Brown still cherishes kick that beat Vols

But he will be remembered for only one. A year later, Gamecock fans still get a kick out of "The Kick."

"When somebody hears my name, they say, ‘Oh, you’re Josh Brown? We really appreciate what you did in the Tennessee game,’ " Brown said this week.

What Brown did was boot a career-long, 49-yard field goal with 2:45 remaining, lifting South Carolina to a 16-15 victory in its first win in Knoxville and ruining the night for a small nation of Vols’ fans who had filled Neyland Stadium to see Peyton Manning have his jersey retired.

"I just remember as soon as it went through, hearing the Carolina fans overcome the 100,000 Tennessee fans," Brown said. "It was just amazing after everybody got done hitting me on the helmet and everything else, turning around and seeing all the orange exiting the stadium."

As South Carolina prepares to play Tennessee again tonight, Brown is working on keystrokes instead of follow-throughs. The 23-year-old is student teaching at Airport High, instructing teenagers on keyboarding and computer applications as part of his graduate degree requirements in business education.

Brown will finish his master’s this semester, then keyboard in the updates to his resume.

"The job hunt will be on in December and January," he said. "I need to have something locked in."

Brown will have a great conversation-starter when he begins interviewing, provided those doing the hiring are not Tennessee fans. He can tell potential employers that he works well under pressure, and refer them to the night of Oct. 29, 2005.

In the visitors locker room before the game, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier approached Brown and told him to be ready because the game might come down to a field goal.

Spurrier had said the same thing a week earlier before the Vanderbilt game. But the former Florida coach had a history of close games against Tennessee: the final four games in the series before Spurrier left Florida were decided by four points or fewer.

Although Brown’s career long was 45 yards, Spurrier called on him in the second quarter for a 53-yard try. Though he did not strike the ball solidly, Brown said the kick had the distance but missed wide left.

He would get another chance.

After Tennessee took a 15-13 lead on James Wilhoit’s 43-yard field goal midway through the fourth quarter, USC quarterback Blake Mitchell started moving the Gamecocks down the field.

But Mitchell threw incomplete to Kris Clark on third-and-8 from the Tennessee 32-yard line, leaving Spurrier with a choice: Let Brown try from 49 yards or go for the first down.

Brown had been warming up on the sideline for several minutes, kicking balls into the net. After the incompletion on third down, Gamecocks assistant Ron Cooper, then the special teams coach, ran up to Brown.

"Come on," Brown recalled Cooper saying, "let’s go win the game."

Any doubts Spurrier might have had were answered when he saw Brown jog on the field, turn his head and ask, "Field goal, right coach?"

"Right on," Spurrier recalled saying. "Kick it."

"He made the call. He wanted to take a shot at it," Spurrier added. "If he’d been hiding behind a bunch of guys, I’d have called something or other."

As Brown walked off his steps, holder Ike Crofoot shifted about two feet closer to the line of scrimmage.

"He set up regular (seven yards behind the line of scrimmage," Crofoot said. "I said, ‘Let’s move up a little bit in case it’s close.’ And he made it by about two inches."

Crofoot began jumping up and down the minute Brown struck the ball, not realizing how close it had come to scraping the crossbar until teammates told him later.

Like most Sunday mornings, Brown went to church the next morning, where he received a standing ovation from the First Baptist congregation.

For Christmas last year, Brown’s brother gave him a framed, poster-sized picture of "The Kick." He keeps a game ball Spurrier presented to him at his parent’s home in Maryland.

He remains connected to the USC program, serving as the color analyst for the Gamecocks’ nonconference, pay-per-view telecasts. But after failing to land a contract during spring tryouts with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Washington Redskins, Brown stopped kicking and figures his playing days are done.

But he will always have the kick against Tennessee.