PAUL BROWN

Football coach Paul Brown is a high-school, college and NFL legend for a number of significant reasons. He is best known for his roles as first coach of the Cleveland Browns and later, co-founder and coach of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Paul Eugene Brown was born September 7, 1908, to Lester and Idabelle Brown, in their home at 7 West Elm Street in Norwalk, Ohio. Paul attended local Benedict Elementary School through fifth grade. His family then moved to Massillon, Ohio.

After playing quarterback at Massillon Washington High School, Paul Brown went to Miami University, where he also played quarterback, and graduated in 1925 with a bachelor’s degree in education. In 1930, he earned a master’s degree in education from The Ohio State University.

He then moved to Maryland to teach and coach football at the Naval Academy’s Severn Preparatory School. In his two years with the team, Brown compiled a 12-2-1 record. He then returned to his alma mater in Massillon to coach the Tigers. Over the next nine years, he taught history and English while coaching the team to football dominance in Ohio. During his tenure at Washington High School, coach Paul Brown became legend with an 80-8-2 record from 1932 to 1940.

While at Massillon, he instituted brand-new ideas now considered commonplace in football, including the playbook — a binder given to every player to help with understanding and memorizing on-field plays. He began using hand signals to call plays from the sideline to players on the field, along with a “messenger system” of sending a guard running from the sideline to the quarterback with the next play. All three practices quickly became widespread and remain in use today at all levels of American football.

Brown became the youngest coach in Big Ten Conference history when he was named head coach of The Ohio State University Buckeyes in 1940. The Buckeyes won the National Championship in 1942. Brown remained at OSU for three seasons, amassing a record of 18-8-1.

During World War II, Brown served in the Navy. He was sent to Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago, where he became head coach for the Navy trainees’ football team. In his two years at Great Lakes, his teams’ record was 15-5-2, including a victory over Notre Dame in 1945.

With the war over, Brown was approached about coaching a professional team in Cleveland as part of the new All-American Football Conference. In 1946, he started with the brand-new team — named for him as the result of a public contest, despite Brown’s reluctance — and met with great success: the Browns won the league championship all four years of the AAFC’s existence.

Of particular significance during the early years of the Browns was Paul Brown’s move toward integrating his team. The very first to sign African-American players to pro football contracts, Brown hired Marion Motley and Bill Willis for the team’s initial season. The two players, both from Ohio, were later inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton. An innovator in the sport, Brown was the first to use game film to scout opponents and hire a full-time staff of assistants. In 1954, he patented the modern face mask. Other improvements to the game were his development of the practice squad and the draw play.

Fired by Browns owner Art Modell in 1962, Paul Brown was approached to join the group that established the Cincinnati Bengals as a second Ohio franchise. He began coaching the NFL expansion team in 1967. In his six seasons with the Bengals, the team’s record was 48-36, including two division championships. After the 1975 season, Paul Brown stepped down as the Bengals’ coach, but stayed on as team president until his death on August 5, 1991. Brown was named Coach of the Year in 1957, 1969 and 1970 and was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967. In 2000, the Bengals built a new home field on the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati, naming the facility Paul Brown Stadium. After his death, Brown was buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Massillon, Ohio.

EXTERNAL LINKS : https://paulbrownmuseum.org

https://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-100-greatest-game-changers-paul-brown

https://www.bengals.com/news/paul-brown-bengals-founder

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/greatestcoach6/greatest-coaches-nfl-history-paul-brown