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.

Enter the Fordham Mentoring Program. Now in its 15th year, the program connects alumni with current students in an effort to provide young professionals with someone they can turn to for guidance in their future careers.

A joint venture between the offices of Career Services and Alumni Relations, the program runs from October to May. Mentors are asked to commit to 24 hours a year with the intention of providing a few hours each month. Alumni from every undergraduate, graduate, and professional school can participate as mentors, and the program is open to all juniors and seniors.

What started with just a few dozen mentors in its first year has grown to include 216 alumni—and a host of success stories.

Preparing for the Professional World

Alumni mentors do everything from reviewing student resumes to attending networking events. There are also three annual events each year that mentors and mentees are encouraged to attend: a meet and greet, a networking skills workshop, and a mentor appreciation reception.

On Jan. 22, the program hosted this year’s networking skills workshop at the Lincoln Center Campus.

Spearheaded by Matthew Burns, FCRH ’13, assistant director for young alumni and student engagement, and Megan McDonald, FCRH ’14, assistant director of employer relations, the event began with a short presentation on general interviewing tips by Annette McLaughlin, director of career services.

McLaughlin, who worked in recruiting for several years, stressed the importance of preparation—researching and learning as much as possible about a company before interviewing. A candidate should also know what is important to them in a job, she said, practice their interviewing skills, and remember to relax during the interview.

To offer some hands-on practice, the workshop consisted of a mock interview session focused on finessing a student’s interviewing skills. Mentor-student pairs sat at round tables for seven-minute “interviews,” with time allotted for introductions, one question, answers, and feedback. Students rotated seats when their time was up and continued doing so until the end of the workshop.

The workshop was just one of many ways the program strives to give students tools for their future early on in their careers.

“This program is unique in that it’s an opportunity for Fordham students to interact with alumni in a way that is guaranteed to provide career guidance and support before they begin their own career journey beyond Fordham’s gates. Many students crave such networking opportunities but don’t feel comfortable reaching out on their own, so the Mentoring Program initiates those relationships for them and coaches them on how to maintain a mentoring relationship for the duration of the program and after,” said McLaughlin.

Life Lessons From Experienced Mentors

Alumna Michelle Hopson, PCS ’08, and current Fordham College at Rose Hill senior Wanida “Ting” Yana were matched up as mentor and mentee last October. Yana, an international studies major with a double minor in sociology and humanitarian studies, was pleased to be matched up with Hopson, who works as a consultant for nonprofit organizations.

“She’s given me a lot of helpful advice because she’s also a consultant, which is one of the things I aspire to be. It was really good to be able to hear from someone who actually works in the career that I want to be [in],” Yana said of her mentor.

Yana also found common ground in their similar backgrounds, commenting that “Michelle’s ethnically Filipino and I’m from Thailand, so we both have that international background in a way. So it was easy to bond over that.”

Hopson, who has been involved in the program for several years, finds real value in imparting her wisdom onto current students. She said she employs a hands-off strategy as a mentor: “I’m not there to do any work … but really coaching, motivation, giving the tools, giving the resources.” She said she helps students through a variety of issues, “from the decision about the next step and going to school internationally, to what type of industry they should be in, to the day-to-day questions, like how do I deal with this boss who’s like this.” With these skills, Hopson hopes to give her mentees the tools to effectively and independently solve their problems.

The Benefits of Being a Mentor

Students are not the only ones who benefit from the program. Hopson says that thanks to her mentees, she has continued on her journey of being a lifelong learner.

“I always tell myself I mentor because I want to learn … I wanted to bring back the things that helped me become who I am. I had a mentor myself and I knew with just these life skills, and practical wisdom, and these strategies, I was able to be where I was, where I am today.”

One success story from the program comes from a mentor-mentee pair that have been in touch for nearly a decade. Christopher Gullotta, FCLC ’82, and Brandon Brown, GABELLI ’10, met in fall 2009 when they were matched up by the mentoring program.

According to Gullotta, Brown was at a major crossroads when they were first matched up as a pair. Brown was a scholarship athlete on Fordham’s football team who was considering a career in law after realizing the NFL was becoming less of a possibility. With Gullotta’s guidance, Brown ended up going to law school and now serves as the assistant director of pro scouting with the Philadelphia Eagles. The men have remained close friends.

“My wife and children have come to know Brandon well. We attend each other’s significant family gatherings. And I go to Philadelphia every year to visit with Brandon and catch an Eagles game,” said Gullotta.

Gullotta wanted to become a mentor after two of his professors, John Adam, S.J., and philosophy professor Bernard Gilligan, took a special interest in him. “[They] helped me develop the critical thinking and advocacy skills that I would not have survived without in law school or in private practice. They embodied the spirit of Fordham, and I try to do likewise.”

Hopson continues to be a mentor in the “Fordham way,” she said. “You are out there continuing to develop yourself, continuing to be a critical thinker, continuing to reflect, to compare yourself not to anybody else but to who you were yesterday, to keep growing, to keep burning off all that stuff that didn’t work, that worked yesterday and no longer works for today, and not getting stuck in the past. That’s really what growth is about and that’s, for me, what Fordham kind of equals.

“I took a train here, took two subways and I’d still do it every day if needed after a full day of work and talking to clients and doing all that stuff. It’s so rewarding and I know there’s a place for people like me here.”