Micah Brown is participating in training camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers through the NFL's Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship.Tori Richman/Tampa Bay Buccaneers/Supplied
Coaching trees have long been a defining feature on the sidelines of the National Football League.
From Tom Landry to Bill Parcells to Bill Belichick, legendary, Super Bowl-winning coaches have often provided the inspiration and education for the next generation of the sport’s most successful leaders.
Down at the training camp of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, which opened late last month, the latest offshoot from the coaching tree of the legendary late San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh might be taking root.
Micah Brown, who was once on the practice squad of the Toronto Argonauts, and is currently employed as the defensive backs coach and assistant special teams co-ordinator at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Que., is with the Buccaneers through the end of preseason as one of five training camp fellows from the 2026 Buccaneers national coaching academy.
It’s his second time down in Florida this year, as the 40-year-old was one of 25 aspiring coaches selected from over 3,000 applicants to take part in a week-long crash course during rookie minicamp in May.
And for Brown, who is there as part of the league-wide Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship, the connection to the three-time Super Bowl-winning head coach runs deeper than you might think.
Growing up, his youth football coach was former NFL receiver Freddie Solomon, who had played for Walsh in San Francisco.
“He used to tell us stories, and it’s just like, man, this old man. What is he talking about, you know what I mean,” Brown said. “Like, whatever. He used to tell us he taught Jerry Rice everything he knows. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
“And decades later, we find out it to be true, right?”
Once a member of the Argonauts' practice squad, Brown, 40, is now a position coach at Bishop's University.Tori Richman/Tampa Bay Buccaneers/Supplied
Solomon had actually given Brown notes from the playbook he had used under Walsh, a playbook that saw him win two Super Bowls as part of the team’s vaunted West Coast offence. But his personal connection to Walsh grew even deeper through adversity.
Brown had lost his job as receivers coach for the Saint Mary’s University Huskies in Halifax – the team he had previously quarterbacked for four years – in January, 2025, and was forced to shut down his football training facility business BATLX last October. Those two things forced him into a deep depression, and saw him seek out therapy.
While watching a recent documentary on the 49ers dynasty, Brown saw how Walsh was able to rise to glory after numerous setbacks early in his coaching career, which caused him to drop out of the NFL.
“I’m, like, crying because I’m thinking, like, man, even Bill Walsh experienced this?” he said. “And it honestly gave me a huge sense of hope.”
That hope has been bolstered by his time in Tampa, which has helped bring his career full circle. Having grown up in the city – his high school football team used to practice in the Buccaneers’ hand-me-down uniforms – and having received his first glasses courtesy of the team’s youth vision program, Brown is well acquainted with the lore of the two-time Super Bowl champion franchise.
He’s had to put in the work though – he estimates he logged 90 hours last week – and he’s generally up at 4 a.m. to begin his day.
But he adds there’s great camaraderie and everyone there aspires to be the best. He’s been able to pick the brain of coaching legends such as Tony Dungy and Bruce Arians, as well as the current Tampa head coach, Todd Bowles.
“From the first time I was here in Tampa, even through to now, one of the main things that I hear all of them say is, ‘Be you and believe in yourself,’” he said. “And like that was such a resonating moment, and that’s how I am now.”
Brown also benefited from a similar CFL program earlier this year, working with the Montreal Alouettes during their training camp in Quebec City.
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Though the resources available to CFL and NFL teams are light-years apart, he adds that he can still see similarities between the two “championship-calibre” organizations he has worked with. Montreal was in the Grey Cup last year, while Tampa is only five years removed from its last championship, when Tom Brady led the Bucs to Super Bowl success.
“Another thing that I found between them is that they … both really care about the people in the organization and on the team,” he said. “It’s people first.”
Though Brown is aiming high, and would love to be in the NFL as a coach of some description on a full-time basis, he recognizes he is surrounded by good, supportive people right now. That includes the Bucs and his employer Bishop’s – where he also teaches a course on the philosophy of coaching.
But above all is his family, including his wife Kelly, who he met while playing in Halifax at SMU, and his sons, Jha’Siah, 17, and eight-year-old Jaxon.
Both are developing into athletes in their own right, with Jha’Siah playing baseball, while Jaxon, who shoots a 74, finished 23rd in the junior world golf championships in his age group in San Diego last month.
Jaxon is also a big Patrick Mahomes fan, and is coming out to watch when Kansas City plays at Tampa Bay in preseason later this month.
After a peripatetic football career that took him around the world, playing 11 seasons in 10 different countries, Brown has the experience to show for it. He speaks German – and earned his masters while playing in Germany – as well as bits of Polish, Italian and Finnish.
He’s grateful for the opportunities that programs such as the Buccaneers national coaching academy and the NFL’s Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship have offered aspiring coaches like him. With just three Black coaches in the NFL heading into the 2026 season – including Tampa’s Bowles – he adds that those sorts of initiatives allow the sport to cast a wider net, bringing in more candidates and exposing them to the very top of the coaching profession. And who knows? Maybe even growing yet another coaching tree in the sport.
“We hear so much, especially in the NFL, about coaching trees, and this coach came from this tree, and coached with this person who’s part of that tree, and it kind of grows,” he said. “When you can add another, you can get different ends of the roots touching, you start connecting more trees together, that fabric becomes more solid and bigger.”