SEWANEE, Tenn. -- Chalankis Brown didn't do enough for the Sewanee football program, apparently.
The preseason Division III All-America cornerback and kick returner also played some on offense in the Tigers' opening loss last Saturday at Washington and Lee. In fact, it was pre-planned that he catch a pass on their first offensive play of the game, and he did that for 27 yards and wound up leading Sewanee with four catches for 62 yards and a touchdown.
He already was good at taking passes the other way, having led the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference with seven interceptions and 186 interception return yards last season.
"We're going to get him involved. That gives you one more dangerous guy on offense," third-year Sewanee coach Robert Black said. "But we still want him to concentrate on being the best corner he can be."
Adding the extra duty didn't both Brown a bit, however.
"I've been trying to nudge my way over there (on offense)," said the 5-foot, 180-pound junior from Millbrook, Ala. "But the idea didn't really become serious till Coach (Hank) McClung got here this spring. In track season I had such a great year it kind of gave notice to everybody that this guy is pretty fast, let's give him a shot on offense.
"We talked about it a little bit in the spring and then started working on some things during camp," Brown added, noting that "a few new wrinkles" will be added from week to week.
He wasn't blowing smoke about that great track season. He won the 200-meter dash and set the Sewanee and SCAC record for 100 meters with a time of 10.75 seconds on his home track. And he isn't even polished yet.
At Stanhope Elmore High School, he starred in football and also played basketball and baseball -- along with one season of soccer -- and he mixed some track meets in during baseball season. But he didn't get really involved in track until coming to Sewanee.
"I've been playing football since I was 7 years old, and I'm very passionate about football," Brown said. "I still try to learn something new every day. I try to know what every player on the field is doing on every play, so I study film all the time. But I have some God-given speed and I'm trying to make the most of it."
"He came into track with less knowledge than he did for football," Sewanee track coach Jeff Heitzenrater said. "He started working hard on his technique and form and he made a big step last year from his freshman year, but he's still a work in progress.
"At the conference meet when he set the record, he just powered through that. From the standpoint of form he's still pretty inefficient. But with the work he's already put in on that and his willingness to do everything we ask of him, he's just going to get faster."
Brown works just as hard in his studies at the prestigious institution. In fact, he managed a 3.2 grade point average during the fall semester last year, during football. Interested in law and politics, he did an internship this past summer at the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in Montgomery.
"Chalankis is a modest kid, but his expectations are very high for himself and his teammates," Black said, "and he brings what's on paper to practice. He's an extremely polite young man, but when he steps on the field a switch goes off. He becomes a different person.
"He's a ferocious football player."
Brown thought he was going to Samford, a Division I program, out of high school, but the Birmingham school's coaching staff was dismissed a couple of weeks before national signing day. Suddenly, the coaches with whom he had developed a great relationship were gone.
His high school coach knew Carter Cardwell, then a Sewanee assistant now at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and Brown visited the mountain campus and foudn "love at first sight."
As Samford is now in the Southern Conference with UTC, Brown doesn't look longingly at what might've been.
"I have no regrets. I feel like I'm here for a reason," he said. "I'm glad to be where I am. It was probably the best decision of my life."
He and the Tigers will host nationally ranked Hampden-Sydney at 2:30 p.m. EDT Saturday.
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