Maurice Brown II lived on three continents before he had a driver's license.

His typical day in Darmstadt, Germany started at around 8 a.m. Breakfast with other kids his age, different ones every day representing six other countries besides the United States.

Then onto an activity, usually a team-building or conversation exercise centered around the daily theme. Always something to do with conflict resolution, cultural diversity and global understanding. Lunch, more activities, dinner, bed. Up the following day and at it again.

This was life for the future South Carolina walk-on tight end, spending his summer as a 14-year-old in a CISV (Children's International Summer Villages) program. It was his first of two summers abroad, living in another summer village in India a year later.

"It's a peace education program," Brown's former teacher Kandice Lee told GamecockScoop. "You come to a country and you're met by other countries, you do activities that show the issues in your country and we talk collectively about how we can solve those problems. Most of the things we did were centered around building peace and understanding in diverse groups."

The football obsession was already strong, but never all-consuming. There was always more to see, more to do and especially more to learn in every arena.

"Obviously as a walk-on he's had to compete and find ways to shine and look for opportunities to contribute," Brown's mom Tabitha told GamecockSoop. "I think part of his participation in things like CISV have taught him to excel and remain committed in the midst of adversity."

Make no mistake about it, though. Football was always his goal.

He started early training about three years before setting off overseas.

Early, as in around 4:30 a.m. every morning. Training, as in with the high school players. As an 11-year-old.

"It was a 5:30 a.m. breakfast club we would do in Upper Marlboro, Md.," Brown's father Maurice Sr. told GamecockScoop. "It was a bunch of high school players, they would get together at 5:30 in the morning. They would leave the workout and go straight to school. I said, 'if this is what you want, you've got to let me know.'"

Jarret Patterson — over five years older than Brown and well on his way to college football and eventually an NFL stint with the hometown Commanders — was in the group. Blake Corum, the future National Champion at Michigan, was the other running back in the room. And the club's youngest member, still checking in over 2.5 years older than Brown?

None other than Caleb Williams, the former Heisman winner and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

"I really loved the game of football," Brown told GamecockScoop. "Knowing that I could get better with older guys and compete in the morning, it was just learning at a young age how to do the little things to get better."

They worked out for around an hour before school started at 7:00 at an Athletic Republic location in District Heights, MD. On the surface, an 11-year-old nestling his way into a group like this and keeping pace seems impossible.

Unless you know him.

Fitting in with any combination of people is intrinsically normal for Brown. Building relationships is his bread and butter as much as executing a block on a toss play or making a tackle on kick-off coverage.

"Maurice has a family connection with his friends," Long said. "He knows how to make people feel comfortable. He knows how to have close connections with people really quickly, and that's something that I saw in Germany. I was very impressed with him and his ability to connect with children from different cultures."

He has all the skills you would expect from a tight end. He showed off his receiving with a touchdown in the spring game. His hulking 6-foot-3, 252 lb. frame makes him an asset for in-line blocking. He became a special teams ace last year, registering his first career tackle at Texas A&M.

Get him in a team meeting room, and the magic happens.

"There's a lot of different types of people on a football team," Brown said. "To be able to talk to every person and be able to bring people together, that's how a team gets better at the end of the day. I like helping people out. If I see them down or not doing too well, I try to ask if they're okay."

Two extended stays overseas taught him about a world far beyond his front door or inside a football building. He made friends for life, several from both trips he still keeps in touch with. His lens on the world shifted in a way most never can experience or understand. But the most significant benefit was an extension of what he already had, the same kindness and relatability he used to make friends with older football players. Taking that, nurturing it and growing it with kids from unfathomably different circumstances made college relationships easy.

Once you sit at a table 7,000 miles from home tackling international peace and economic issues as a teenager, what difficulty is trying to break down practice film in a meeting room with other football players?

"I think that was the foundation that allows him to walk into a much larger environment with 120 different minds and faces and be able to relate and communicate," Tabitha said about his CISV work. "Just to grow and make friends and just feel comfortable in himself and communication wise. I think it helped him build strong relationships with his teammates, and it helped him understand people from different backgrounds."

If Germany was unique, India felt like another world.

Culturally, politically, socially. Those daily conversation topics were drastically altered from the previous summer, as were the sights and sounds.

"The India trip was a little bit different," Brown said. "Just seeing the aspect of how they lived, it was an eye-opener. They probably had hundreds of stray dogs all over the street, a lot of homeless people. It was a humbling experience seeing what other people go through and learning different cultures."

Those stray dogs hit home for Brown, a lifelong animal lover. He grew up with fish, turtles and hamsters until he turned 14, when his parents surprised him with his long-awaited first dog — a Cane Corso waiting for him one day when he got home from school.

The dog, combined with what he saw a year later with CISV, helped chart the course for his life outside football.

"I've always had a thing for animals," Brown said. "It was just interesting to me how India had that overpopulation problem, so it was an eye-opener when I saw that. I love animals and love being around them."

He enrolled at South Carolina as a public health major, but his minor is in veterinary medicine. Last March, he volunteered with Columbia Animal Services for an adoption event. The organization timed it up with a basketball game at Colonial Life Arena, hoping Brown and his colleagues could meet people coming to or from the game, meet the animals and pick up some contact information from the potential future adopters.

"Maurice's presence and dedication were key to the event's success," Columbia Animal Services' Community Engagement Coordinator Brandon Fancy told GamecockScoop. "His enthusiasm and genuine care for the animals were evident, and it made a significant impact on everyone who attended."

He has plenty of football in his future, but the man who constantly pushes his horizons is doing precisely that. The adoption event played on his twin virtues of helping people and loving animals, work he is already thinking about pursuing whenever he hangs up his cleats.

"Even if I get to the NFL and play through all that, when I'm done there is always something to do, "Brown said. "I'm not just going to sit around the house. I'm going to find something to do, and that something could be being around animals and helping them out."

Not that it is coming any time soon.

He made the travel roster for every road game last year and played in 11 of 12 contests. The impact this year figures to be even bigger.

Tight ends coach Shawn Elliott expects him to play on all four special teams units, and the touchdown he scored in the spring game created some buzz about his involvement in the passing game.

"Maurice Brown II, that guy is going to play a lot for us on offense this year," Shane Beamer said after the first scrimmage of pre-season camp.

He spent the team's off time in May back home. Of course he enjoyed some family time, but as most football players do, he went to work on his craft. Not with the same breakfast club friends he did in middle school, but with former NFL tight ends Jordan Reed and Leonard Stephens.

Making the NFL is still the ultimate goal, one he has talked about since even before he started waking up before dawn to train for it.

"It was a great learning experience," Brown said. "I was able to learn how to run crisper routes and better techniques for blocking."

Foreign trips, furry friends and football.

He always has something new to learn.

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