HARRISONBURG — Jordan Brown called it “a starting point” and Justin Jannuzzi said he hopes James Madison can build off of it over the coming years.

Next weekend, around the Dukes spring game, JMU is welcoming back former players who helped boost the program into the FCS power it is now.

“It’s crazy how close we get together and become some tight-knit family when we’re playing,” said Brown, a former All-American safety who played on JMU’s 2016 national championship team. “But then as soon as we leave, everyone goes their separate ways.

“I think we should be able to come back together, experience that love again and experience why we grinded so hard.”

Jannuzzi, the senior associate athletic director for development at JMU and the liaison for football fundraising with the JMU Duke Club, said both the Friday before the spring game and the Saturday of the spring game will feature events those football alumni are invited to participate in.

Jannuzzi said on Friday afternoon, former football players can hit the golf course for the 34th Annual Duke Club Classic. In years past, football alums had their own golf outing, but this year the Duke Club has included former football players in its tournament. If the former grid standouts don’t golf, the school has other events for them — a dinner at O’Neill’s Grill on Friday night as the restaurant will extend specials for former players throughout the evening, and then a pig roast after the spring game on Saturday where they can meet and mingle with new coach Curt Cignetti and his staff.

The spring game kicks off at 1 p.m. on April 13.

“This was actually a conversation started by [former JMU coach Mike] Houston and the previous staff,” Jannuzzi said. “How do we make this weekend a little bit more than it already is?

“So this conversation really started almost a year ago after last year’s spring game and after the golf outing, about how do we combine forces to make this a better overall weekend?”

Jannuzzi said Hotel Madison has a special rate for former players as they return for the weekend, too.

Brown and many of his ex-teammates are coming back to Harrisonburg, he said. Only two years ago, those players in his graduating class were preparing for their final spring game and senior season with the program.

“I talk to a lot of them a lot like [former defensive tackle] Cornell Urquhart, [former safety] Raven Greene and all them,” said former linebacker Brandon Hereford, an All-Colonial Athletic Association selection in 2017. “We all stay in contact, probably about 20 of us, but I’ll be there for the spring game.

“I’m excited to be back and see how things are going with this new staff. I’m excited to be an alumni now and participate in the golf tournament.”

Greene and few other JMU football alums are still playing football. Greene (Green Bay Packers), tight end Daniel Brown (New York Jets), safety Dean Marlowe (Buffalo Bills), offensive lineman Aaron Stinnie (Tennessee Titans), offensive lineman Earl Watford (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and offensive lineman Josh Wells (Jacksonville Jaguars) are in the NFL. Quarterback Bryan Schor is getting ready for his first season with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League and wide receiver Ishmael Hyman and defensive end Andrew Ankrah just spent eight weeks with the Orlando Apollos of the Alliance of American Football before the league folded on Tuesday.

But so many others like Jordan Brown, Hereford and Urquhart aren’t in the game anymore and thriving in the workforce.

Brown is a marketing associate for Stryker in the company’s interventional spinal division. Hereford works for MicroHealth, a government contractor with a project to establish a new electronic health record system for the Veterans Administration. Urquhart is an accountant for Enterprise Holdings.

“What I enjoy most about what I’m doing now is that I learn something new every day,” said Urquhart, who graduated from JMU with a finance degree and a minor in economics. “It is always a new task. I’m not doing the same thing every day and when I go in, I try to learn whatever I can for the next promotion.

“It’s a grind. It’s kind of like football. That’s all it is. You show up at practice, you show up at work and you know what you’ve got to do.”

Both Urquhart and Hereford work out of northern Virginia.

Brown, who has a home office in Kalamazoo, Mich., probably travels more than most of his former teammates. In the last three weeks, he’s had cases to cover in Florida, Utah, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

“I’m in the operating room,” Brown said. “A doctor may not be comfortable and wants a rep to be present while doing a procedure with our product and so they call us. We go cover those cases and we’ll stand right by the procedure room as doctors are doing their thing, but they’ll look back for reassurance for where a needle placement needs to be and we’re all confident because we had to go through certification training and we’re able to give our advice and have them roll with it.”

All three said they’re excited to return to JMU and share what they’ve been doing with their other former Madison teammates while also learning about what some of those former players are doing in life.

“I think this is the starting point,” said Brown, who also added he reached out to older football alums like Watford and Justin Thorpe to get more further-removed players involved in the weekend.

“We’ve had transition with our head football coach the past couple years because we’ve had great success,” Jannuzzi said. “And I think our football alumni are excited to meet Coach Cignetti and all his guys once they get that chance, but at the same time a lot of the guys that we’re asking to comeback, their head coach isn’t here anymore.

“So we’ve have to help with that and work a little harder to connect the staff with the alumni.”

Jannuzzi said he thinks the pig roast will be the highlight of the weekend for the football alums coming back to town.

“Maybe it’s some kind of tradition we can permeate moving forward,” he said. “By no means do we have everything figured out and is this going to be the finalized plans for every year? I don’t know, but we think it’s a good game plan for this year and we want to see it out. It’s something hopefully we can build off of for years to come to get bigger attendance for spring games.”