Nekos Brown picked up his first scholarship offer last week and it was probably the one he wanted most of all. It was from the University of Virginia, a school Brown knows very well as he has been there five times already. He was very excited about the offer, which he received during a visit for one of UVa’s spring practices.

“I just tried to keep a hold of my emotions you know,” Brown said with a laugh. He attends Thomas Stone HS in Waldorf, MD. “I didn’t want to show how excited I really was. I’ve been waiting for an offer from Virginia for a while now. They’ve been recruiting me since my sophomore year. I got to spring practice a little early and met up with coach Groh in his office. Me and my parents were meeting with him for a while then we went and watched some tape. Then we came back in. He said he’s the one that gives the offers around here. He let me know how I would fit in their system and then he said we’re going to offer you and they think I would be a great fit in their system.”

The 6-3 ½, 225-pound Brown is being recruited to play linebacker by all of the schools showing serious interest, which at this point includes Georgia Tech, Maryland, Virginia and Virginia Tech. He shows solid speed having run a 4.68 in the 40-yard dash, but it’s something else that really separates his play from the rest.

“I guess what really stands out about him is his instincts,” Thomas Stone head coach Steve Lindsay said of Brown. “We’ve faced players his size before, but unless you have the mentality and the instincts the size just doesn’t really do you a whole lot of good. But in Nekos’ case he’s got great instincts. When we saw him as a freshman he showed signs of it. As a sophomore he played varsity and was a starting linebacker for us. As a sophomore his work habits needed improvement. He didn’t like to run a whole lot, so he wasn’t impressing us a whole lot in the summer time. We got out there for the first scrimmage and the team was going up and down the field on us. We put him in at linebacker and, I think it was the first or second snap, he came up into the hole and drilled somebody and the ball came loose and kind of changed the momentum of things. Our guys got excited. And in that scrimmage he forced a couple of other fumbles. He just has a great instinct of coming up into a hole and drilling people.”

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