Sam Pittman opens up on desire to help Greg Brooks Jr.'s family after medical emergency

LSU defensive back Greg Brooks Jr. missed last week’s game due to emergency surgery removing a brain tumor. The Louisiana native has been a critical part of the Tigers secondary since transferring closer to home in 2022.

Over the past several days, Brooks’ impact on the field has been overshadowed by positive stories about his character off the field from friends and family, as well as coaches and teammates.

Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman, who coached Greg Brooks Jr. in 2020 and 2021, expressed his desire to help the family in any way possible.

“If it’s at all possible, if I thought that it would help him, I certainly would,” Pittman said. “Would do a lot of things.”

While Pittman would like to provide whatever support needed to the Brooks family, he also acknowledged the complex position he is in, given his profession.

NCAA rules limit contact between coaches and opposing players, making it difficult for Pittman to meet with the family during his trip to Louisiana.

“I can’t really answer that right now because I haven’t spoke with coach (Brian) Kelly,” Pittman said on a potential visit with the Brooks family. “I want to make sure that, I don’t want to overstep any type of boundaries there and things of that nature. I want to have high respect for him and their program as well.

“At this moment I don’t have plans to see him, but I’m not telling you that we haven’t talked about it and that it’s not in the works, as well.”

Sam Pittman raves about Greg Brooks Jr.

Sam Pittman said his players will be doing their part to honor Greg Brooks Jr. with how they play.

“It’s amazing, you have to continue to play hard, you have to play in honor just like LSU did last week, in honor of Greg, and there’s certainly a big part of that on our team,” Pittman said. “We’re very competitive, we want to win, we want to do all that, but tragedy’s put in our life we have to honor those times and that’s what we’re going to do.”

In five years across the two schools, Brooks has totaled 186 tackles, 9.0 tackles for a loss, a sack, a forced fumble, six interceptions and 19 pass breakups.

“He was a wonderful teammate here and I could not think of one negative thing to say about him or his family,” Pittman said. “So it’s tough, our kids know it as well, but all we can do is represent him in the way that we play.”