Meet the mom behind Jordyn Tyson’s NFL Draft dream

But if you’re searching for the most valuable player in this story, it’s mom. 

“My mom is one of my best friends,” said Jordyn. “This family would not be going if it weren’t for her. She takes care of all the little small details and all the work that we need done. We wouldn’t be able to do it without her.”

Meet Sandra Brown
Her name is Sandra Brown, and like any mom, she is beyond proud of her boys. 

“Yeah, those are mine,” she said with a smile while reflecting on the history her sons are about to make.  

“I sit back and look at some of Jordyn’s plays, especially with the Draft coming up, and I think I still haven’t truly grasped the fact that Jordyn’s greatness is great. To me, he’s just Jordyn.”

Despite this greatness, Brown will tell you she didn’t do anything extraordinary in raising her boys. 

“I don’t think I am different than any other mom,” she said. “People say, ‘You did such a good job,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I just did what moms do.’”

That might be true. But not every mom raises two first-round picks.

Before the bright lights
Born in Germany and a self-described Army brat, Brown spent most of her life in Georgia before moving to Texas in her junior year of high school. Following her Army brat roots, she joined the Air Force and moved to, oddly enough, Tucson, Arizona. 

“It’s kind of a funny story,” Brown recalled. “I used to work part-time security for a lot of the U of A football and basketball games. But I always wanted to move to Phoenix when I got out of the Air Force. So when Jordyn committed to ASU, everything kind of came full circle for me.”

It was also in Tucson where Brown met the boys’ father, John Tyson. After four years in the Air Force, Brown and Tyson moved to Texas and began their family, which started with Sandra’s “bonus baby” and stepson, Berron Tyson. 

Next came Jaylon, then Jordyn. Berron, however, would only spend summers in Texas with his brothers. 

All three would eventually become Division I athletes, Berron and Tyson in football and Jaylon in basketball. Berron is currently the Director of Athletic Performance at Austin Peay. 

It should come as no surprise that the house was pandemonium as the boys explored soccer, baseball, track, basketball, and, of course, football. 

“I thought he was a really good basketball player, I have to admit. But he never had the height of Jaylon,” admitted Brown. “But after soccer, we let them gravitate to whatever sport they gravitated to.”

In those early days, Sandra worked nights and John worked days, so Jordyn got his early socialization from sports rather than daycare. The logistics of managing three kids in sports wasn’t too tough to manage. But as the boys got older, the logistics of getting the boys to practices and games got easier as Jaylon began driving and Jordyn’s scope narrowed to only football and basketball. 

It was also during this time that the boys learned discipline, hard work and got better and better at their respective sports. 

"There were definitely no participation trophies around here," said Brown.

“I feel like my dad was very hard on us, but it was a good thing. I thank him every day for it, to be honest, because it made us pay attention to the things that are necessary to be in the position we are in now,” said Jordyn. “But mom, she was always there for us and was always happy. She was our security blanket.”

But when the boys started to act up, that security blanket would turn into security camera footage. 

“Growing up with Jaylon as his older brother, there was always, always, always competition. They fought a lot, I’m not going to lie,” Brown admitted. “When they were young, I could still discipline them and pull them off of each other at that age.”

“Then once they got a little bigger in stature, they hated me filming them. I would just grab my camera and start videotaping and say, ‘Oh, I got it on camera!’” Brown laughed. “That’s the only way I could get them to stop, because sometimes it was so hard to get the two off of each other.”

“Yeah, that was a little weird,” Jordyn confessed. “We used to fight so much, and it was probably not a good thing, but it happened. We’re brothers. I feel like we just had to get our anger out sometimes.”

What boy mom can’t relate to that? 

Touching down in Tempe
As a mom, it’s never easy to send your children off to college. It helps, however, when you know that your kids are in good hands. 

At the end of his true freshman season in Colorado, Jordyn found himself in the transfer portal after a season-ending leg injury. 

In Brown’s mind, Tempe was the best place that Jordyn could have ever landed. 

“God works in mysterious ways,” she said. “When you’re in the portal and injured, that’s some gut-wrenching stuff. You’re down and thinking nobody wants you. For the people that came into his life at that point, it was the best decision he could have ever made.” 

Those people, of course, are members of the Sun Devil Football coaching staff, including Kenny Dillingham, Marcus Arroyo, and NFL Hall of Fame wide receiver Hines Ward. 

“Accolades to Kenny and the coaching staff on how much he has grown and matured,” Brown said. “He has always been a sweet kid, but he just gravitated toward that man.” 

“He soaked it all in because of the type of humans they are. They are good people, and it was easy for Jordyn to relate to them. He wanted to take everything they had to offer and just become a sponge.”

Next came the best role model of all. 

God entered Jordyn’s life on March 19, 2025.

“Since he’s gotten baptized, I can’t even explain the jumps in his maturity emotionally. I’m like, who’s this kid? Did we just have that conversation? Was that my kid talking like that? Every time I talk to him, every time I see him, he just amazes me.”

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Lifting the weight
Like any parent, Brown simply wants to do all she can to protect her children. 

With the national spotlight shining down on Jordyn brighter now than ever before, Brown is using what she learned from her first rodeo with Jaylon to help Jordyn. 

“These young adults have so much on their shoulders, competing at such a high level," she said. “Where is their safe space? We focus on what they need to keep their engines running and keep that safe space peaceful. As parents, we try to make their lives easier so they can do what they need to do.” 

A lot of that safe space comes from Sandra protecting them from a lot of the outside noise, criticism and the haters. 

“There are a lot of people who want to be in our position. There are also a lot of people who have the opportunity to be in our position, but they haven’t done the things necessary to be in our position,” Jordyn said. “So she defends us, she has always got our back. That’s why she’s our security blanket.”

Brown also notes that she has a special prayer for every game to help protect Jordyn from all the negative energy that can come with being a high–caliber athlete.”

“Lord, whatever you have for him that’s not good for him, give it to me. I can hold it. I’m strong. Let me carry whatever negativity the devil has coming his way. Give it to me, I got it,” she said. 

Protection also shows up in quieter ways, like watching who her boys surround themselves with and guiding their generosity.

“He has a great heart, which we have to be careful with, because he wants to give, give, give,” Brown noted. “But you can’t just give to everyone, especially the wrong people.”

A prime example is when the season ended, and Jordyn gifted the entire Sun Devil Football roster with Bleu De Chanel cologne. 

“He said, ‘I want to do something for my guys, every last one of them,’” Brown recalled. “I said, ‘What’s the roster, 110? ‘Okay, let’s get on it.’ He just wants to take care of everybody around him.”

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But like every mom, there are those moments where the need to protect your kids will make them roll their eyes. 

Yes, she reads the comments. 

“My toxic trait is not staying out of the comment section. I can’t do it,” she admitted. “I don’t comment, but I read the mean ones. My friends always tell me to stop, but I’m not mature enough.”

Jordyn tells a different story, though. 

“She can’t stay out of the comments,” he said, laughing. “Oh, yeah. She be on Twitter for sure, talking back to people and responding to all the haters on her little ghost account.”

But then he backtracked, as if he could hear his mom’s voice in the back of his head.  

“I should be honest, I haven’t seen it in a while, but she used to respond all the time. I’m not really on Twitter that much, but I know for a fact she used to respond. But she would do that to protect us, for sure.” 

Then there’s also the universal feeling of dread that every mom goes through, knowing they can’t protect their children from every threat that lurks. 

“One of the scariest things is if I know he is driving when he’s on the phone,” she confessed. “I’ll hear his engine, and I’ll tell him to slow down. Then he’s like, ‘Mom, that’s just the car. I promise I’m not speeding.’ It’s a feeling that will never go away. It will never go away.”

The real return on investment
Brown gets asked all the time, “When are your kids going to buy you a house?” 

She doesn’t want one. At least not now. 

“They want to,” Brown said. “My thing is, I don’t want them to yet. We don’t know what next year holds. I need them to focus on them, get the savings and retirement started and a good foundation, good savings and spending habits. My priority is them.”

Plus, Brown isn’t ready to stop working. 

“As long as I am healthy and my body is capable of working, I’m going to work. Even if the boys don’t want me to,” Brown said empathetically. 

That relentless work ethic became the blueprint for the boys’ success. 

“I didn’t have to pay for college, so everything else is just a cherry on top,” she said. 

And if it turned out differently?

“I would do it all over again, no matter what,” said Brown. “You learn so much in sports—the schedule, discipline and routine. I’d do it all over again, no matter what.

Not just Jordyn’s mom
When all is said and done, Sandra Brown believes herself to be your typical boy mom. 

She’s been equal parts referee, cheerleader, security blanket and life coach. She was the hard-working mom answering emails, making dinner, paying bills, and showing up in a hundred other ways moms typically go under the radar. 

More incredibly, for a majority of her son’s life, she’s done it in a single-parent household. 

“Let me be clear, I’d never say I was a single parent, I was a single-parent household. Although we weren’t together, John and I would co-parent and really focus on that. Their dad was always involved,” said Brown.

She’s also the boy mom that chooses comfort, even on her second Draft Day. 

“Some things will never change about me. I’m a boy mom, and I love being comfortable,” she said. “I don’t want to be in heels. I don’t want to be in a dress. I want to be pretty, let’s not get that wrong. But you will see me in my $24.99 outfit from Amazon and sneakers.”

She laughed. 

“I’m going to try not to bawl, but I bawled my eyes out when Jaylon got drafted. I even lost an eyelash at that party, and nobody told me, so I was walking around with one eyelash on!”

With the lost eyelash in the rearview, her focus has shifted from that moment to the possibilities still on the horizon.

“I always thought that when I’d be an empty nester, I was going to move to a beach somewhere. But I never thought I’d have kids doing what they’re doing now,” she noted. “If Jordyn gets drafted to some place like Tampa, then mom’s coming!” she joked.

But even as she imagines following them wherever the journey leads, she knows she won’t lose sight of herself along the way.

“If they want me to move with them one day, I’m still going to find something part-time because I still need my own identity, instead of just Jaylon and Jordyn’s mom.”

She likens it to Jordyn's identity outside of football, saying, "Nobody knows that he is a great singer, and it embarrasses him every time I tell people that."

Jordyn has a great take on who she is outside of being ‘just Jaylon and Jordyn’s mom.’

“She’s a very hard worker. She’s always going, always on top of her stuff,” said Jordyn. “She loves talking to people, too. I feel like that’s a great quality to have because this world is very hard, and going through it by yourself is kind of a lonely and bad feeling. So, she’s always just there for people, and she loves talking to people, so I commend her for that.

Be there
When people look at Sandra Brown, they all ask the same question.

What’s your secret? 

How did she raise two boys who could become the first brothers selected in the first round of their respective professional drafts?

She shrugs.

“There’s no secret. Just be there.”