Mickey Brown's journey from Long Island to Notre Dame football

The Rudy comparisons do not bother Mickey Brown.

Though he says he hears them more times than anyone would know, the movie about the former Notre Dame football walk-on Rudy Ruettiger is Brown’s favorite, and he's honored to be in the same breath as him.

Brown, a Southampton native and St. Anthony’s High School graduate, portrayed similar resilience in his path to making the Notre Dame football team, arriving in South Bend, Indiana, with a dream and no guarantee of glory.

After getting cut during tryouts in the spring of his freshman year, Brown stuck through a difficult year and tried out again as a sophomore, this time making the squad. Now, the 5-9, 180-pound junior cornerback and the Fighting Irish are two victories away from winning the first 12-team College Football Playoff and their first national championship since 1988.

“It’s just been unreal,” Brown told Newsday. “I mean, I still have to pinch myself some days and make sure I’m not dreaming.”

Seventh-seeded Notre Dame (13-1) will face sixth-seeded Penn State (13-2) on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in a CFP semifinal at the Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, Florida. And there will be talent from Long Island on both sides.

Rino Monteforte, a Kellenberg Memorial High School product from North Babylon, is Notre Dame’s long snapper on field goals and extra points. Penn State's roster features sophomore cornerback Zion Tracy (Hempstead/St. Thomas More), freshman wide receiver Josiah Brown (Malverne) and redshirt sophomore defensive tackle Kaleb Artis (Westbury/St. Francis Prep).

During the college decision process, Mickey Brown figured he was going to wrestle at Army. But after Brown — a Notre Dame football fan growing up — got accepted into the university, he decided to give football a shot. That plan went sideways after initially failing to make the team.

“It was one of the hardest days of my life,” Brown said. “I’m not going to lie. I still remember. I was alone when I opened it and I just, I kind of went AWOL for a few hours… I felt lost for a really long time, like I couldn’t even… I would walk by a football field on campus, one of the student ones, and I would just get sick to my stomach. So it was a tough time, for sure.

“But I think it was all part of a bigger plan, and it all worked out in the end, thankfully.”

Despite not being a part of the football team during his first year and a half in South Bend, Brown was more than just a typical college student. Brown joined the Army ROTC at Notre Dame, which he's still been able to do after he making the football team. He will commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army once he graduates Notre Dame.

When Brown did make the team, he called it “the single best day of my life.”

“It was just essentially a decade and a half of work culminating into one phone call,” he said.

Brown made his collegiate debut on Nov. 23 against Army at Yankee Stadium. Being a Yankees fan only added to the experience.

“It was a feeling that probably won’t be replicated very often in my life,” Brown said. “I still remember after the game climbing the centerfield wall and giving my dad a big hug, and it was amazing.”

In all likelihood, Brown will not take the field and the crowd won’t be echoing “Mickey” chants Thursday. But he's two wins shy of becoming a national champion, and no one can take the journey away from him.

“Failure is just a part of life,” St. Anthony’s football coach Joe Minucci said. “If you look at the Notre Dame roster, I’m pretty sure Mick’s height and weight might stick out as it might not belong. But he didn’t let that hold him back. He just kept working.

“Failure just made him get better, just made him more driven.”

By Ben Dickson

benjamin.dickson@newsday.com@bendickson__

Ben Dickson joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.