Scholar Stories: In a Family Full of Hoops, Brown Living Dream While Carving Own Path
12/3/2025 10:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Continuing the series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories.
By Anastasia Dubovoy
Growing up in East Grand Rapids, Mich., University of Michigan junior guard Macy Brown grew up attending Wolverines basketball games.
From being in the crowd, Brown made her way too AAU and to East Grand Rapids High, where as a freshman she averaged 11.5 points per game. She improved her average to nearly 14 points as a sophomore and 20.4 points as a junior. Her senior season saw her put up 25 points, 8.7 rebounds and 3.3 assists a game on her way to being named the 2023 Michigan Miss Basketball and Associated Press Division I Player of the Year.
Then on to Michigan. Brown recalled suiting up for her first game as a college freshman during the 2023-24 season, saying it was the culmination of a lifelong dream.
"It's something you can't even put into words, because it's the moment you've been waiting for: the block M is across my chest," she said. "This is what I've been working for my entire life."
Brown comes from a basketball family -- her sister Olivia played for St. Bonaventure and Valparaiso, while sister Jillian is at Virginia after two seasons at Northwestern. When Macy joined Michigan, she immediately bonded with some of the upperclassmen, like Greta Kampschroeder and Jordan Hobbs. Now an upperclassman herself, she uses the discipline and work ethic she learned from them, her family and friends to succeed in her new role.
"Having that to look up to, now I can do the same for the freshman and the sophomores that [are] going through life," Brown said. "Now, being able to relate to them and telling them 'I've been in your shoes.'"
Off the court, Brown is enthusiastic about pursuing her degree in sport management and hopes to have a future career working in women's sports.
"You don't realize it until you're in it, the impact [being a female athlete] has on younger girls," she said, remembering what it felt like to be a fan of the game as a child.
Brown attended the Graham Family Athletics Career Center London Career Venture this past summer, during which she visited many companies and explored different careers. Afterwards, she was inspired to join the Student-Athlete Advisory Council, the governing body for U-M student-athletes, to be more involved with the GFACC.
"Obviously, I want to study sport management, but there were a lot of other things that I thought were super cool, too," she said. "At the end of the day, one thing I learned from them was, it really is about the connections and the network and how you work with people."
Brown, who is averaging 4.3 points per game on .471 shooting (8-for17) -- including going 6-for-12 from beyond the three-point line -- and the Wolverines are working well together. The Wolverines started the season with four straight wins and are 6-1 and ranked No. 6 in The Associated Press Top 25 poll.
Other than focusing on her game and career, Brown has learned that she loves to spend time with her friends and make crafts, such as using air-dry clay to make magnets, painting on glasses or plates, or even drawing on her iPad.
"I feel like my freshman year, I didn't really have many hobbies because I was like 'basketball, basketball, basketball," she said. "Over the years, on those times where I have time off, I've really learned to do things for myself that make me happy and press it as a reset button."
Her hobbies let her rest after practices and classes, which take up at least eight hours of her day during the season.
"One thing that I really appreciate about Coach (Kim Barnes Arico) is that she makes practice hard so the games feel easier," Brown said. "We know our stuff, we know what we're gonna run, we know the other team's tendencies, and that's something [Coach] ingrains in us so well and has disciplined in us."
Brown's fast-paced lifestyle isn't for the faint of heart, but it has taught her numerous lessons about herself and life. The best advice she learned along the way to help others who want to follow their dreams is to go at their own pace.
"Everyone's journey is different, and there's a unique path for everyone," she said. "The person that you look to your left and right, no journey is the same, and I think it's super easy to compare yourself to other people and see what you could be doing better, but I think just staying focused and knowing that everything is gonna work out as it should is so important."
