Are you excited Jeff Brohm came back to Louisville? You might have his daughter to thank

The Brohm family was waiting near the elevator outside of the recently-opened Angel’s Envy Bourbon Club on the third floor of Cardinal Stadium on Thursday.

A board meeting preceded Jeff Brohm being introduced as Louisville’s next head football coach. As he and his family stood by before getting the OK to walk into the club area, Brohm’s daughter, Brooke, had a moment of contentment.

“I’m really happy, Mom,” she told Jennifer, her mother and Jeff Brohm’s wife.

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When the time came for the Brohms to be presented to Louisville media, fans and spectators, the foursome sat in front of the crowd either wearing red or sporting a cardinal somewhere on their clothing. There were only a handful of times when Brooke stopped smiling during the press conference, and why wouldn’t she? Her birthday wish had come true: Louisville has become her new home.

“It hit me (Thursday) when we were all getting ready,” the newly turned 12-year-old said. “So, it's just really exciting.”

Moving back home

As exciting as Thursday was for the Brohms, there was a somber note to it as well. While Jeff’s parents, Donna and Oscar, sat in the crowd, only Jennifer’s father, Phil Hawkins, was there. Her mother, Lida, died seven months ago, which made the homecoming bittersweet.

“It is hard on me to come back with my mom not being here,” said Jennifer, who, like Jeff, grew up in Louisville.

During the summer in 2021, Lida’s doctor discovered she had a large aortic aneurysm, which can be fatal if ruptured. Sometimes operating can be fatal as well. In Lida’s case, doctors felt comfortable performing surgery based on the size of the aneurysm, although Lida didn’t. She’d never had a procedure of that severity before in her life and was uncertain of what she wanted to do.

“I really kind of had to talk her into, 'Can you at least give it a chance?' So, she did,” Jeff Brohm said, “And she recovered pretty well. … She was getting over the hump. Everything was positive. The doctor did a great job.”

Jennifer left West Lafayette, Indiana, where Jeff was in his fifth year coaching Purdue, and was there every step of the way, helping her mother through the process. As the only one of her siblings that doesn't work a conventional 9-5 job, it made sense for her to go back home to help.

Jennifer aided in Lida's full recovery from the heart condition. Lida later suffered a stroke, however, and she did not recover. On May 13, Lida Hawkins was gone.

Connecting with Louisville

When Jennifer came back to Louisville, she didn’t make the trip alone. She brought Brooke with her after talking it over with Jeff. The family always kept a home in Louisville, which made the move a bit easier.

“My wife was her mom's best friend,” Jeff said. “So, I knew that was important that, as she was going through a lot of health struggles, that she takes care of her (Lida) and not someone else and do it in the comforts of our house. She (Jennifer) wanted to do that. I fully supported it. She wanted her daughter to be with her, which I'd want my daughter to be with me, but I got it.”

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At the time, Jeff was going into his fifth year as Purdue’s head coach. He and son Brady stayed back in West Lafayette, Indiana, while Jennifer and Brooke headed back to Kentucky. The opportunity gave Brooke a chance to experience Louisville in a way that everyone else in her family had.

Jennifer and Jeff grew up minutes apart but didn’t meet until their freshman year at Louisville, while Brady spent the first six years of his life in Louisville. Jeff was the head coach of the city’s arena football league team, the Louisville Fire, in 2002 before joining U of L’s coaching staff as the quarterbacks coach in 2003, then the assistant head coach under Bobby Petrino and passing game coordinator in 2007 before becoming the offensive coordinator in 2008 as part of Steve Kragthorpe’s coaching staff.

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While Jennifer, Jeff and Brady spent their formative years in Louisville, Brooke’s only connection with the city was coming back for holidays and summer trips. But even those had become less frequent as she and Brady got older and started participating in sports and other activities that took the place of visits “home” on the family’s schedule.

It took some work, but Brooke was enrolled at St. Bernard Catholic School in the Fern Creek area, a place that’s all too familiar with the Brohm name.

“It's where Jeff went to school ... where his mom taught school there,” Jennifer said. “Everybody knew who Jeff was and there's even — their name is at the school.”

It wasn’t that Brooke didn’t enjoy being in Indiana — she had friends there and was part of an AAU volleyball team — but the connection she had with Louisville was undeniable. It took her no time to adjust, making friends and continuing her volleyball career in a new town.

“I just had so many friends,” Brooke said. “When I first started my school, everyone was just so nice. I loved being where I was from. We have a bunch of family here, and it was really easy and fun because we could always see them.”

Upon her grandmother’s death, Brooke and her mother returned to West Lafayette, though her newfound love for Louisville remained.

A wish come true

On Nov. 18, Brooke Brohm turned 12. Back at school in Indiana, she wrote a wish on a piece of paper: to move to Louisville.

“(I) gave it to my mom and I told her not to show my dad,” Brooke said. “But my dad found it.”

“She has developed a personality and she likes to display that,” Jeff Brohm said of his daughter. “She liked where she was at, but she developed some new friends. Anytime you have new friends, (you think) they're kind of cool. … No one knew anything then. I told her, ‘Hey, we got a great thing here. Let's make the most of it here,’ and she was fine with that. But she did have new friends that she was excited about.”

No one could’ve known that less than a month later, Brooke’s wish would come true. On Dec. 5, Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield left the program to take the same position with Cincinnati.

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All signs pointed to the Cardinals getting Jeff Brohm after missing out on the former quarterback four years prior. Having come off Purdue’s first-ever appearance in the Big Ten Conference championship game, Jeff Brohm’s work to build up the Boilermakers’ program was complete.

It was time to come home.

Less than 12 hours after Satterfield’s departure, rumors began to swirl about Louisville going after Brohm. When Cardinals athletic director Josh Heird had a press conference last Monday afternoon, he’d yet to contact Brohm, he said. He was, however, working with Brohm’s agent and Louisville resident Shawn Freibert behind the scenes to see what was possible.

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On Thursday, three days after U of L lost its head football coach, Jeff Brohm was approved by the university’s board of directors to fill the position. At 5 p.m. that day, he had his first press conference. Prior to Louisville’s native son making his first official statement in front of the massive crowd, Heird spoke and gave a shoutout to Brooke.

“You made this happen with that birthday wish,” he told her. “I owe you one.”

Reach Louisville football, women's basketball and baseball beat writer Alexis Cubit at acubit@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @Alexis_Cubit.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Jeff Brohm's daughter, Brooke, gets wish in move to Louisville