HOUSTON -- Brandon Brooks is strategizing for the mob.
Well, not the mob exactly, but a mob-run garbage business trying to keep out another competitor.
"If we use intimidation, can they do it, too?" one classmate wonders.
"We are really evil," another classmate says.
"So much more fun this way," says Brooks, 26, who has squeezed his 6-foot-5, 335-pound frame into a seat that is not designed for NFL offensive linemen.
The students laugh at their own diabolical ideas, and so does their teacher who overhears part of this conversation. It's a moment of lightness in a three-hour class at the University of Houston.