0 0 0 -14 10" 0f 92 Cornflakes and Fire Co-captain Brown's. enthusiasm drives 'M' defense Bettis takes the handofffrom Mirer at the 48 ... Big holekup the middle!... He's at the 40, avoids two tacklers, one man to beat and... Wow! What a hit he just took from Cowin Brown !... The ball is loose, and it looks like Michigan has recovered! ... And Bettis is slow getting up ... Remember that play? Well, it never happened. Corwin just imagined it. And now he's hitting his mental rewind button to watch it again. And again. Ask him, and Brown may imagine a completely different play for you, albeit one with a similar outcome. Mirer rifles a pass over the middle to Lake Dawson. Dawson jumps, reaches. Out of nowhere, Brown comes up and flattens him, the ball scuttles away, and Michigan's No. 20 stands over the motionless receiver glaring. Welcome to my neighborhood. Hope you enjoyed your stay. After all, it is his film. Why should Bettis, Notre Dame's tank of a running back, get the glory and the touchdown? Why should Rick Mirer, the Golden Boy, be the star? This is Corwin's film, Corwin's stadium. Call it the Cornflakes Bowl, a place where he and his Michigan teammates are invincible. A place where Michigan's senior free safety travels to before each and every game. The Saturday warriors dress methodically in the Michigan lockerroom before a big game which, in an 11-game season at a major college football powerhouse, is every game. The players follow a routine, to each his own. Certain superstitions, unconscious habits. The tape, the pads, the jersey, then the tears. The tears? "I don't know what it is," Brown says. "It's something that I live by. I'm an emotional person anyway. But what'll happen before the game is I'll get real intense and I'll think about what I have to do And then he'll scream and yell and cry real tears of emotional anticipation. All before the team takes the field. "You know, it's just a way of me expressing myself and showing a little bit of excitement," he says. "Some people just sit down and they meditate. I just express myself in a little bit different way." Which is fine by senior tackle Chris Hutchinson, who was defense and they all had nicknames. "Everybody always called me Corn, they couldn't pronounce Corwin, for nothin'. That's how it is in the city, with slang and stuff. This guy, Lou, he was like, 'Well, you know, you're small. You look like just a little flake, anyway, so were gonna call you 'Cornflakes."' And thus, the strange nickname was born. Cornflakes, who is now usually just called 'Flakes, opted to lift weights instead of play basketball in high school. He now stands at 6-foot-2, 193 pounds, hardly a little flake anymore. Just ask some of the recievers in the Big Ten. Or even those on his own team. Brown has established himself as one of the most punishing hitters in the college game. "He's gotten me in the rib cage a few times," says Wolverine tight end Tony McGee,.holding his right side and laughing. "He thrives on (his reputation). If he gets a big hit in the first quarter, he'll probably get 20." But Brown says he remembers when other teams weren't afraid of the Michigan secondary. "When I was a sophomore., the. secondary received a lot of flack for being sort of soft. I wasn't playing back then, but I took it real personally. I said, 'When I get the chance, no one's gonna say that about me when I'm back there.' So that's what I'm trying to do. "I don't really try to just hit people hard. What I try to do is, every time I get a chance to lay a lick on a receiver -especially if Bettis. I may think about Bettis poppin' through the line, and he's corralled, and I can just come up as hard as I can and hit him. And maybe he'll fumble the ball or I'll knock him down hard and I can just get up and look at him and maybe put a little fear into him. Something like that." s r1 00,, T I S- Whn vr h clegTifArasyorsceul eyn cooking,8A calDmn' 1iz o reaa l at gree When ever the college life cr ams your schedule beyond cooking, call Domino's Pizza for a great meal at a great price delivered in 30 minute s, guarantee d! Brown Something like that ... it doesn't always happen. And that fact - that great things and big plays didn't always happen for the Michigan defense last season - doesn't sit well with Corwin Brown. Even now, as the Wolverines start anew, embarking on another season full of promise and potential, there is still this painful reality: Corwin Brown's game films don't look much like the real Rose Bowl game films that he and his teammates and coaches have watched over and over. North Campus Central Campus South Campus I ~ Broadway East Ann St. Dewey '.. ', . KRISTOFFER GILLETTE/Daily Corwin Brown will be called upon this season to be the emotional leader of the Michigan defense. NOBODY KNOWS ILIKE .DOMINO'S. HOURS: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday: 11:00 AM-4 selected along with Brown as the team's defensive captain for the 1992 season. "I'm glad he's there," Hutchinson says. "I'm not an emotional guy. He complements me very well. I lead by example, and he gets everyone jacked up emotionally. "I really like having him out there because we work well together. After a great play he flies in screaming and yelling, pumping up the guys." "I don't do that much yelling," Brown cautions. He would prefer not to be made out to be some crazed lunatic, though that mentality certainly fits the job description for a defensive back. "But when we start hittin' I might let out a few screams," he continues, adding with a smile: "When we start hittin', that's when I really start going." Even in preseason drills, Hutchinson says, citing an instance last week during two-a-days. "At practice the other day, Corwin called the defense over in between drills and told us, I'm gonna get emotional now. I love all you guys.' "Before the games he gets all worked up and cramped up," Hutchinson says. "He gets so worked up and wound up that he gets in a big ball. He cries and says, 'I love you guys.' It got funny toward the end of the season." .*. It's funny, now, for Corwin Brown to look back and remember. No one ever could get that skinny kid's name right. Brown was in the 10th grade at Julian High School in Chicago, and all the other guys were seniors on, 'Every time I get a chance to lay a lick on a receiver - especially if he's going to catch the ball in my area - I want to let him know that I'm going to be there, or at least that if he's going to catch the ball, he's going to have to pay a price. - Corwin Brawn How You Like Pizza At Home. Thursday, Friday & Saturday: 11:00 AM-3:00 AM r - --- - - - a_ --- _- - --- -- - -r---a -- -__ _--_-._ _- - he's going to catch the ball in my area - I want to let him know that . I'm going to be there, or at least that if he's going to catch the ball, he's going to have to pay a price.' All that gets envisioned in Brown's pre-game ritual. "I try to think about what I have to do to make sure the team plays well," Brown says, explaining his mental preparation on Saturdays. "As the safety, I have to make a lot of checks and calls to get everybody playing the right defense. "Then I'll think about myself makinga big play. Take Jerome "Actually, I've thought about it all summer, I can't lie," Brown said, as the frustrated thoughts and memories of the 34-14 Washington victory start to spill ou. "I've set one of my goals - to get back out to the Rose Bowl, to play Washington. I mean, we could have done a lot better ... "I think 17 points, at best, is what they should've scored. But I think we'll go back out there, the offense will get another shot at them and we'll do a lot better this time. While the Michigan offense rang in the New Year by getting its E 1 1 t t 1 1 1 1 L Sun d a' Get two small Cheese pizzas for Additional toppings only $1.25 Valid Sundays Only Expires 11-1-92 -- a - a - MJOBi EF Get one New Zesty Havored Pan Pizza With one topping for - tree Mobile Phone with special number of purrhases* Additional toppings only $1X.0 Valid Mondays Only Expires 11-1-92 "Some restrictions apply call store for details icplt __,. 5_.. . sd1 . 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