To understand just how much the Brohm family name means to folks in Louisville, Ky., you didn't need to look any further than the Lambeau Field parking lot during the recent organized team activities.
There, parked amid the catering staff cars and security staff motorcycles was a mammoth satellite truck from Fox41, the Louisville Fox TV affiliate.
While there weren't any Kansas stations in town to follow Jordy Nelson, or Alabama stations to report on Patrick Lee's development, Fox41 sports director Tom Lane traveled to Green Bay to chronicle the exploits of quarterback Brian Brohm, Louisville's favorite son, who was participating in the first open-to-the-media day of the Packers' organized team activity practices.
Brohm, who like Nelson and Lee is a second-round pick, isn't expected to have an immediate impact in 2008 the way the others could. Instead, he figures to be no more than new starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers' backup. Still, Lane filed a 2-minute, 58-second package -- an eternity in TV newscast time -- on Brohm for that night's newscast, and another lengthy piece for the following night's show.
"I've always had a strong tie to the city of Louisville -- played high-school ball there, grew up there -- so I think people will follow (what I do)," Brohm said of the hometown attention. "There's a lot of Packers fans in Louisville as well. They're all over the place."
There's more now, though, after the Packers took Brohm 56th overall in last month's NFL draft. That's what happens when your father, Oliver, and brothers, Jeff and Greg, all played at the University of Louisville; when you led your high school, Louisville Trinity, to back-to-back-to-back state football titles in 2001, '02 and '03; and when you were on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a high-school junior as part of the vanishing breed of three-sport prep athletes.
Being a backup will be an adjustment for Brohm. Whereas seventh-round pick Matt Flynn spent the bulk of his career at LSU as a backup before leading the Tigers to the BCS Championship last season, Brohm has never truly been a No. 2. Even as a freshman at Louisville, where his father and two brothers played before him, Brohm was more of a starter-in-waiting than a backup.
Playing for the Packers also marks the first time since Pop Warner that Brohm hasn't been coached by either his dad, Oscar (his high-school coach) or his older brother, Jeff (a former NFL backup who serves as Louisville's quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator).
Between the early OTA practices, Brohm answered a series of questions for the Milwaukee Talks that follows. Enjoy.
OnMilwaukee.com: What was it like growing up in your family, with football being so integral to your youth?
Brian Brohm: You know, it was a lot of fun, but you also have a lot of coaches. My brothers are so much older than me, they're kind of mentor-type figures, guys who've been teaching me for a long time, as well as my dad, who's a football coach. So, I've had three coaches for quite awhile now.
OMC: Was your dad harder on you in high school than other kids? Or if you had been playing for someone other than your dad?
BB: No, I don't think so. I don't think he was harder on me than anybody else. It was a good process to have a dad that coached football and played college football, a brother who's been in the NFL and also coached. Just to have them around, it really helped develop my game pretty fast.
OMC: Did you consider going to school anywhere but Louisville, given your "legacy" status there?
BB: Yeah, I looked at some other places. I looked at Notre Dame and Tennessee, but when it came down to it, I wanted to stay home and go to the school that I grew up a big fan of, and that was Louisville.
OMC: Did you feel extra pressure from Day 1 there, given your family's history at the school?
BB: Yeah, I knew that was going to be there when I chose to go there. The expectations, people knew who I was, they knew our family, they were expecting big things just because I had the last name "Brohm." I knew that going in and was expecting it, so I was prepared for it.
OMC: Did learning to play amid that scrutiny help you throughout your career in any way? Or will it help in the NFL?
BB: I think it's helped. It's made me more focused, wanting to prove to everybody that I am as good as they tried to put those expectations up there. I've always tried to reach those expectations, so I think it did help me out in reaching those goals I wanted to accomplish.
OMC: What was it like having Jeff in the NFL while you were growing up?
BB: As a kid, it was awesome to have a brother that's in the NFL when you're 8, 9, 10, 11 years old. Being able to go to NFL games and (in) NFL locker rooms, meeting guys like Steve Young, Jerry Rice, Brent Jones, as a kid, that's pretty cool. Being able to learn those (quarterback) techniques (like) dropping back when you're in seventh grade from your brothers is also a big plus. But pressure-wise, there's definitely a lot more pressure within the city. Everyone knew who I was coming up, even when I was getting into high school. So my brothers were huge at my high school, they won state championships, so I had the pressure there to live up to that. We won three state titles, so I feel like I lived up to that one and at U of L it was the same thing.
OMC: So there was a lot of pressure when you were 14, 15 years old?
BB: It was always fun. I always realized there was that pressure out there and there was that kind of attention that another quarterback wouldn't typically receive in the town. I knew that was out there, and I knew that when I made my decision to come to Louisville, that it would be that way there but not somewhere else. I fully accepted it and knew it was going to be there.
BB: Probably a couple years ago, probably when we won the Orange Bowl. They started becoming my brothers.
OMC: This has to be the first time you haven't been coached by at least one family member since what, Pop Warner?
BB: It's probably the first time since before high school that I haven't had a relative on the staff, so to speak. But you're always getting coached by other coaches and other people. It'll be nice to get a fresh look at things and hear it from a different perspective.
OMC: Mike McCarthy's got a pretty good track record coaching quarterbacks, including what he did with Brett Favre in 1999 as his QB coach and in 2006 and '07 as his head coach. What are your initial impressions of his coaching style with quarterbacks?
BB: I'm just trying to soak in everything Coach has to offer as fast as I possibly can, because there's so much information. I'm just trying to soak in as much as possible.
OMC: Have the coaches tried to tinker with your mechanics or footwork at all?
BB: Yeah, he's just trying to teach the mechanics how they're supposed to be done and tweak a few things here and there. I'm sure there'll be more things as we go along.
OMC: So the other night, I'm flipping channels and I come across, not ESPN Classic, but ESPN U, which is replaying the Louisville-West Virginia game from '06. You guys are at home, and you go 19-for-26 for 354 yards or something astronomical like that. Huge win. I stayed up and watched the whole thing.
BB: That was one of the bigger games of my career. We were fifth in the nation, they were third, it was a Thursday night game, at home. We had a "Black Out" at U of L, everyone wore black in the stadium. It was a big game, and it was a game where, I hurt my thumb the third game of the year, came back probably a little too early. I came back really to get ready for that game. And proved that it was worth it.
OMC: Things went so well that season -- Louisville wins the Orange Bowl, you win MVP of the game -- did you feel some sort of responsibility to come back to school for your senior year because of your family ties to Louisville? Otherwise, why wouldn't you come out after such a great junior season? You'd have been a top 10, top 15 pick, and you were really on top of your game at that point.
BB: I really felt I wanted to come back. I loved the University of Louisville, I wanted to have my senior year. You only get one chance to do that. I wanted to go through that and try to accomplish even more goals -- which obviously we didn't accomplish. But that was my mind frame going into it.
OMC: Did you go through the advisory council to tell you where you'd be drafted if you came out?
BB: Yeah, I did that. They told me second round. But I think they tell everybody that. They told (2007 No. 1 overall pick) JaMarcus Russell that, too, I think. They give you the worst case. They don't give you where the best case is. But I wanted to come back.
OMC: Yeah, but (USC's) Matt Leinart did the same thing after winning the Heisman and instead of going No. 1 overall he went 10th the next year. Do you regret anything about coming back? Do you think about what might've been?
BB: No. I feel like I made the right choice. I feel like I'm better as a player right now than I was a year ago at this time. I feel like I'm definitely ready to take this next step, whereas last year I wasn't so sure if I was ready to fully take the next step. So I think I made the right choice.
OMC: When scouts said you were the most NFL-ready of the QBs in the draft, what did you make of that? Do you feel that way, that you'd be ready to play right away if need be?
BB: Yeah, I feel like I'm NFL-ready. I can't speak for the other guys out there, so I don't know if I'm the "most" NFL-ready, but I feel like I'm ready for this challenge. I know it's going to be a process where I have to work hard and really get in my playbook and try to learn it as fast as I can. We'll see how quick I can pick everything up. But hopefully I can do it pretty fast and I can get in there where I'm not thinking as much and just playing as fast as I can.
OMC: At the rookie orientation camp, you could sense that some of the other guys who haven't been in the spotlight as much as you were in college -- Jordy Nelson, Patrick Lee, etc. -- having a little more of a wide-eyed awe-factor to them. You didn't seem to. Is that the advantage of being a three-year starter at a top-10 program?
BB: Yeah, it's experience. I've had a lot of experience dealing with different situations -- being the starter, being the guy people want to talk to. Being the guy for three years, I think that's helped me a lot.
OMC: It sounds like Aaron Rodgers has been pretty accepting of you and Matt Flynn. Even though the team has made it clear that it's his job, you can't go into this with any attitude other than competing to be the guy, can you?
BB: Obviously Aaron Rodgers is the starter right now. I'm going to work as hard as I can, and hopefully show the coaches something they like. At this point in time, they've made it pretty clear. (But) for me, I'm preparing as if I'm going to be playing. I think that's the way every player needs to look at it. You have to prepare as if you're going to be on the field, you're going to be the guy playing. And if I am, or if I'm not, I need to be ready to do that. I need to be able to prove in the preseason and then in the camps that I can go out there and do that and prove that to the coaches. That's my mindset coming into this camp.
OMC: How much of a risk is it to go with three young guys at quarterback in Rodgers, you and Flynn, do you think?
BB: Hopefully not a lot. Hopefully we can go out there and prove that we understand the offense, that we can move the team down the field. That's my goal, to prove that if I get on that field, we're not going to miss a beat. We're going to execute the offense and go right down the field. That's really what I need to strive to do, to prove to these coaches I can do that.
OMC: Would you have liked to have played with Brett Favre, or do you figure you wouldn't be here if he hadn't retired?
BB: I guess it goes both ways. It would be cool, just growing up a huge fan (of Favre), to be able to learn from a vet like that, a Hall of Fame quarterback. That would've been pretty awesome. But if he doesn't retire, then maybe I don't get drafted (by Green Bay). So, it's kind of a double-edged sword there.
Jason Wilde, a Milwaukee native who graduated from Greendale Martin Luther High School and the University of Wisconsin, is a two-time Associated Press Sports Editors award winner and a Wisconsin Newspaper Association award winner.
His daily coverage can be found on the State Journal's Web site and through his Packers blog on madison.com.
