OXFORD, Miss. — Name, Image and Likeness has ruined college athletics. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a lot more than once. Coaches whisper about it. Fans yell about it.
On some level, I get it.
Players are bouncing from one campus to another, sometimes twice in the same year, sometimes back and forth to the same institution. One season, a dude is wearing one uniform. The next season, the same dude is playing against that same uniform. It’s hard to keep track. And the fact that these landscape-altering developments often come down to little more than which school is offering the most money via NIL has led to a segment of fans being confused and frustrated because this is all still pretty new and kind of bananas.
Again, I get it.
But can I tell you a story about Jaemyn and Brandon?
Because few things in life are all bad or all good — NIL included. Sure, some of the complaints NIL critics levy against the system are valid, I acknowledge, and some of the changes NIL has brought to college athletics aren’t great, I admit. But few things in life are all bad or all good — NIL included. So let me tell you a story about Jaemyn and Brandon.
Jaemyn is Jaemyn Brakefield, a graduate student at Ole Miss who is averaging double-figures for an SEC team ranked 16th in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. Brandon is Brandon Hill, a 16 year-old junior at Oxford High in Mississippi.
Jaemyn and Brandon met in West Virginia.
And if you’re one of those people who is convinced NIL has ruined college athletics, I hope you’ll let me tell you this story about them, because it’s a story about a young man named Jaemyn who is maximizing his value via NIL to improve his own life, obviously, but also to literally change the life of a teenager named Brandon, who has moved to Mississippi to take advantage of the better environment Jaemyn can provide.
“I’ve always been like a big brother to people because my brother took me under his wing — and other people also did that for me when I was younger,” Jaemyn explained. “It’s always been natural for me to kind of gravitate towards people who kinda need somebody to look up to. So I’ve just taken on that role.”
And could he have done it without NIL?
“No,” Jaemyn answered quickly. “Not a single bit.”
Jaemyn and Brandon met about eight years ago at Huntington Prep in West Virginia, where Brakefield developed into a five-star prospect like previous Huntington Prep standouts Andrew Wiggins, Thomas Bryant and Keldon Johnson while playing for coach Arkell Bruce.
Brandon is Bruce’s nephew.
“Brandon was basically like the manager of our team,” Jaemyn said. “He was always around his uncle. So he was always around the team.”
Brandon was, at the time, growing up in West Virginia without his father in his home (or even in his state) the same way Jaemyn spent the early part of his life growing up in Wisconsin without his father in his home (or even in his state). That shared experience helped connect them.
“I see a lot of myself in him,” Jaemyn said.
Photos provided by Jaemyn Brakefield
Ask Jaemyn who the male role model was in his early life, and the name you’ll get is Andrew Knaack. That’s the big brother he referenced earlier — a 39 year-old veteran who served in Iraq and is 15 years Jaemyn’s senior. When Jaemyn was young, again, his father lived out of state. So it was Andrew who shot basketball with him, threw the football with him and generally showed him attention.
“Jaemyn is such a good-hearted person,” Andrew said. “He wants to give and give and give. Because, you know, his childhood, growing up, wasn’t easy. There were so many people who helped him. And I think this is his way of giving back and paying it forward to the next person.”
After Jaemyn left Huntington Prep to enroll at Duke under Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski, he made a point to stay in touch with Brandon. When Jaemyn transferred to Ole Miss after one season, same thing. When both had free time, they’d hop on their PS5s, play Fortnite and chat. Jaemyn would encourage Brandon to focus on school, to exercise, to do all of the things any of us would want any teenager we care about to do. Then, after Jaemyn struck a lucrative NIL deal last year to return to Ole Miss for a fifth season of college basketball, and after he realized Brandon maybe wasn’t as focused on school or in shape as much as he should be back in West Virginia, an idea popped into Jaemyn’s head.
Why not move Brandon to Oxford and change his circumstances?
“At first, it was just an idea,” Jaemyn said. “But then I could just see the joy on his face — and I could hear it in his voice, just how excited he was to make a change.”
Brandon was hesitant to leave his friends.
But, after last school year, he did it.
“Mississippi is just a way better environment [for me] than West Virginia,” Brandon said. “In West Virginia, there’s nothing to get into besides trouble, really. It’s just, like, a bad environment. So I just wanted to come here and get a fresh start.”
That’s what Jaemyn offered Brandon.
A fresh start.
So now, thanks to a nice NIL deal, Jaemyn and Brandon live together in a two-story house in Oxford. They wake up at 7 in the morning, meet downstairs and have breakfast. Jaemyn drops Brandon off at Oxford High at 8:15. He picks him up at 3:45 p.m when schoo is over. When Brandon hops into the car after school, Jaemyn always has two questions locked and loaded.
And it’s always the same two questions.
“How was your day? Brandon told me with a laugh. “You got homework?”
Curious, I asked Brandon what it’s like to be asked about his day every day.
“You don’t know how much that means to a person — just for somebody to ask,” he said.
Needless to say, Ole Miss coach Chris Beard became aware of this last Spring. He loves Jaemyn, a player he inherited a little less than two years ago after replacing Kermit Davis. And it wasn’t necessarily Beard’s place to step in. But it was worth a conversation. So he and Jaemyn had a conversation.
“The first thing I asked him was, ‘Hey, your heart’s in the right place. This sounds great. But what about you for a second? You always care about other people. What about you?'” Beard said. “Obviously, it’s an awesome story. But I wanted to talk about Brake first. And he was like, ‘Coach, I can do it.'”
And now, he’s doing it.
And Beard, for one, isn’t surprised.
“Brake’s a guy that gets up at 7. Not 10. Brake’s a guy that goes to bed at 10. Not 12. He’s really disciplined — and you have to be because Brake’s got his own life. He’s a full-time student. He’s a SEC basketball player,” Beard said. “Brake’s a guy that is similar to a few guys I’ve coached — but certainly the exception, not the rule. He spends his time thinking about life after basketball. Like, Brake and I have talked about his professional basketball career, which he’ll definitely have. But he’s a guy who’s already thinking ahead.
“One example, in last summer’s decision whether to play his last year and go to grad school or whatever, when he was in his Name, Image and Likeness conversations, there was more than just [monetary] value [discussed}. He expressed an interest in learning about real estate. He wants Oxford to be his home one day, whether that’s a second home or primary home. But he wants to be here. So this summer he spent some time with some real-estate people in town.”
This is who Jaemyn Brakefield is.
He’s not just a college basketball player you see on TV. He’s a college basketball player you see on TV who is thinking way ahead, trying to use his NIL money for good and voluntarily taking on a big responsibility because he appreciates how people did it for him when he needed it at the same age.
Jaemyn could just be enjoying life as a college student in one of our country’s greatest college towns. Instead, he’s quite literally raising a 16 year-old, trying to guide somebody he recognizes as somebody who needs guidance, and trying to help somebody the same way his older brother and others once helped him.
“I can’t think of anything this powerful,” Beard said. “We’ve had some special players mentoring somebody, a cousin or something like that. Spend a Christmas break with them. But, literally, you’re talking about, Brake goes to PTA meetings. That’s the best example I can give you. Brake goes to PTA meetings.”
The truth about being an adult, best I can tell as a father of three sons, is that your actions have a real impact on the young people around you, whether you realize it or not. It’s not something you learn as a boy or girl until you’re much older. It’s not something you understand as a parent until it’s too late.
Jaemyn has seen both sides of this.
He loves his mom and dad, learned things from both of them and is appreciative of the time he spent in Wisconsin with his mother, and in Mississippi with his father, and in West Virginia with a basketball program.
None of it was perfect.
But it could’ve been worse.
Either way, Jaemyn has never forgotten how his older brother, Andrew, tried to be there for him when he was younger, as best he could, and now he’s trying to be that same type of strong role model for Brandon. Without the money his name, image and likeness deal has provided at Ole Miss, none of this would be possible. But with it, it’s happening. And, by all accounts, it’s going incredibly well.
Brandon has lost 50 pounds since moving to Oxford.
His grades are up across the board. He plays football. His smiles are big.
“People all the time are like, ‘Man, you changed his life,'” Jaemyn said. “But what I tell them in return is that he’s changed mine more than anything. He’s made me more mature. To be able to help somebody grow — that’s what it’s all about. To be somebody’s big brother and take them under your wing and help them, that’s what it’s all about.”
Jaemyn Brakefield has a game at Missouri on Saturday. He’s pursuing a master’s degree. He’s chasing a Final Four. He wants to be a professional basketball player and, barring injury, will be.
He has more going on than most 24 year-olds.
So, before we finished talking, I asked Jaemyn the same question he asks Brandon each afternoon. I asked him about his day, how he’s doing, and then I asked whether he ever has regrets about taking this big responsibility on when he took it on, while pursuing another degree and chasing a Final Four.
“For sure,” Jaemyn said, and my ears perked up.
“Sometimes,” he continued, “I ask myself … if I should’ve done this earlier.”
