Back when Michigan football linebacker Kalel Mullings was a freshman in high school, with so many highlights still to be made and stars to be added to his recruiting profile, his coach at Milton Academy in Massachusetts had a hunch the promising two-way player would find his way to Ann Arbor.
“I always just figured that was where he was going to end up, even though he himself did not know that," Kevin Macdonald recalled last month.
Macdonald’s prophecy, confirmed almost three years later, was tied to one man: Don Brown.
Brown was a champion of sorts for New England football, believing the players who excelled in one of the sport’s overlooked regions could compete anywhere in the country.