As a high school student, Daniel Brooks was known for being the fastest kid everywhere he went.
At RHS, he won a 2011 Class 3A state championship in the 100-meter dash his junior year.
When he transferred to Port Lavaca’s Calhoun High School that fall, he helped lead the Sandcrab football team three rounds deep into the postseason with 1,305 rushing yards.
Even before the Rockdale native did all that, he caught the eye of Brent Venables, who was then the associate head football coach at the University of Oklahoma.
For a kid whose dream it was to play in the National Football League, heading to a school with 50 conference titles seemed like the right place to be. Two months before becoming a state champ, Brooks committed to the Sooners.
However, 2012 is when things changed. Venables left Oklahoma in January and Brooks tore his ACL that spring at a track meet. Between the coaching change and arriving in Norman injured, Brooks had the odds stacked against him.
After a series of concussions, he retired four games into his red-shirt senior season after telling The Oklahoman that people he knew had friends that kept playing after concussions in his state and now “couldn’t even count money.”
Brooks bounced back in March of 2017 and had a NFL draft workout. Although it didn’t go the way he had hoped, he got to end his career on his terms.
Brooks talked about his career across the Red River.
“I wasn’t handled well,” Brooks told The Reporter. “Coach Venables left and I feel like the coaches focused more on my flaws than my strengths.”
“I probably should’ve transferred to Oklahoma State or another school. But the most important thing is that I’m not bitter, I just felt that I earned the right to be rewarded,” he said.
Nowadays, Brooks is a professional working as a medical support supervisor at a hospital in Houston. With a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in human resources development, the Rockdale native has his ambitions set on fields far from Tiger Stadium.
“A lot of people don’t know those things about me or what I’m up to these days because I don’t post on social media often,” Brooks said. “But I did my pro-day and that didn’t work out, I went to graduate school and got into working after that.”
“I spend a lot of time thinking about law school or getting my MBA, but I’m not trying to rush into either one,” he said. “I also thought about a career in politics, but I don’t really want to put my family’s safety at risk.”
Brooks also talked about his time as a collegiate athlete and how things have progressed for athletes recently.
“Now it’s changing,” Brooks said. “But there’s still a lot to be done.”
“Yes, they have scholarships and room and board paid for, but a lot of people don’t know that college athletes have 15-16 hour days, seven days a week for four, five, sometimes six years straight and during that time they can’t work a job, can’t major in what they want to major in or take paid internships that help them get to where they need to be in life after football,” he said. “I remember when I was at OU, there were former players that you’d see homeless around Norman.”
Brooks added later that he thought about getting into Oklahoma’s premedicine program, but knew the classes would interfere with his practice schedule.
He also has advice for prospective athletes in Rockdale.
“Learn to grow,” he said. “Don’t think sports is the only way. There’s much more to life than coming back to Rockdale and being the man.”
He is the son of Tony and Sharon Brooks of Rockdale and is an RHS Class of 2012 graduate.
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