Quarterback Delivers in MS Program

The football field wasn’t the only place Terrapins quarterback CJ Brown, MS ’15, faced pressure to deliver during the team’s inaugural Big Ten season in 2014. He also studied delivery of products in Smith’s Master of Science in Supply Chain Management program.

“As a quarterback, you’re always in the public eye — the good, the bad and the ugly,” Brown says. “Everyone’s always going to be looking at you.” Off the field, he says expectations remain high as a graduate student. “You have to take all the tests just like everyone else, and you put in just as much work as other master’s students.”

Two years of injuries, which hampered Brown’s collegiate football career, left him eligible to continue playing for the Terps after finishing an undergraduate degree in communication. He says he chose a Master of Science program at Smith because he wants to start his own business after pursing an NFL career.

Balancing sports and academics can be difficult, but Brown says many of his classmates juggle multiple roles. “It’s about trying to fit in with other students and realizing that as a student-athlete, you’re just like them and they are just like you,” he says. /EB/