In early 2003, longtime running back Earnest Byner was leaving the Baltimore Ravens front office for a coaching job with the Washington Redskins. Byner, a favorite of Art Modell, was running the Ravens’ player development department. Byner was in Cleveland when Modell had instituted his “Inner Circle” program to help young players on the team deal with real-life issues off the field. So Byner, along with Ozzie Newsome, knew intimately what players could be going through outside of the building that would affect how they performed on Sundays.
“Player development doesn’t sound like a big assignment, but it was one of the more important jobs around,” said Billick. “Because of the intimacy with the players on sensitive topics – religion, women, agents, where to live, dealing with fame, how to save money — it almost has to be a former player, but it has to be the right player. And sometimes, the person in that role will find out stuff that a coach needs to know about what’s going on with a player’s life that can affect them. It’s a fine line, and there are only a few people who can do that kind of job.”
Brigance needed a job, and Billick had one to fill with Byner’s departure.
“O.J. was an absolute natural for it,” Billick said. “You felt great giving him the job because he was such a classy guy, such a perfect person for that role. And he was also a guy who had special affection for the 53rd guy on the team because he’d been that guy coming to a new city, to a new life. O.J. was an asset in that role.”
The same selfless role Brigance performed on special teams was the one he assumed in player development. In 2003 and 2004, young Ravens players who needed mentoring, advice, and assistance turned to Brigance, and he helped them with every aspect of their lives in Owings Mills. He even got involved on the television broadcasts on Rave TV, something he really enjoyed and worked hard on improving because of all of his experience all the way back to the Stallions, when he was the face of the franchise.
In 2005 and 2006, the Ravens and Brigance won the NFL’s “Best Player Development Program” award.
Then in 2007, there was that weakness in the shoulder on the racquetball court and Brigance’s life changed forever.
O.J. and Chanda were devastated when the diagnosis came. The prognosis, as in all A.L.S. cases, was grim, truly a death sentence knowing the use of your extremities will begin to deteriorate and eventually use of arms, legs, and the ability to talk will be gone.
The disease is insidious, fast-moving, and claims most of its victims within five years.
Brigance broke down, cried, pondered, and finally gathered himself. “God has prepared me,” he told himself. “I must find a way to help people.”
O.J. Brigance has always been a deeply religious man. You can Google any story about him from the 1990’s with the Stallions in Baltimore or the late 1990’s with the Miami Dolphins or back into Baltimore over the last 13 years and you’ll find nothing but references to God and his deep belief in Jesus Christ. He frequently referred to “the path of Lord” long before his diagnosis.
He thought that a kid from Rice playing in Vancouver in the CFL was a great way to earn a living. He loved his first trip into Baltimore. He fulfilled his lifetime dream of making it to the NFL in Miami, came back to Baltimore and won a Super Bowl. He came a field goal away from winning another in St. Louis the following year. And, all of it, he’d say many times was “God’s plan.” He always said the critics called him too small to play in the NFL, but “God had another plan for me.”
Well, this time, God did have another plan, and Brigance believed that plan was to help patients of A.L.S. while he was a patient, too.
The first person in Owings Mills that Brigance came to immediately following his diagnosis was head coach Brian Billick.
“The first day of training camp O.J. came to me and said he needed to talk,” Billick said. “We’re moving equipment around up in Westminster and the place is a mess and I knew it must’ve been important because he knew I didn’t have a lot of time. But he came into that little office at the hotel, almost nervous, and began talking about ‘other opportunities in life.’ He went on for 20 minutes about this new ‘huge opportunity’ and it sounded like he was trying to tell me that he was taking another job and leaving the Ravens because he was being vague.”
