Drowned Youth Had Been Closing In on His Dreams

Victor Brown would either be an Olympic sprinter or a computer whiz--perhaps both, his family had hoped. A day after the 18-year-old Narbonne High School senior drowned in Lake Mission Viejo, his family mourned Sunday that he will do neither.

“I thought he could do a lot of good in this world,” said his aunt, Barbara Green-Taylor of Torrance. “When I saw him coming, I just had to put a smile on my face.”

Authorities are still investigating Saturday’s incident. They say it appears that Brown, an accomplished athlete, exhausted himself while making a 40-yard swim in the lake with his cousin. He had been playing pickup football and basketball for most of the day with two dozen family members at a gathering at the lake.

Brown, who lived in Harbor City but often visited relatives in Mission Viejo, reportedly told his cousin as they swam that he was tired and didn’t know if he could make it.

“He apparently just ran out of energy,” said Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Kirk Summers.

Family members expressed shock Sunday over Brown’s death in a lake where they go almost every month to barbecue and play sports.

“He’s made that swim hundreds of times,” Victor Brown Sr. said of his son.

The family was especially heartbroken because the 18-year-old was on the cusp of realizing several dreams. After getting rides from family members and friends for the last two years, Brown was going to receive a used Honda Civic as a graduation gift in June.

“He was so excited. Every young man wants his own car,” Green-Taylor said.

The high school senior, who was a sprinter, was also considering scholarship offers from several colleges, family members said. He hoped to attend a school that would let him run track and study his other great passion: computers. The young man would often surprise family members by presenting them with CDs he created from the Internet or helping younger relatives do their homework on the computer.

Although Brown had not made a final decision, he was leaning toward San Diego State University, family members said. At the very least, Brown was hoping to attend college in California so he could be close to family, they said.

Brown would visit Green-Taylor several times a month, and “it was like a ray of sunshine every time,” she said.

Green-Taylor, who is about 5 feet 4, said she would wrap her arms around her 6-foot-2 nephew and squeeze him tight. “ ‘Give me a hug, boy’--that’s all you could think when you saw him,” she said.