April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Moments after this weekend’s National Football League draft, if not sooner, the evaluation gurus will yak endlessly about which teams won and which ones flopped.

Here’s a prediction: Whichever franchise has the good sense to recognize that running back Donald Brown is a must-have talent will be among the winners.

That conclusion has nothing to do with Brown’s football skills, which are considerable. It has nothing to do with his having led the nation in rushing this past season at the University of Connecticut. And it has nothing to do with his 18 touchdowns, either.

It’s based on a 22-year-old’s stated goal of being a role model, of staying humble and, more than anything else, improving the lives of others.

What we have here is the rare would-be professional football player who impresses more with his acumen than his athletic ability.

Spend some time chatting with Brown, his coach, Randy Edsall, and his mother, Lisa, and it becomes obvious that this is a kid who’ll never carry a gun into a nightclub. Or anywhere. He won’t drive drunk. He won’t fight dogs. And, unlike Adam “Pacman” Jones, he won’t be found tossing wads of cash at strippers, either.

What he will do is work harder than everyone else. He’ll be on time. He’ll make his teammates better. He’ll donate time. He’ll make the owner proud. Fans, too.

Gotcha Game

When will NFL teams learn that character counts, especially now that anyone with a mobile phone is just a point-and-click away from losing the game of gotcha.

Just ask Michael Phelps.

“In this day and age of YouTube, organizations don’t want to be embarrassed,” Edsall told me the other day. “What people are starting to understand is that leopards don’t change their spots.”

Donald Brown will never be one of Burress’s buddies or Pacman’s posse.

To understand how and why Brown got grounded you have to know that his mother, a legal secretary, and his father, a car sales manager, never put football first.

They cared, first and foremost, about good grades, then good games. It wasn’t solely about the letter grade; mom’s expectations were B or better. Brown recalled his struggles with a high-school accounting class. He still remembers the lesson learned.

“It was always about putting forth your best effort,” he said.

Misplaced Priorities

That explains Brown’s fury after Connecticut’s 38-12 loss at North Carolina in October. When it was over Brown told Edsall that some players had placed partying ahead of preparation.

“He said ‘Coach, I’ll take care of it,’” Edsall recalled.

He did.

While other would-be millionaires are making plans for their draft-day celebrations, Brown is preparing to host Thursday’s inaugural Donald Brown Player-to-Player Leadership Conference, which he described as a mentoring seminar for athletes.

Applicants were asked to submit an essay about someone who had inspired them. In all, 86 athletes from New Jersey were chosen from the more than 200 applications. Brown read them all.

Travis from Middletown South High School wrote about his 15-year-old friend, Greg, who is battling cancer.

“Greg’s championship is probably living life to the fullest every day,” wrote Travis, whose last name isn’t included because applicants didn’t agree to have their letters published. “Greg’s courage and strength lead me to being the best I can be every day.”

NFL Knuckleheads

Craig from Red Bank Catholic, Brown’s alma mater, wrote a tearjerker about his late cousin the teacher, basketball coach and athletic director. “In the classroom, on the court or my couch he was always trying to help the people around him do the right thing.”

The NFL is rife with examples of knuckleheads who run afoul of the law and ignore team rules. It’s no wonder that Commissioner Roger Goodell thought it prudent to implement tougher penalties for serial violators of the league’s code-of- conduct policies.

Maybe owners would care more about character if they viewed it as an economic issue. A 2007 poll conducted by Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, found that scandals in professional athletics have left fans increasingly indifferent to sports.

Start Laughing

You had to laugh when the Cincinnati Bengals, of all teams, earlier this month signed defensive tackle Tank Johnson, who was suspended for half the 2007 season after violating probation on a weapons charge. These are the same Bengals who during the 2006 season had nine players arrested, and promised better.

As for Brown, the NFL had four of its so-called experts conduct a mock draft on the league’s Web site. Only one had Brown being drafted in the first round, 31st overall, by Arizona. According to his evaluation, scouts are concerned about the lack of NFL success from previous players out of UConn, which is known for producing basketball stars.

“In the society we live in today,” Brown says, “a lot of people make the wrong decisions.”

NFL general managers included.

(Scott Soshnick is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Scott Soshnick in New York at ssoshnick@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 21, 2009 00:01 EDT