Last month, the Long Island native, a 2010 graduate of Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business and a former defensive back for the Rams, was named assistant general manager of the New York Giants.

In his new role, Brown is helping to lead the Giants’ player personnel department and assisting in other areas, including college scouting.

A Giant Connection

He’s also extending a long history of connections between the Giants and his alma mater that began with the team’s longtime owner Wellington Mara, a 1937 Fordham graduate who led the Giants to six league championships, including two Super Bowls. Mara’s Fordham classmate Vince Lombardi started his Hall of Fame NFL coaching career as an assistant with the Giants, and Wellington’s son John, a 1979 Fordham Law graduate, is the team’s current president and co-owner.

For more than 25 years, another Fordham graduate, Bob Papa, GABELLI ’86, has been the radio voice of the Giants. Last month, he sat down with Brown on Giants Huddle: Front Office Edition and asked him about the historic connections between the two New York institutions.

“When you think of Fordham, you think of the Lombardi Center, and Vince Lombardi, and his ties to the Giants, and of course Wellington Mara. Do you get a sense of an added responsibility knowing the history of everything?” Papa asked.

Brown said that growing up hearing stories of these Hall of Famers gave him a sense of responsibility to carry their work forward.

“The word that comes to my mind is nostalgia, right? It’s all the stories you hear about, one, when you step on campus at Fordham, and then after being on campus, the responsibility that you have as a student-athlete while you’re there, to not just represent the name on the back of your jersey, if you’re playing, but also the logo on the front, which is the team,” he said.

That same sense of history and responsibility is embedded in the Giants organization, he said.

“It’s no different, it’s a carryover. And we all have, like I said, a responsibility to not just do our best, but exhaust all the resources and be progressive and forward thinking so we can get back to where we want to be,” he said of the Giants, who have won four Super Bowls in their history but have struggled in recent years.

To get back that level of success, Brown believes it’s important for people throughout the organization to share a similar vision.

“The term I like to use is synergy,” he said. “It’s having open-door communication, where a good idea can come from anywhere. And when we find a player, it’s not your guy, it’s not my guy, it’s our guy.”

Brown said when he’s scouting players, he often employs a cura personalis approach, considering the whole person and what they might bring to the organization.

“We need to know how the guy is from a 360-degree view—what he is in the building, what he is on the field, and what he is in the community, because all of that plays a factor into what our brand is and what our style of ball is,” Brown said.

Making a Career Pivot

Brown had initially wanted to play in the NFL, but after realizing that he would not get drafted by a pro team, he worked with his Fordham mentor, Christopher Gulotta, FCLC ’82, to set new goals.

“It was a sad realization for a truly gifted athlete who worked tirelessly since he was 10 years old on his fitness, technique, and understanding of the game,” Gulotta told Fordham Magazine in 2019. “Yet he pulled himself up by the bootstraps, accepted this new reality, improved his academics, attended law school, and found his way back to his true passion as a football scout for Boston College.”

In the same article, Brown said that Gulotta helped him figure out his next steps.

“Chris was like a sounding board for me,” he said. “He was like, ‘Hey, can I help you think through that?’ He wasn’t pushing. That’s where I think the foundation for a long-term relationship was built for us.”

Since then, the two have become very close.

“I don’t even consider him a mentor anymore,” Brown said. “I consider him a family friend who I lean on heavily for advice.”

In 2019, Fordham and the Giants established a partnership that provides academic programming and internships for students and marketing opportunities for the University. They also have taken part in joint community engagement efforts, including helping distribute resources, school supplies, and other items to the victims of a deadly Bronx fire in January 2022.

Browne credits her college years at Fordham for laying the foundations for a resume that includes high-profile reporting and anchoring positions at News 12 Long Island, MSNBC, and Fox News. As a communications major, she began developing her journalistic chops working at WFUV (90.7 FM, wfuv.org), Fordham’s radio station. That experience sparked a passion for broadcast news, although she joined the station in her first year with a different goal in mind: She wanted to host Ceol na nGael, the station’s popular Irish music program.

“I became involved in the news department because it was a requirement if I wanted to be on the Irish show,” she said. “My parents would always listen to the show when I was growing up. But I had to work my way up to that. WFUV said, ‘Write some newscasts, eventually anchor the news. Then you can be a gopher on the Irish show.’”

A Training Ground for Success

Browne spent most of her free time in the studios, then located on the third floor of Keating Hall, where she wrote and presented short news updates and eventually anchored the half-hour Evening Report. By the time she reached her junior year, Browne had risen to WFUV news director and was assigned to co-host the Irish show with Kathleen Biggins, FCRH ’87, GSE ’91, who is now a longtime CBS News writer and still a host on WFUV. Browne praised her former classmate for being a supportive mentor and “extremely well-versed in Irish music and culture.”

As an undergraduate, Browne worked with many other WFUV colleagues who went on to successful careers in broadcasting, including Lou Rufino, FCRH ’86, the WFAN and WABC broadcast engineer who worked on Don Imus’ nationally syndicated morning show for years; New York Giants play-by-play announcer Bob Papa, GABELLI ’86; and sports journalist and New York Yankees analyst Jack Curry, FCRH ’86.

“WFUV is a 50,000-watt radio station. That is the same size as commercial stations in the tristate area,” Browne said. “It is taken very seriously, and the training was rigorous. I’m glad I got to make my mistakes there and learn a lot.” During her years at Fordham, Browne also worked part time at Newsweek and served as editor of a Fordham literary magazine called Alternative Motifs.

After graduating, Browne worked as a morning news anchor at Long Island’s WLIM Radio. She later earned a master’s degree in communication arts at New York Institute of Technology, where she taught undergraduate news writing and served as a reporter on NYIT’s evening cable news show.

Following a stint as Michigan bureau chief on WSJV-TV in South Bend, Indiana, Browne returned to New York to work at News 12 Long Island. She was then an anchor at MSNBC for three years and spent 17 years at Fox News. Her reporting earned her an Associated Press Regional Award for a documentary feature, a FOLIO Award, and the Dennis Puleston Award for Environmental Achievement. She was also named one of the top 30 in Irish American Media by The Irish Voice. And in 2012, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens, where she grew up.

‘Living with Integrity and Working Hard’

Browne’s retirement was something she foresaw from the beginning of her career. “When I was in my 20s, I said, ‘I’m not going to do this forever. Probably when I hit 50, I’m going to stop because it’s a difficult job.’ You’re not working nine to five. You’re working weekends, holidays, early mornings, late nights, overnights. It’s very difficult to be present for your family.”

Family has always been important to Browne, who has two sisters, including a twin. She is grateful to her parents for instilling in her and her siblings faith, gratitude, and a solid work ethic. “They set a really good example for how to be successful in life by living with integrity and working hard,” she said.

While she was living in New York City, Browne met her husband, Mike, at Holy Trinity Church on the Upper West Side, where they eventually married. The couple has a son, Connor, who was born 11 weeks premature, weighing just over two pounds. In her book, she describes how motherhood—and Connor’s early and challenging start to life—instantly shifted her priorities.

Over the years, Browne has remained connected to her alma mater. She is a member of the Fordham Alumni Chapter of Long Island and has participated in fundraising efforts and career seminars at WFUV. In 2016, she moderated a forum about Pope Francis prior to his New York visit.

Her Fordham roots also grew deeper with her marriage. “I ended up marrying a guy whose parents went to Fordham and actually met at Fordham, so we have Rams on both sides of the family,” said Browne, who fondly recalled many tailgate parties and said she’s looking forward to celebrating her upcoming 35th Jubilee in June.

Browne’s son, Connor, is now a college-bound high school student who runs track, plays the tuba, and is a soon-to-be Eagle Scout. She is grateful to have more time to spend with him and her husband camping and enjoying the outdoors and volunteering at their church in Nassau County. She also does freelance voice-over work and has devoted the past year to writing her book. In addition to recounting the perks and challenges of her career, Browne writes about growing up in Queens, her years at Fordham, and her decision to walk away from the spotlight to focus more on faith and family. The message she hopes to send readers is that it’s possible to “take control of your own destiny and write your own story.”

Fordham Five (Plus One)

What are you most passionate about?
Motherhood. Twenty years ago, I would’ve said “my career,” but priorities shift. My son is my pride and joy.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
There’s a famous quote by author and motivational speaker J. Richard Lessor that I have found to be true throughout my life: “Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
My favorite place in the city is Central Park. While living on the Upper West Side, I explored every nook and cranny of this beautiful oasis. I miss it now that I’m in the suburbs. My favorite place in the world is the west coast of Ireland.

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. It makes the case that faith and logic are not incompatible.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
I had some excellent professors, but I think Fordham’s former president Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., might be the person I admire most. A Bronx native, son of a cop and a teacher, he was inspired to become a priest by watching Jesuits fight corruption in the 1940s. He was an open-minded man of intelligence, integrity, honesty, and civility. He was influential not just on campus but in the world beyond, as editor-in-chief of America magazine and founding chair of New York City’s Campaign Finance Board. More personally, he was accessible to Fordham’s students. I was fortunate to spend some time with him over my four years at Fordham. In addition to the qualities I already mentioned, he also had a great sense of humor. He was witty and a great storyteller. He left his mark on Fordham and the world.

What are you optimistic about?
The future of faith in America. The trend in the U.S. has been toward secularization, but I believe the pendulum will start to swing back toward God as people figure out the current path isn’t working.

Interview conducted, edited, and condensed by Claire Curry.

Papa, who has been the radio voice of the Giants since 1995, is a former protege of distinguished sportscaster Marty Glickman, who conducted weekly sportscasting seminars at Fordham University while Papa was a student. At the time Glickman was the  broadcast coach for aspiring play-by-players, and Papa was able to gain broadcasting experience at Fordham’s public radio station, WFUV (90.7 FM).

Today Papa hosts a variety of Giants television programs on the New York television airwaves, a Sirius Radio program, and delivers the play-by-play for HBO’s Boxing After Dark Series, and NBC Sports Olympic. His Super Bowl play-by-play broadcast can be heard on WFAN Sports Radio (660 AM) at 6:30 p.m. when Super Bowl XLII between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants is scheduled to kick off. The broadcast can also be heard at www.wfan.com.

Papa gave his first Super Bowl broadcast in 2001, when the Giants played the Baltimore Ravens.