Garrison employee trains for international football tournament

Story and photo by Mark Heeter
U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern Public Affairs


Torrance Brown swiftly moved from one task to the next in the Kleber Gym, first pumping weights to work out his leg muscles, then moving to the gym floor for some serpentine shuffling, followed by receiving and pattern drills.

This was the hardest part, said Brown about the training.

“Once you show up for training camp, it’s not a thing where you’re doing conditioning there,” he said. “You have to go there already being conditioned. You go there and you hit the ground running and you hit the ground running hard.”

Training camp for Brown is mid-July in Stuttgart, where he will join approximately three dozen other teammates, plus coaches, with the Team USA Eagles, a club football organization that carries football to countries around the world.

Immediately after camp, the team will travel to Rome, Italy, where they will play against teams from Italy, Spain and Denmark, countries where interest in football is rapidly growing, Brown said.

The club “was founded to promote the development of the sport of American football within the United States as well as with our friends who play the sport internationally within their respective countries,” according to the team’s website.

For Brown, a contract specialist with U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern, playing for the team — which he joined in 2005 — is about doing something he loves for his country.

“We’re a group of guys that gets together once or twice a year. We’re doing this not for ourselves, but for our country,” he said. “I was a Soldier for my country. Now I get to represent my country doing something that I love.”