were orange and black—the Cleveland Browns’ colors were orange and dark brown. But, what mattered was that Paul built, more quickly than anyone dreamed, a very successful team, and his first victory over the Cleveland Browns must have been the biggest victory of his life.
The incredible story of Paul Brown is one that many people don’t know. Oh, yes, he is certainly regarded as one of the greatest coaches in the history of professional football, but many people don’t know that before he formed and coached the Cleveland Browns, he had coached national championship teams at the high school level (Massillon, Ohio) and at the college level (Ohio State University). Moreover, during the Second World War he coached at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center and during that time signed to prospective contracts a number of the players who went on to be greats with the Cleveland Browns.
Beyond his extraordinary record as a coach, Paul accomplished many things that are not as well known as they should be. For example, he pioneered the early version of the modern playbook that all teams use routinely today; he started the practice of sending signals in to the huddle by substituting guards virtually every play. Perhaps what might surprise most people is that he invented the early version of the modern face mask and got a patent on it. He once told me, with a wry smile, that he had made more money from royalties on that patent than he had ever made in coaching.
I HAVE SO many stories to tell about Paul that I could fill the rest of this book, but I’ll try to choose a few to illustrate a side of this extraordinary man that most people never saw. The first story took place during our negotiations to bring Paul back to Cincinnati. As I indicated earlier, the negotiations were tough. Paul wanted very much to return to the game, but he made it clear that he would not do so if there was any chance that, as he put it, “what happened to me in Cleveland could ever happen to me again.” We wrestled with this and a number of other problems for several days, but finally worked out an arrangement where all of the other owners would agree to put their stock into a voting trust with Paul as the voting trustee. This was the price that needed to be paid to get Paul. It was a price I recommended to my clients, and it was a price they were quite willing to pay. When the negotiations had concluded on a successful note, Paul invited us to his home for drinks and dinner. He and Katie had a beautiful home overlooking the Pacific Ocean from up high on a hill. During cocktails he and I ended up sitting alone on a couch staring out at the sun dipping into the Pacific Ocean, an absolutely breathtaking sight. I turned to Paul and very seriously said, “Paul, I know you think you’ve been pretty clever in these negotiations, but you should know—and I feel obliged to tell you—that we can dismiss you anytime we wish.” He looked at me dumbstruck, those strong piercing eyes boring right through my head, and said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Paul, there is a provision in our agreement with you, which is standard in virtually every employment agreement I have ever seen, that says we can dismiss you at any time if it can be proven that you are physically or mentally incompetent.” “Well, of course,” he said, “I understand that, but what does that have to do with what you said?” I said, “Paul, look out the window.” He said, “Why?” I said, “Anyone who would leave this scene to come back to Cincinnati, Ohio, and start a brand-new football team is demonstrably mentally incompetent!” We both had a good laugh and another drink.
Paul’s most intense passion, after football, was clearly golf. He loved the game and everything about it. Not long after we made our deal to bring Paul to Cincinnati, he invited me to play golf at La Costa, a great course near San Diego. I had never played golf with Paul before, and it turned out that he and I viewed the game somewhat differently. He was a total stickler for the rules, and I have always felt the players should have fun and enjoy themselves and not worry about some of the arcane, inexplicable rules. Of course, my view only applies in friendly games and not in formal competition, where USGA Rules are in effect. But I regarded my game with him that day as a casual one between friends. Was I ever wrong!
On the first tee, I hit my drive out of bounds to the left. Paul was standing seven or eight yards behind me, and I heard him say in a stage-whisper voice* that reached my ears, “You’re hitting three.” I turned around, thinking that he might be joking—everyone I ever played with gave a mulligan on the first tee—but it was clear that he wasn’t. I hit my second drive fairly well down the middle of the fairway, and together we walked toward our balls. When I reached my ball, it was squarely in the middle of a divot. Normally, my buddies and I would roll the ball out of the divot and never give it another thought, but having been called by Paul on the first tee for my out-of-bounds shot, I thought I should at least ask his permission to roll the ball free. He was standing about fifteen or twenty yards away from me, about to address his own ball, and I called over and said, “Paul, can I roll this ball out of this divot mark?” The answer almost broke me up, but he was dead serious. He said, “Is there water in it?” I said, “What are you talking about?” And he said, “If there’s water, it’s casual water; otherwise, play it as it lies!” I played a lot of golf with PB over the ensuing years, and he never changed his approach to the game. I embraced it completely (if not enthusiastically) when he and I were playing together.
For a number of years, Marilyn and I hosted an outing around the Fourth of July at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. Our guests every year were Paul and his wife, Neil Armstrong and his wife, and George Rieveschl (the inventor of Benadryl) and his wife. This outing, I genuinely believe, was one of the high points of Paul’s year—at least off the football field. We drove up from Cincinnati early in the morning, played golf, had dinner, and drove back. Paul had a vintage Cadillac, a big, roomy, powerful car. He always drove to Columbus but insisted that I drive home. This might seem, at first blush, like an equal trade, but it was far from it. Driving up was fairly simple. It was broad daylight, usually around 8:00 a.m., and everyone was rested. The drive back was something else again. We had played a round of golf on that magnificent and difficult golf course; it was usually hot and humid; and we finished the day with drinks and dinner in the clubhouse. By the time the drive back began, it was usually about 10:00 p.m., and my eyelids were about to close before we even got in the car. To his credit, Paul always sat up front in the passenger seat, and, though his eyes may have closed from time to time, he made sure that mine did not!
Of the many funny things that happened during our golf rounds, perhaps the most memorable (which Neil Armstrong and I have laughed about over and over again) came on a day when, before we had teed off, there was a light rain that left the golf course slick, but not by any stretch unplayable. We teed off and everyone was in reasonably good shape after his drive. Now, you must understand this central fact: Paul was a very good golfer. He was consistently in the fairway and almost always on the green in regulation (or close) without great difficulty. By that time in his life, he wasn’t particularly long, but he was very accurate. In any event, his second shot slid off a little bit to the right (almost certainly because of the wetness of the ground and the ball) and skidded into a bunker to the right of the first green. My guess is that Paul Brown had not been in a bunker for many years, but he walked into this one and took his first shot. The ball hit the lip and came right back to where it started. Another shot produced the same result. Paul said, “Well, at least I don’t have to move my feet.” His next shot skidded across the green and rolled down into a bunker on precisely the other side of the green. By this time, he is lying about seven and by the time he finally got out and holed the putt, he had made a twelve. Now remember, this is on the very first hole of the match! That sets a rather dismal tone for the rest of the day.
We walked somberly to the next tee. No one said a word. We played number two, number three, and number four without a single word uttered by anyone. We didn’t know what to say and we felt that we shouldn’t say anything until Paul did. At long last, walking down the fifth fairway, Paul turned and said, “I think that was the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life!” We all laughed, put our arms around him, and said, “Shake it off; you’ll beat us anyway.” And away we went.
