Football's Game Changers by Wilner Barry;Rappoport Ken; & KEN RAPPOPORT

Author:Wilner, Barry;Rappoport, Ken; & KEN RAPPOPORT
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493024223
Publisher: Lyons Press

approached Brown. Visibly upset, he said: “Coach, some guy just got stabbed over on Fifth Avenue.”

Brown put a particular emphasis on the extensive use of game films. Players would live in terrible fear of Brown’s Monday morning quarterback sessions.

“I remember Dub Jones scored five touchdowns against Chicago and the next day Paul didn’t find anything right with him,” Motley told The Associated Press. “He would pick out one guy and show every little thing he did wrong.”

Standing with a walkie-talkie on the sideline, Brown had installed a receiver in quarterback George Ratterman’s helmet.

Brown always made sure his message got through to his players. From Day One, Brown warned them: no T-shirts in training camp, no smoking in front of children, and no drinking in public during the season.

Brown, meanwhile, was usually the best-dressed coach on the field. “I was probably the first coach to dress up,” he said. He could be seen roaming the sideline wearing his signature hat, a knotted tie, looking very debonair.

Times changed and the new owner, Modell, dismissed the 54-year-old Brown in 1963. He was free to travel, play golf, but he was miserable.

“I had everything a man can want: leisure, enough money, a wonderful family. Yet with all that, I was eating my heart out,” said Brown. “Football has been my life. I had a strong desire to become alive again.”

And so he did, founding his second franchise in the NFL in 1967: the Cincinnati Bengals. He built the Bengals into a strong team, winning division championships in 1970, 1973, and 1975. After the 1975 season, he resigned as head coach. But he continued as vice president and general manager, loving football and never wanting to leave.

“He was the best that ever was,” said Lin Huston, who played for Brown at Massillon High School, at Ohio State, and then for the Browns from 1946 to 1953. “He left nothing to chance. He was detail oriented and wouldn’t assume anything. He’d say, ‘OK, Let’s see you do it.’ ”

Brown’s disciples of Super Bowl success are spread across the map of the National Football League: Chuck Noll won four in Pittsburgh, Bill Walsh three with San Francisco, and Don Shula two with Miami. In addition, Weeb Ewbank (New York Jets) and Don McCafferty (Baltimore) also each won a Super Bowl to bring the total of Super Bowl winners linked to Brown to 11. All have been thankful to Brown for leading the way.

“Do you want to call it a miniature war?” Brown asked one day. “Or chess in hip pads? Whatever. Football is absorbing, exciting, intriguing. It’s a man’s life.”

And an extraordinary life it was.

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