​It was at their lowest point, Kathleen Brown recalls, that she first noticed the sign. She and her son Colin, the oldest of four kids, were driving near their Maryland home, venturing toward the unknown of the spinal fusion surgery he was about to undergo. The words spray-painted along a levy by the Anacostia River spoke to her: It gets better. She turned to Colin, who was then in seventh grade, and said, “Look, Colin, this is our lowest point, but from here on, it’s going up. We’re at the top of the roller coaster right now, and it’s all about to get better.” Colin’s life had already been marked by a string of setbacks, challenges that he and his family faced head-on, especially as he began to believe in what he could achieve. “I definitely felt like that was rough to get through, but look at where we are now,” his mother reflects.
Colin Brown found something that altered his view of sports and helped him begin to thrive. When he was just 10 weeks old, Kathleen says, Colin contracted infant botulism, a rare neurological condition that can occur when infants under one ingest a type of bacterial spore called Clostridium botulinum. At five months, he was also diagnosed with neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) after developing its telltale café au lait spots. NF1 can cause bone deformities, and Colin developed a Baker’s cyst in his knee, which led him to Matthew Oetgen, an orthopedist at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. That episode foreshadowed a later scoliosis diagnosis.
By the time he entered high school, Colin faced a moment that would come to define him in the face of adversity. It occurred on the water, this time after he joined the crew team at DeMatha Catholic, just outside Washington, D.C. suburbs. “I think what Colin has done this past year is transformative for his class,” says Rich Blorstad, DeMatha’s head rowing coach. “He’s faced trials and tribulations. He’s endured things to reach where he is now. When the other guys see that, it inspires the team to come together and lift each other up.” He has inspired those around him to elevate not only themselves but everyone else on the squad.
Rowing is demanding in its own right. Here is how Colin, who turns 15 this month after a long run of setbacks, has immersed himself in the sport and what his journey can teach parents and young athletes about the power of sport. During the COVID period, when Kathleen was constantly with Colin, she noticed one shoulder sitting higher than the other. She wasn’t sure if it was simply the result of how he had been sitting during virtual learning. They consulted Oetgen, who diagnosed him with scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine. “That was a bummer,” Colin’s mother sighs. “We started going back every six months or a year for Dr. Oetgen, with X-rays and follow-ups.” The journey toward better health and better performance had begun anew, a reminder that progress often follows a winding path.