When Clavontae Brown tells young basketball players he’s working with to keep chasing their dreams, it’s not just words. He continues to chase his own.
Brown, 34, is a Flint Northern graduate who played collegiately at Oakland Community College, St. Andrews University in North Carolina, and Benedictine University in Illinois. St. Andrews was an NCAA Division II school when Brown played there, and Benedictine is an NAIA program. He was a double-figure scorer throughout his junior and senior seasons, before professional stints in foreign and domestic leagues. He’s played in Bosnia, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic as well as in The Basketball League (TBL), a North American semi-pro league.
Now, his involvement in basketball is primarily as a trainer and mentor to players ranging from young kids all the way to professionals. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still catch him on the court. He’s played in summer pro-am leagues, including the Moneyball Pro-Am in Lansing and the JaVale McGee Flint City Pro-Am. He also recently played in an all-star game during the M2Dsports Flintustry Boss Stars Basketball Showcase on March 21.
Part of his motivation to continue playing while he coaches and trains the next generation of players is to simply show kids, including his own nephew, that if they have big goals, they should go for them no matter what.
“It means a lot (to still be playing),” Brown said. “I got my nephew, he’s looking up to me, so that’s one of my biggest inspirations right now. Just keep going for him. So he can see it firsthand versus me just telling him.”
Brown’s brand, Talent Over Politics, is more than just the name of his basketball training and apparel business. It really captures the essence of his own journey and ups and downs playing the game he loves. It came about, in part, because he was forced to think about what life would look like beyond basketball.
“I started really thinking about entrepreneurship when I broke my leg going into my senior year of college,” Brown said. “That caused me to kind of have a different thought process. Basically like if basketball doesn’t work out, then what’s next?”
He began thinking about what that journey had been like for him, and lessons he learned along the way. The name comes from the fact that, often, in life or sports, opportunities don’t always come to the most talented or most deserving, they come to the most connected or to people who have more resources. So, for the athletes he works with, Talent Over Politics serves as a mantra about preparation, instilling a work ethic and consistency that speaks for itself over any external forces beyond an individual’s control. Or, in other words, as Brown said during an interview at the JaVale McGee Pro-Am in 2024, it’s about working so hard that you “ain’t ever the underdog.”
The brand also includes another passion: creativity. Brown, who launched Talent Over Politics around 2017, designs apparel, uniforms, and other items for sale online on his website. His apparel line also has an Instagram page.
“It was kind of like a hobby growing up, I was real into drawing and stuff,” he said. “After basketball, it kind of just came back to me. So now it’s something that’s fun and I love doing, giving me a chance to be creative. It helped give me that feeling with sports, like how sports was a chance to be creative and use my imagination.”
Brown trains athletes with another former Flint area basketball standout Jarell “Buddy” Brown Sr., who played at Beecher. The two aren’t blood relatives, but Clavontae Brown describes Buddy as his “brother.” Together, they’re preparing for their second Talent Over Politics (TOP) Summer Grind Academy as the school year ends.
The academy is for basketball players in 6th-8th grade, but Brown said it will also accept students who are entering ninth grade this year. The program runs June 22-August 20. The curriculum is heavy on basketball, with competitive ball-handling, shooting, 1-on-1 drills, and controlled scrimmages. But it is also meant to teach healthy habits beyond basketball. They introduce kids to things like yoga and nutrition, strength and agility training, and even tutoring and financial literacy and business concepts as well as media training. Registration for the academy is online and is limited to 15 participants to maximize the attention each receives. People with questions about training or the academy can reach Brown on Facebook or Instagram.
“Overall, we’re just trying to support being disciplined, having a schedule, and being consistent,” Brown said. “When we get out into the world, you have to value your time and have a routine. Part of the program, I have a financial literacy class. I have other things like little worksheets and stuff, like just for them to learn about entrepreneurship. I have them research what it costs to start up this business? What materials do you need? Come up with a name. Just little stuff like that. Just to get their minds thinking outside of basketball.”
Although Brown wants kids in the program to be able to envision other paths outside of sports, he’s also careful to not extinguish any dreams. Not everyone makes it to the NBA or professional level, but there are plenty of things kids can learn by pursuing lofty goals like that. On his own path, he learned some of those lessons and earned other opportunities by not giving up.
“I feel like it’s really important (to show them other possibilities), but you don’t want to crush their dream of making it,” Brown said. “You just want to give them other options. I didn’t imagine it (his career) like this, going to different countries and stuff, my goal was to just play in the NBA. As far as playing abroad, I never really thought about it. I didn’t even know it was such a thing until I got a little older. Working with kids is just me getting to stay around the game. I have a passion for helping them get to the next level and do what they want to do and aspire to do. And then it’s good for me because I’ve been there already and I can kind of coach them through it and give different viewpoints. I’ve been at different levels. I have been the star player, I have been on the bench. But you just gotta really stay consistent and keep going. Then the work will really show.”
Now that he’s worked with numerous players over the years and seen them develop at middle, high school, and even college and professional levels, Brown loves being able to check in and watch them play and see how they’re doing.
“I always give the credit to them,” he said. “I’m just really guiding them and giving them the tools, at the end of the day, they have to put the work in. I like to go and check out their games during the season and see how they’re doing just to support. It’s really dope to see.”
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