The story sounds like a tall tale, considering what happened in the months and years afterward.

On his first day of football practice at Millsaps College, in the summer of 1989, a 5-foot-10, 240-pound freshman defensive tackle named Sean Brewer had his name called to participate in an Oklahoma drill.

Brewer lined up across from center Steve Marinelli. His objective in the one-on-one lineman drill was to get past Marinelli and to the quarterback. Marinelli’s job was to prevent that from happening until the whistle blew or one of them was beaten. What happened next, for those who witnessed it, is the stuff of legend.

“He transformed somehow,” Paul Grace, a defensive back, said of Brewer. “It was like this monster motor that clicked on, and he just blew this guy up.”

Brewer hit Marinelli and the veteran center flew backward, landing flat on his back.

“The quarterback and I are looking at each other and everybody went crazy,” Brewer said.

All of Brewer’s teammates, Grace said, had the same question on their lips.

“It was like, ‘Who is this guy?’” Grace said. “To this day I had never seen anything like it. It was literally like a monster truck up against a regular car.”

Jim Page, the longtime Millsaps baseball coach, was moonlighting as the school’s secondary coach when Brewer played football there from 1989-92. He couldn’t remember that specific drill, but it wasn’t because Brewer had failed to make an impression.

“I remember it happening over and over again, so I don’t know which one it was,” Page said.

And with that, a legend was born.

Brewer, the Redwood native and former Warren Central star, went on to become the best defensive lineman that Millsaps — and perhaps small college football as a whole — has ever seen. He started every game for four years and was a three-time All-American. He holds three school records that still stand. The award given to the best defensive lineman in Division III is named after him.

On Tuesday, he’ll join the true pantheon of college football legends when he’s inducted as part of the College Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2015 at a banquet in New York City. Among the others in the 17-member class are former Oklahoma linebacker Brian Bosworth, Texas running back Ricky Williams and former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel.

Brewer is the third player from Warren County selected to the College Hall of Fame. Carr Central’s George Morris (Georgia Tech) was inducted in 1981, and Vicksburg High’s Kevin Dent (Jackson State) in 2006.

“It’s humbling. I don’t know how to describe that,” said Brewer, who is now a high school principal in Madison. “Many times I question myself, asking ‘How do you fit with this group on this stage?’ But I’m proud to represent Millsaps and help the program gain some respect. And of course, the first thing I hope is that it brings recognition to Jesus.”

A foundation for success

On the one hand, it seems like Brewer was destined for greatness.

His mother, Anita, once dated Elvis Presley. His father, Johnny, was a star football player at Ole Miss and went on to play 10 years in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns and New Orleans Saints.

Johnny Brewer, a tight end, won an NFL championship with the Browns in 1964, was selected to play in the Pro Bowl in 1966, and was inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Sean Brewer will be inducted in the MSHOF in its 2016 class in July.

“Both my parents seemed to be public figures. Wherever I went, somebody knew Dad,” Sean Brewer said. “It was always interesting topics and conversations, but to us they were Mom and Dad. I knew Dad played football, but it wasn’t something we talked about all the time.”

Johnny Brewer coached his son’s football team at Redwood Elementary, as well as his YMCA team and later in life as an assistant at Millsaps, but never pressured Sean to play.

“Johnny never pressured him. He just gave all kinds of help where he could,” Anita Brewer said.

For a long time, it seemed like no amount of help would be enough for Sean when it came to football. He arrived at Warren Central as a 5-foot-6, 150-pound freshman. He barely played in seventh and eighth grade, got on the field for one game as a freshman, and one game as a sophomore.

“For about 25 seconds,” Brewer laughed about his sophomore playing time.

Now, Brewer said, he understands that there were simply players better than him on the roster. At the time, when he was working hard and never getting to play in a game, he often questioned whether he wanted to keep playing football.

“That’s hard to take when you’re 14 years old. The 14-, 15-year-old doesn’t have the maturity level to understand that there’s good things coming,” he said.

Encouraged by his father to stick with it, Brewer soon saw his patience, hard work and faith pay off. He grew about three inches and put on 40 pounds between his sophomore and junior year, and the growth spurt coincided with a number of linemen graduating.

Brewer played fullback and linebacker early in his high school career, but was moved to offensive guard for the 1987 season. By the midway point of the season he was a starter, and another growth spurt in the spring and summer of 1988 allowed him to play both offense and defense his senior year.

As a senior, Brewer truly blossomed. He led Warren Central to the 1988 Class 5A championship, made the All-State team and played in the Mississippi-Alabama All-Star Game.

“He got up in the morning during those August practices, and after we got done he’d run for another 20 or 30 minutes in Openwood. Then he’d lift weights outside of what we’d done,” said Curtis Brewer, Warren Central’s defensive coordinator when Sean Brewer played for the Vikings. Curtis and Sean Brewer are not related. “His senior year he was just absolutely outstanding. He went both ways, and if they didn’t double team him he was going to be there.”

Sean Brewer said the hard times early in his high school career prepared him well for the better times later on.

“I went from not playing for 2 ½ years, to now I’m playing almost every snap,” Brewer said. “I learned a lot in those years. In those stinking hard practices, when you’re sweating, when you’re hot, that life can stink sometimes. You work hard, grit your teeth and keep working and keep on keeping on.”

Despite his success playing for a championship team in Mississippi’s largest high school classification, Brewer was still an undersized defensive tackle. Few colleges offered him a football scholarship.

Ole Miss expressed some interest, but Brewer suspects it was as a favor to his father. Troy offered a partial scholarship. Hinds Community College offered a full ride, but Brewer — who ranked 43rd out of a class of more than 500 — preferred to go to a four-year school rather than a junior college.

Then, in the spring of 1989, someone suggested to Johnny Brewer that they take a look at Millsaps.

“That began something we started looking into,” Sean Brewer said. “The more I settled on the fact an athletic scholarship wasn’t coming, the more I settled on what might come of this.”

As a Division III school, Millsaps does not offer athletic scholarships. Brewer said his grades allowed it to put together a strong financial aid package, however, and the school’s coaches and officials recruited him hard.

“Even though they don’t do athletic scholarships, they did a good job of making me feel important,” Brewer said. “They put together a package that put together as many things as they possibly could. I got the feeling like this feels right. This is something where I can pursue an athletic career and get a first-class education.”

It didn’t take long for Brewer to reward everyone at Millsaps for their faith in him, and to show other programs what they’d missed out on.

Instincts, work make a legend

Brewer’s turn at the Oklahoma drill on that first day of practice turned heads, but it was the little things that turned him into a force of nature that was both feared and respected throughout all of Division III.

“I never played with somebody that had that good of a football IQ,” Grace said. “He could look at a guy’s knuckles and see if they were turned purple to tip off a run. Or if they were leaning back he called out ‘pass, pass, pass!’”

Flint Minshew, who started alongside Brewer at defensive tackle for three seasons and is also a member of the Millsaps Sports Hall of Fame, said Brewer’s quickness was remarkable.

“We both played defensive tackle, but nobody wanted to play us in two-on-two basketball,” Minshew said. “His strong suit was blowing plays up and penetrating. There were times when he would make plays on the quarterback when he was handing the ball off.”

Page recalled a film session a few days after a game against Emory & Henry, whose coaches had shuffled their offensive line specifically to handle Brewer. They’d matched him up with an All-America offensive tackle who blindsided Brewer early in the game.

Millsaps head coach Tommy Ranager rewound the tape and showed that play over and over, to the point that everyone in the room was becoming uncomfortable.

“Now,” Page recalled Ranager saying, “Watch this.”

Ranager finally showed the next play on the tape. Brewer crushed the All-American and made a tackle.

“It let me know that not only could Sean take it, but he could dish it, too,” Page said.

Just as he had benefited from a lack of depth on the line to move up Warren Central’s depth chart, Brewer did the same at Millsaps. The junior and senior class was thin on talent, and he was a starter from day one.

It wasn’t long before Brewer realized he could excel at the next level.

“I got a real sense the first couple of weeks how prepared I was coming through a program like Warren Central,” he said. “We had 2,200 kids in the school the year I graduated. You think about how many play football, and then how many start, and then here you are still playing after all of that. By the time you make it through the last bunch of games and win a state championship, you’ve gone through a lot of blood and battles to make it.”

As he became more comfortable and confident in his abilities, Brewer looked for every conceivable angle to take his dominance to the next level. Intensive film study and a keen eye allowed him to pick up on subtle clues even his opponents might not realize they had given.

The tiniest scrap of body language, like an offensive lineman darting his eyes in the direction the play was headed, the way they put weight on one leg or another, or a running back hesitating for a moment before going in motion all turned into neon light-level indicators when processed by Brewer.

“It’s hard to put your finger on what made him so good, because he’s not a big or fast guy with his 40 time,” Minshew said. “But he was super quick and way ahead of his time as far as game preparation. He seemed to know what the other team was going to do. He had very good instincts. I think his dad helped him with that.”

Even more, Brewer became aware of his own tells and started integrating them into his game. He’d twitch to make an opponent think he was heading left, then beat him to the right side. He developed a poker face when recognizing some tells in order to take advantage of them.

“You start integrating those things, and if you’re capable you start to figure them out. About 75 percent of the time I had a sense of what the offense was going to do and where they were going based on those nuances,” Brewer said. “Then it’s a matter of how good can you get? That’s the drive that you get. Whatever you’re doing, do it unto the Lord with excellence.”

Brewer got very good, very fast.

He was a first-team All-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference selection all four years at Millsaps. In 1990, ’91 and ’92 he was an All-American. He’s one of only five players in Division III history to be a three-time first-team All-American, and the only defensive lineman to do it.

“It was a huge surprise to me when they called me over to the sports complex and said we have something we have to talk about,” Brewer said. “The sports information director, Trey Porter, told me, ‘You’ve been selected to the All-America team.’ I was floored. I never did any of the work with that in mind.”

As Brewer’s reputation grew, so did the respect opponents showed him. He was double- and triple-teamed nearly every game his junior and senior seasons, yet still was a dominant force.

Brewer’s 435 career tackles rank fourth in conference history, and he owns the SCAC and school records for solo tackles in a season, with 99 in 1992. Brewer remains Millsaps’ all-time career leader in solo tackles (332) and sacks (52). He also set the college’s single-season record with 15 sacks his senior season.

“He was doing things when he first got there that you’d see in the NFL on Sunday, like reading the blocking scheme. It was fun to watch,” Page said.

More impressive than his individual stats, however, was the impact Brewer had on his teammates.

Millsaps led Division III in pass defense in 1991, something Grace credited to Brewer and his linemates.

“That wasn’t so much anything we DBs were doing. It’s easy to catch a lame duck pass when Brewer is all over this guy,” Grace said.

Page said another of Brewer’s great assets was being smart and humble enough to know when to take a backseat. By occupying two or three blockers, it allowed someone else to exploit a one-on-one matchup and wreak the same kind of havoc.

“From your superstar, that there’s a time he was smart enough to do something different and unselfish, it was neat to see,” Page said.

“If he was taller …”

Like a lot of legends, Brewer’s teammates might have expected him to be taller. They’re also glad he wasn’t. If he had been, he might have wound up somewhere else.

“If he was three or four inches taller, we wouldn’t know who he was, personally,” Page said. “He’s as good a man off the field as he was a player on it.”

For all his dominance, there was never any question of Brewer following in his father’s footsteps to the NFL. He later went into coaching, but left his playing days well behind when he graduated from Millsaps with a business degree in 1992.

Brewer started working on his MBA at Ole Miss before realizing halfway through his first semester that it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He returned home in 1994 and took a job as a teacher and coach at Vicksburg Junior High.

A couple of years later he grew weary of the day-to-day grind of teaching and gave business another go, only to find that education was his true calling. He returned to that profession after a year off and started putting the same kind of effort into it that he’d put into football a decade earlier.

He earned his master’s degree in education from Mississippi College while working as an assistant coach at Warren Central, and in 2001 was hired as the athletic director, football coach and assistant principal at Yazoo County High School.

Stints in administration at Grenada and Ridgeland High Schools followed before he settled in as the principal at Madison’s Rosa Scott High School in 2011. He’s been there ever since. In 2010, while working at Ridgeland, he was named the NASSP/Virco principal of the year for Mississippi.

Even his family has grown through his work in education. Brewer and his wife, Margaret, recently adopted one of his students at Rosa Scott. Sadie, 14, is the couple’s third child after 10-year-old Macey and 15-year-old Abney.

“It’s great to see a kid bloom like he did. But the thing a coach likes to see is how he is as a grown man. He still has that Southern gentleman attitude. Yes sir, No sir. He’s just a great person,” Curtis Brewer said. “He’s the kind of person you’d want to be a mentor to your child.”

Sean Brewer sometimes wonders about what might have happened if he’d taken the scholarship offer from Troy, or been a little taller and gotten more serious offers from bigger schools. Those thoughts are fleeting, though.

“Other people, moreso than I have, say it. I’m certainly at peace now. I was where I was supposed to be. Professionally, I’m where I’m supposed to be,” Sean Brewer said. “There’s not a better job in the state than what I do. This is a wonderful place to raise a family. The road traveled has led me to good places.”

The Hall of Fame awaits

While he has no regrets about his life post-football, Brewer has not had a lot of luck avoiding the reminders of it.

In 2004 he was inducted to the Millsaps Sports Hall of Fame. In 2013, USA Football named its award for the best defensive lineman in Division III the Sean Brewer Award. In the summer of 2015, he was selected as part of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2016.

Also in 2013, Brewer was on the ballot for the College Football Hall of Fame for the first time. He was one of 75 players up for selection and didn’t make the final cut, so he didn’t think too much about it when he was on the ballot again the following year.

“That’s really cool to be on a ballot. That’s about as much as a D-3 person can expect,” he said.

In January 2015, Brewer was in his office at Rosa Scott, disciplining a student, when the school secretaries buzzed his phone and told him a package had arrived for him. When he didn’t go out right away, they buzzed again. Finally he went and got it, took it back to his office and opened it.

Inside was a football bearing the College Football Hall of Fame logo along with a message of congratulations.

“The National Football Foundation congratulates Sean Brewer, Millsaps College, as a member of the 2015 College Football Hall of Fame Class,” it read.

Brewer could hardly believe his eyes. He was, officially, among the best of the best.

“I’m still kind of shocked about it today, as I was that day,” Brewer said. “It was about a week before the official announcement, and they told us not to tell anybody. I called my wife and mama, and that was it.”

His mother said he took it in stride.

“If they ask, he’ll talk about it of course,” Anita Brewer said. “He’s just very thankful and appreciative. It was a big shock. He was just amazed by that honor.”

While it soaked in, Sean Brewer said he naturally thought of his father. Johnny Brewer had invested a lot of time in his children, going as far as serving as a volunteer assistant coach while Sean played at Millsaps.

Johnny, as well as other family members, made a number of long road trips from Mississippi to places like Virginia and San Antonio just to watch Sean play. Johnny died in 2011 and didn’t get to see his son receive one of the sport’s top honors, but there’s no doubt in Sean’s mind what his reaction would have been.

“He would be absolutely beaming,” Sean Brewer said. “Dad was at the elite level of all elite levels. But for us, whatever we accomplished it seemed like it was a whole other level of happiness for him. I heard him brag on me and defend me, saying that I was the best player in the state. I know, without a shadow of a doubt — and Mom has told me 100 times — how proud of me he would be.”

Johnny Brewer isn’t the only one.

Grace said he and a group of former teammates planned to go to the Hall of Fame ceremony in New York and present Brewer with a Millsaps helmet signed by former players and coaches. Brewer’s induction, Grace said, is a victory for all of them as well as Millsaps and Division III football in general. Brewer is the first Millsaps player elected to the Hall.

“Every guy I got to sign it said thanks for including me. It’s not just an individual award,” Grace said.

Brewer agreed, saying all of his accomplishments are as much the result of his teammates’ effort as his own.

“Because a Murray Meadows or a Paul Grace was covering guys so well, we had a little longer to get to the quarterback. Because Flint Minshew was occupying somebody, it helped me,” Brewer said. “It’s a team sport. This wouldn’t have happened without those other guys, without being in the right spot at that time to play alongside them.”

Throughout his life, it seems, Brewer has been in the right place at the right time. Some of it has been luck — his timely growth spurts, the lack of depth at Warren Central and Millsaps — and some has been his own making.

Brewer was driven to always be the best. To find an edge, and a way to win. To not give up when he most wanted to. It paid off handsomely, and now he truly is the best of the best.

“There’s always plans and avenues that the Lord says, ‘If you stick it out, I’ll reward you,’” Brewer said. “It’s a sense that things are always going to be OK. You can get through any challenge. I can always tell the kids on the ninth grade team don’t quit if you like it, because things can always change. I’m proof of that.”