`Man on a Mission'
Brooks' return to Tennessee had a lot to do with the player so many compared him to.
Then last fall, Brooks saw Al Wilson for the first time in seven years. The former Tennessee great told Brooks he should go finish his degree. According to Brooks, Wilson even offered to pay his tuition.
So Brooks enrolled at UT for the spring semester this year and paid his own way. Then he took Wilson's advice and approached athletic director Mike Hamilton about joining Tennessee's Renewing Academic Commitment program, which provides financial aid to former student-athletes who return to school.
"Everybody can't do it," said West, who kept in contact with Brooks throughout his time at Jackson State. "There is limited funding. We can't take everybody every year."
Brooks made his case to the RAC committee, and met individually with Hamilton before he was given financial aid for summer classes.
"Daniel came in humbly, and apologetic in some ways, but with a determination that he was going to prove that he was willing to finish his academic career," Hamilton said. "That made an impression on me."
Over the summer, Brooks completed the final 21 hours he needed to graduate. And he did it while working in the athletic department, a condition of receiving funding from the RAC program.
"He was a man on a mission when he came back," West said.
`All You Got'
These days, Brooks is a college graduate. He's even thought about returning for a second degree.
And he's a married father of two boys, 5-year-old Ayden LaDerrick Brooks and 4-year-old Daniel Brooks Jr.
He loves both his sons. And he wants them both to hear good things about their father.
"That's what I want people to say to my kids - your dad was a good man, a good guy, a hell of an athlete, and he graduated from UT," Brooks says. "Not your dad was a troublemaker. I don't want them to have to go through that. That's a lot."
Then Brooks pauses. This next part, he knows about all too well.
"When kids start being compared to people, they kind of take that on," Brooks said. "That's bad stuff I don't want them to be compared to."
But there's good stuff, too. And Brooks wants to make sure both his boys can be proud of the names he's given them.
"I'm going to try to lead them in the right direction so they can avoid some of the same mistakes I made," he says. "That's been the whole thing since I left here, rebuild your name, rebuild your name.
"My whole thing is your name is all you got."
