The Brix Brothers of Logan
Don Harrold, Executive Editor
editor@enterprisepub.com
Logan is a special place for me. My great-great-great-grandfather, Henry Reel, founded the town. My great-grandmother was born there, and her daughter, my grandmother, was born in Logan, New Mexico. When my wife and I had our second son, we named him Logan, after both towns. So when I learned that two brothers from Logan were playing college football in Lincoln at two different schools, I knew what to call them: the Brix Brothers.
Grady and Grant Brix grew up in the country outside Logan and played for coach Matt Straight at Logan-Magnolia High School. Both are now offensive linemen in Lincoln, a few miles apart, wearing back-to-back numbers. Grant, a junior, is a 6-foot-6, 315-pound lineman who wears No. 66 for the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. Grady, a freshman, is a 6-foot, 295-pound lineman who wears No. 65 for Nebraska Wesleyan University, the NCAA Division III school on Lincoln's northeast side.
On Saturday, Oct. 3, their teams played hours apart. Wesleyan fell to Wartburg 69-26, and Nebraska beat Maryland 49-23 at Memorial Stadium.
Grady was on the sideline at Wesleyan Saturday with a sprained ankle. "I'm more of an emergency situation 'cause I sprained my ankle two weeks ago," he said.
He said the smaller school fits him. "It's definitely different, and I like it 'cause it's a smaller school," Grady said. "That's more my speed, and I just enjoy that. But it's definitely bigger than my town."
Home is about as rural as it gets. "My town's not very big. It's maybe 1,200 people," he said. "I live in the country, so this is a little different. It is very different from living in the country. I'm surrounded by cornfields. The trees remind me of home a little bit, but I do love this campus a lot 'cause it is very beautiful."
Asked whether he's a hometown hero in Logan, Grady laughed. "No, no, not really," he said. "My brother, though, on the other hand …"
The biggest adjustment from high school has been the speed of the game. "The speed of the game is a lot quicker," Grady said. "If you don't acclimate to the speed, you're going to get run over. And Coach Murphy has prepared us for that very well, and I think everything's gonna go pretty good."
He has a lot of respect for his offensive line coach. "I think Coach Murphy's a very good coach. I respect him a lot," Grady said. "He knows what he's doing, and I think he's gonna lead this O-line to many great things."
Given the chance to speak to readers back home, Grady thought first of his high school coach. "Thanks, Coach Straight, for giving me a chance in high school," he said. "And I hope to maybe see some people at our games sometime."
Wesleyan assistant coach Jacob Donahoe grew up in Williamsburg, Iowa, about 20 miles west of Iowa City, and sees himself in Grady.
"Coaching Grady is awesome," Donahoe said. "It reminds me of back when I was in high school. I came from a small town in Iowa, and being able to coach a farm kid … attention to detail with everything has given him the opportunity to come in here and compete really early in his career."
Donahoe was hired in January. With little time to recruit, he met Grady and his family on campus rather than in Logan, and he has gotten to know them since. He grew up showing cattle, and that subject came up quickly when he talked with the family after a September game in Chicago.
"They talked to me a little bit about, 'Oh, okay, is there any good show cattle out there around?'" Donahoe said. "Just being able to talk and building relationships like that has been huge, and it's awesome that we got him here. That's what it's all about for us, is the relationships. Great people."
Donahoe said Grady's personality has made the move from rural Iowa an easy one. "He has a great personality to be able to fit with any environment that he's in, and being able to come in and make the most out of every single environment that he is a part of," he said. "That's why I think football is amazing, is being able to come to a college and have new friends that could be grown up in a totally different state, even country."
He said Wesleyan offers a small-town feel inside a capital city. "It's kind of the best of both worlds," Donahoe said. "You've got a smaller community kind of on this northeast side of town, and then you're five minutes away from downtown."
Grant arrived at Nebraska as one of the most highly recruited linemen in the country. He was a high school All-American who played in the All-American Bowl and a consensus pick as Iowa's top player, and On3 ranked him the nation's No. 2 interior offensive lineman. At Logan-Magnolia he also placed seventh in the shot put at the state track meet and qualified for state in wrestling. At Nebraska he has been named Academic All-Big Ten and selected for the Tom Osborne and Brook Berringer citizenship teams, and he is on track to graduate in May 2027 with a management degree.
After Saturday's win, inside the Hawks Championship Center, Grant said Lincoln isn't so different from home. "Lincoln kind of feels like a small town vibe," he said. "It's a little bigger, but there's good people in both. If you just spend time and get in the community, like I got a good church I go to. Obviously, my teammates, they're all amazing, and I'm just, you know, blessed to be plugged in to such a good system."
College football is the same game at heart, he said, but it never stops. "It's different, yet it's still football at heart," Grant said. "There's a lot more to learn, but at the same time, it's kinda what you do year-round. You pick it up and you kinda just keep learning it and relearning it till it's ingrained in you. Whereas in high school, you'd play football and then you'd go wrestle and then you'd go throw track. Here, it's a year-round thing."
The jump in competition is real. "All of my teammates, we were the best at our high schools," Grant said. "It's the next level, and it's called the next level for a reason. A lot of it's mental, too. In high school, you could probably get away with maybe not being as intentional with things and just using size and explosion and power. Here, everyone's good."
Grant said Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule focuses on growing his players as men. "My high school coach did a good job of that, but it's so much more frequent, and we see it dang near every day," he said. "The message is football and life."
One lesson has stuck with him above the rest. "He always talks about, I think it's from Proverbs, 'As iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another,'" Grant said. "No matter your role, no matter your job, you have to be 100% locked in. You gotta bring everything for the team every day. You help each other grow."
His faith, he said, is central. "Oh, it's very important to me," Grant said. "It's grown a lot since I've come to school here. You could be 50, 60 years old and still be an infant in terms of your spiritual maturity. It's an ongoing process."
The two see each other often. Grady said he goes to Grant's house "quite a bit" and has watched him play at Memorial Stadium. Grant hasn't made it to a Wesleyan game yet. "One of these days he probably will show up soon," Grady said.
"It's great having him in town. I can hang out with him," Grant said. "It's good to just be able to spend time with him. Every now and then we'll just pull up some film and talk through it."
Before Grant's game Saturday, Grady had a message for him: "Good luck in his game, and have fun today." Nebraska won by 26.
Asked how Coach Rhule would describe him, Grant wouldn't guess. "I suppose you'd have to go ask Coach Rhule," he said with a laugh. "I wouldn't wanna put words out there."
Each brother had a final word for Logan. "Just maybe come support us here and there," Grady said. "We're not too far from Logan. It's a little over an hour." Grant kept it short: "Go Big Red."
Both were humble and soft-spoken, and they were gracious to my photographer, Kendra Powers, and me. As a father, I'd be proud to have sons like them. Jim and Attalee Brix should be.
Logan, you can be proud of the Brix Brothers.
