With hair sprouting from the top of his visor, gold glinting from his ears and Squidward socks on his feet, Joseph Brown is fairly recognizable from the discus ring.
But for the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in June, the Mansfield, Texas, thrower wore an item he knew would make people remember him: a custom Pokémon-inspired singlet featuring the words, “Who’s that thrower?”
Brown, one of the newest faces of American track and field, has no sponsors and is self-funding his journey to the Paris Olympics.
“In Pokémon commercials, back in the day, they would be like, ‘Who’s that Pokémon?’ And then there would be the silhouette of whatever Pokémon you’re supposed to guess,” Brown told The Dallas Morning News.
“Anything I wasn’t supposed to do, like make the team, or when I surprise people, everybody’s like, ‘Who is this guy? Who’s that thrower?’
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“It just matches perfectly to my story because nobody really knows who I am.”
Brown started to gain some name recognition after his performance at the trials helped him earn a trip to Paris, where he’ll compete Monday in the men’s discus qualifying round. If he advances, he’ll throw in the final on Wednesday.
Looking past Brown’s love of cartoons and playful nature, you wouldn’t expect him to have had the reaction he did after realizing he qualified for Paris with a breakthrough throw at the trials.
“I think I had a panic attack,” he said.
“It was just a lot of things that hit me all at once. A lot of emotions flooding in, and I don’t think I knew how to deal with all that all at the same time,” he said.
A Mansfield High School teenager
Brown has had an unusual rise to the main stage of the track and field world. At Mansfield High School, Brown not only never received a Division I college scholarship offer, but also never even qualified for a state meet.
His high school coach, Matt Walker, said Brown becoming an Olympian is vindication for the teenager he remembers, who also played football.
“Joe was a really solid athlete and a good thrower,” Walker said. “Was he elite? Was he Olympic-level? No, but it shows you he decided to work and continue to grind to reach his dreams. It’s an inspirational story for us.”
After a solid but unspectacular prep career, Brown attended Texas A&M-Commerce. Each year, he incrementally improved in the throwing events, including the discus, shot put and hammer throw. He took home the 2019 NCAA Division II national title in the discus with a toss of 59.54 meters — the final throw of his college career, said his coach at Commerce, George Pincock.
“It’s a guy that I got to watch win a national title on his final throw of college,” Pincock said. “Then to see that happen five years later at the Olympic trials on his final throw, where he puts one out there and makes the team, it was like I got to relive that moment of him winning a national title and pure excitement again.”
‘He doesn’t take enough credit’
Since finishing his collegiate career, Brown has been competing as an unsponsored athlete, a reality many Olympic athletes face.
“The people who are sponsored are lucky, where they don’t have to have a full-time job,” Brown said. “I’m also lucky because my wife agreed to support us financially for these last four years. I’ve kind of been sponsored by her, that’s how I looked at it. It would be nice if I didn’t have to rely solely on her to pay all the bills and if I could contribute because it does put a lot of stress on her.”
Brown’s wife, Mariyah Oliver, works as a social media content creator and influencer with an impressive 142,000 Instagram followers. Oliver helps make ends meet while he travels to meets to throw against the best in the world.
“He doesn’t take enough credit,” Oliver said of her husband.
“Yes, I handle the bills and stuff, but he does the cooking, he does the cleaning, he does the yard, and all the other things that allow me to pay the bills,” she continued. “I know it seems like it could be a lot on my end, but it’s honestly been pretty easy breezy for us. It’s not as crazy as he makes it sound.”
A measly 4 centimeters
Headed into the trials, lay track and field fans might have thought Brown was a longshot to make the team, but his recent results said otherwise. At the Oklahoma Throws Series in April, Brown hit the Olympic standard in the discus with a personal best 67.92 meters, which made him the third-ranked discus thrower in the U.S.
But for the majority of the trials, Brown was on the outside looking in. In one of Brown’s final few throws in the sixth round, the Mansfield native hurled a throw of 65.79 meters that vaulted him into third place, a measly 4 centimeters above 2020 Olympian Reggie Jagers. After Jagers fouled on his final throw, Brown was cemented as an Olympian with a top-three finish and having hit the standard prior to the trials.
Quite the feat for an unsponsored Division II athlete who never made a state meet, but Brown doesn’t see it that way.
“You don’t have to go D1, you don’t have to be great,” he said. “You don’t have to be a state champion to do it. I feel like I’m a prime example. There’s all these milestones that kids think they need to hit.”
“If you’re passionate about it and you love it, just keep on doing it,” he continued. “Keep putting in the work, and you’ll see the results eventually, as long as you’re putting in consistent, good, hard work that is moving you closer to your goal.”
