparison.

Not to mention, at the same time Jason was setting NFL history, his marriage was on the brink of divorce, he didn’t spend enough time with his kids, and his identity, which had been tied to playing football for 10 years, was at a breaking point.

He admits, “I had lived a life of entertainment and selfishness,” unable to fill the shoes his brother had left behind.

Jason recalls falling to his knees that morning of his 27th birthday, and asking God for a way out of the spiral he was in, but as it turns out, he wouldn’t like the answer:

God was calling him to become a farmer.

Leaving the NFL: Now, Jason knew absolutely nothing about farming, but he also realized that he couldn’t continue down the path that he was on. So, after being released by a rebuilding Rams team in 2012 at the age of 29, Jason went to his agent and his wife and told them that he planned to retire from the NFL to start farming.

His agent told him he was making the biggest mistake of his life, and his wife thought he was crazy, but Jason disagreed.

However, that didn’t stop his agent from fielding offers from three different NFL teams, who were each willing to sign Jason to a multi-year, multi-million-dollar deal.

But these weren’t just any teams. The three offers Jason had on the table were from the:

• Baltimore Ravens (where he started his career)

• Carolina Panthers (where he grew up)

• San Francisco 49ers (where his wife is from)

At first, Jason admits that he was tempted to keep playing, but he knew that he was being pulled in a different direction, saying, “You hear people talking about signing contracts with the Devil, I knew where those offers came from, and they didn’t come from God.”

So, despite being just 29 years old and still in the prime of his career with millions of dollars on the table, Jason Brown retired from the NFL.

However, over the next year, it wasn’t entirely obvious that he had made the right decision.

Becoming Farmer Brown

Moving Home: Jason was released by the Rams in the spring of 2012, but without a clear plan, he and his wife sold their multi-million-dollar mansion in St. Louis and moved back to North Carolina to live with Jason’s parents.

Over the next few months, Jason contemplated what he was actually being called to do, but the more time he spent in his home state, the more obvious his calling became.

That’s because, as he began to research the farming industry, he learned that most American farms today don’t actually grow things that people can eat. This results in areas called food deserts, where it’s extremely difficult and expensive to access fresh, healthy produce, a problem that’s especially prevalent in Jason’s home state of North Carolina.

But even with such high demand, there were still a few glaring issues with Jason’s plan, the least of which was the fact that he didn’t even own a farm yet.

However, that suddenly changed when, after just two months of living with his parents, a farm came up for sale nearby, and without much hesitation, Jason used the money he got from selling his St. Louis mansion to buy the $4M, 1,000-acre property.

Farming 101: Now, running a farm of that size is a tall task for any seasoned farmer, but it’s nearly impossible for someone who has never farmed a day in their life.

To make matters even worse, upon retiring, Jason had far less money stashed away than he had previously thought. His savings had been grossly mismanaged, and a few bad investments had dwindled his $25 million in career earnings down to almost nothing.

This financial stress, along with the uncertainty of how to actually run a farm, led him back down another dark path. Jason says that during this first year running the farm, he turned to food as his comfort, causing him to weigh over 400 pounds by 2013, and he was seriously considering quitting farming altogether.

But at this point, he didn’t have many other options, so he hopped online and spent the next year watching YouTube tutorials on how to harvest vegetables like sweet potatoes and cucumbers.

Eventually, he was able to borrow an old tractor and planted his first harvest of crops in 2014, and once word got out in the local media about the former-NFL player who was running a farm, hundreds of voluneteers flocked to Jason’s fields to help him collect his very first harvest, and that year, First Fruits Farm was born.

It’s called that because Jason intended to donate the first harvest of every season to local food banks, soup kitchens, and community pantries in North Carolina.

However, eventually, demand for Jason’s produce got so high that he committed to donating everything he grew, which only helped First Fruits Farm grow in popularity.

Someone even gifted him a brand new tractor, on the condition that he keep giving food away.

Since 2014, First Fruits Farm has donated all of the 1.5 million pounds of fresh produce that they’ve grown, which got me thinking:

If Jason gives all of his food away for free, how does he make enough money to stay in business?

The Business of Farming

Secret Advantage: While it is true that this whole operation is primarily run by Jason, Tay, their eight kids, and thousands of volunteers, labor isn’t their only expense.

However, as I did my research, I realized that the answer to this question actually lies with the 1953 Dairy Barn located at the center of the property.

See, during his time owning First Fruits Farm, Jason converted this old cattle barn into an events and wedding venue called Amazing Graze Barn, renting out the space 40 weekends a year.

At an average price of $5,000 per event, I estimate that Jason is bringing in over $300,000 in annual revenue from the venue alone.

This steady event income, paired with Jason’s speaking gigs, book sales, and all the tax deductions they undoubtedly get by donating 100% of their crops every year, probably makes for a pretty healthy business.

Still, at the end of the day, that’s not why he’s doing all of this.

Instead, Jason remarks how he’s working harder now (and making less money) than he ever did playing football, but he also says that running First Fruits Farm is the most rewarding thing he’s ever done in his life, on multiple levels.

Not only is he helping his community and thriving in his family life, but he’s also using First Fruits Farm to encourage a younger and more diverse generation to get into farming.

For context, black farmers make up less than 2% of all US farmers due to decades of racial discrimination and violence like his grandfather faced that prevented access to land, loans, and federal funding.

In fact, according to the American Bar Association, since the 1920s, Black farmers have been forced to give up land and income that would be worth over $326 billion today… enough to buy every NFL team combined.

Present Day: Today, Jason says he’s trying to stay away from carbs and processed food and has even started lifting weights again for the first time since playing in the NFL, although he also admits that since retiring, he doesn’t really watch football.

Still, just over 10 years removed from the prime of his NFL career, he doesn’t seem to regret his decision to walk away from the game one bit.

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

For those of you who like a peek behind the curtain, I’m currently in Louisville, helping create content for the Kentucky Derby!

It’s the reason for the format change this week (back to normal next week, I promise).

But if you’re curious what I’ve been up to, you can follow along here.