By: Micahya Costen
For Tony Brown, getting his son, Ar’Tavian “Bubba” Brown, into the right rooms was only half the job. The other half belonged to Bubba. Once he got there, he had to perform.
That was the deal from the start. Tony would find the trainers, make the drives and chase the opportunities. Bubba would show up ready. More than a decade later, it has turned a kid from small-town Madison, Florida, into a four-star football recruit with more than 20 college offers, among them Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Florida and Florida State, and a growing résumé in basketball.
Now a junior at Florida State University School in Tallahassee, Bubba has been in a lot of big rooms. And as Tony sees it, the most important thing his son has learned is how to carry himself once he’s inside.
It started in Madison, a small town about an hour east of Tallahassee, where Bubba spent his childhood outside with his cousins and older brother.
“Any type of thing we could find to do outside, we was doing it,” Bubba recalled in an interview with KB Sports Media. “So when I found out about football and basketball, I didn’t know how big it was or what opportunities came with it.”
Back then, he was just a kid who wanted to play, get better and have fun, even when that meant getting knocked down or banged up.
Tony knew what those games could lead to. He grew up in Madison too, and he had watched limited resources keep talented young athletes from ever getting beyond their community. He had also seen the older athletes who made it to college, and the example they set stayed with him. So did the influence of his grandmother, whose lessons shaped how he saw the world.
Tony served 10 years in the Army, and his service kept him away for the first three years of his son’s life. While he was gone, Bubba spent much of his time with that same grandmother, who gave him the nickname she had once given Tony.
“My grandma passed away three years ago and the name Bubba, people don’t know this, but I was the first Bubba,” Tony said. “She named me Bubba originally when I was a baby. And then when I went off to Afghanistan, he spent a lot of time with her because she was super grandma. And she gave him the name Bubba…that’s why we kind of highlight Bubba because, for me, it means a lot. And he’s kind of like just taking that name and making it a whole brand.”
By the time Tony was home for good, Bubba was 4 and already learning the game from a neighborhood friend. Tony remembers the moment he knew. His son scored 29 of his team’s 31 points while wearing Stephen Curry socks.
“He was just different. He just looked different. Like he was moving different with the ball,” Tony said. “The other kids were just running, jumping up and down. Bubs was playoff NBA Curry. He was shooting, he was Euro stepping, he was spinning.”
The next day, Tony found him a trainer. It was the first room.
Having missed those early years, Tony was determined to make the ones ahead count. From there, he and Bubba moved between teams and organizations, following coaches who saw what Tony saw. As a single father, Tony made whatever adjustments he had to make, balancing Bubba’s schedule with that of his younger daughter, Ar’Tasjah, who plays volleyball and basketball and runs track and field.
And he made his son a promise. He would get Bubba into the right environments. Once Bubba got there, what happened next was up to him.
Bubba held up his end, though not blindly.
“He never complained, and I admire him because he has allowed me to make decisions for him. But he has never just agreed with a decision if he didn’t understand it,” Tony said.
Tony said that trait has inspired him in his own life, too.
One of the biggest rooms came in Bubba’s seventh-grade year, when he was invited to play with Chris Paul’s CP3 youth team at a championship event in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Tony got the call on short notice and made the eight-and-a-half-hour drive anyway. Bubba spent the weekend competing against some of the best young players in the country, and the exposure helped build his name in basketball circles.
Those trips became some of Bubba’s favorite memories. He looked forward to the music during the first few hours of a drive, the conversations with his dad and seeing places he’d never been. Through the long drives, the tough losses and the big wins, he said, those years shaped who he is today.
The road also brought people into their lives who stayed.
“We’ve always had just a huge support system,” Tony said. “A lot of people we met through sports have become family.”
Tony credits that support system and their faith for carrying them through the hard stretches.
Getting into the room was Tony’s job. Being ready for it was Bubba’s.
Chasing two sports at a high level takes discipline, and Tony made sure his son understood the work that came with big goals. Drawing on his Army background, he pushed perseverance and encouraged Bubba to keep going when training got hard. Some mornings started at 4 a.m. so Bubba could get his work in before the day began.
Bubba accepted that his path meant missing school events and time with friends that other teenagers take for granted. He sees those sacrifices as an investment in his future and a way to set an example for the people around him.
He also learned that how he treats people matters as much as how he plays. Tony remembers Bubba refusing to come off the court in youth games until a teammate had scored. Moments like that showed Tony the kind of young man his son was becoming.
Today, Bubba makes a point of meeting someone new every day, whether that means holding a door, starting a conversation with a stranger or helping a classmate. He has shared his shoes with another student, brought extra food to share at school and encouraged his younger sister to do the same.
The rooms kept getting bigger. The family relocated to Valdosta so Bubba could attend Lowndes High School, while Tony commuted about an hour each way to a teaching job in Madison. The drive was long, but Tony was committed to making it work.
“Lowndes is what Bubba needed. Lowndes was one of Bubba’s biggest blessings,” Tony said.
After years of traveling between states for sports, settling in Georgia gave Bubba a chance to compete at a higher level and room to grow. As a sophomore at Lowndes, he averaged 13.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.3 steals per game in basketball and caught 28 passes for 518 yards and five touchdowns in football.
When Tony took a new job in Tallahassee, it was time for the next room. Bubba followed him to Florida State University School. Playing wide receiver and defensive back for the Seminoles this fall, he is averaging 82 receiving yards per game and has 10 tackles through eight games.
Through every move, Tony has tried to balance giving his son new experiences with making sure he understands the values behind them. Sometimes those lessons come from someone else.
Tony’s reputation has a way of walking into rooms before Bubba does. Bubba remembers running late to a volleyball game when a man parked beside him stopped him.
“He just said, ‘I met your dad the other day. Listen to him; he’ll make sure you’re straight,’” Bubba said.
Hearing that from a stranger with no stake in their relationship stuck with Bubba. It showed him that the way his father carries himself at home is the same way he carries himself everywhere else.
Now Bubba is close to the biggest decision yet: football, basketball or both, and where. He knows a lot of people will have opinions, from coaches to friends to other parents. He believes the hardest part will be trusting himself, and that the choice should be his.
He already knows how he wants to carry himself when he gets there.
“I know I’ve been in a lot of big rooms,” Bubba said. “So wherever I go, I’m gonna be the leader in the room, and the decisions I choose to make, people gonna follow me.”
The journey has changed Tony, too. Watching his son grow and looking for new ways to support him pushed Tony to keep learning, and he went on to earn his master’s degree.
But for Tony, the offers, the stats and the degree were never the point.
“It’s just an honor to be Bubba’s dad,” he said. “Like basketball, football, that’s cool, but I’m a dad. I’ll always be a dad.”
He got his son into the rooms. Bubba is the one who’s making them his.
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