The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
What if Paul Brown had blocked Art Modell?
Story published in 1963 says coach could stop transfer of ownership
A story published in 1962says coach could stop transfer of ownership, but he didn’t. The two parted ways.
The “What if?” stories we’ve written over the past few weeks — “What if the Browns had beaten the Dolphins in 1985, What if Cavs center Jim Chones didn’t break his foot in the Cavaliers’ Miracle Richfield year and others, prompted a few readers to suggest this topic:
“What if Art Modell didn’t fire Paul Brown?”
A nice thought, but not long after Modell bought the Browns for $4 million dollars on March 23, 1961, it became evident the separate egos of Modell and Brown were too big to fit inside old Cleveland Stadium. One had to go, and since Modell owned the team, Brown and his seven championships, his reputation as a coaching genius and a part of team history that will never be matched were shown the door on Jan. 9, 1963, during a newspaper strike in Cleveland.
But what if Brown had blocked the sale of the Browns to Modell from a business group headed by David Jones? Brown had the power to do that, according to a 1963 story by Bill Scholl, who covered the Browns for the Cleveland Press-News at the time. That might have changed the last 60 years of Browns’ history.
Though the Plain Dealer and Press-News were on strike when Brown was fired, writers from both papers collaborated on a 32-page booklet about Modell firing Brown titled “The Play He Didn’t Call.”
“In consultation with my lawyers, I drew up my contract just as I wanted it. Art Modell read it and said, ‘That suits me.’ He never quibbled on any phase of it.” — Paul Brown
The title was derived from Brown’s penchant for sending in messenger guards to tell his quarterback which play to call.
The booklet, with an unsmiling Paul Brown on the cover, cost 25 cents. I bought a copy at the Rexall Drugstore in Chester Township when I was 10 years old. Time has aged the pages brown. But 57 years later the recounting of the feud between Modell and Brown is as fascinating now as it was more than half a century ago.
Brown was accustomed to Browns founder Mickey McBride and Jones, who bought the team from McBride in 1953, staying out of the football side of the operation and sticking to the business side. Brown originally thought Modell would be the same.
“This is the fourth set of owners I’ve worked with, and I’m very pleased with both Mr.
Modell and Mr. (R.J.) Schaefer,” Scholl quotes Brown saying when ownership changed hands. Schaefer, head of a brewing company, was Modell’s business partner.
The first indication Brown got that things would be different with Modell as owner came from a remark Modell made when he bought the team.
“I am assuming responsibility for such things as finances, admissions of new teams to the league, promotion and that type of thing,” Modell, a 35-year-old advertising executive from New York, said at the time. “We (Brown and Modell) will be consulting frequently. I don’t like to outline any delineation of duties. We’ll be partners in the Browns’ operation.”
Brown, 52 years old when Modell bought the Browns, was general manager as well as head coach. He was 135-34-5 coaching the Browns, including the four seasons in the All America Football Conference when the
Browns won the championship every year from 1946-49. They won three more championships from 1950-55 after being taken in by the NFL.
Brown did not feel a need to consult anybody about football matters.
Modell was a daily visitor to Browns practices at League Park in 1961, according to the Scholl article, but those visits and visits to the locker room after games gradually became shorter and less frequent as Modell got the vibe Brown regarded him as an intruder.
Scholl wrote these words after Brown was fired:
“Brown maintained at the time negotiations were in progress two years ago that he could block the transfer of ownership since the majority of stockholders looked to him for the final word.”
Scholl then quoted Brown:
“In consultation with my lawyers, I drew up my contract just as I wanted it,” Brown said at the
time. “Art Modell read it and said, ‘That suits me.’ He never quibbled on any phase of it.
“I still will do the hiring and firing as before and will control the factors important to the success or failure of the team. The financial and promotional aspects will be his problems.” Modell owned the Browns from 1961 until 1995 when he moved the franchise to Baltimore and they were renamed the Ravens. He was always close to his players, and that is part of the reason he fired Brown. Players went to Modell complaining about their coach.
“(Modell) discovered a crisis,” the late Hal Lebovitz, then working for The Plain Dealer, wrote in “The Play He Didn’t call.” Lebovitz then quoted Modell saying “Seven men, valuable players, were planning to quit or ask to be traded.”
The players Modell referred to were not identified, but a separate article by Robert Dolgan did quote players. One
was Bernie Parrish, the Browns’ player-representative, who corroborated what Modell told Lebovitz.
“I checked with my teammates, and I’m virtually certain they were 100 percent in favor of the change,” Parrish said. “I know that five, maybe seven of them, would have retired rather than play for Brown next year. I was one of them.”
Jim Brown, never bashful, said: “I feel Modell had good reason to fire Brown. Football players don’t like to be treated as inferiors.”
Modell also pointed to Brown’s record in the years after quarterback Otto Graham retired after winning the 1955 title game: No championships and a mediocre (for Paul Brown) 7-6-1 record in 1962.
Modell named Blanton Collier head coach a week after firing Brown. Two years later, Collier coached the Browns to their last NFL championship when they beat the Baltimore Colts, 27-0, on Dec. 27, 1964. It was their last title and their only championship
won without Otto Graham at quarterback.
How different the Browns history might be if Brown blocked the sale to Modell will never be known.
Would another owner have gotten along better with Brown?
Would the player revolt Parrish spoke of have come to fruition if Brown hadn’t been fired? Would Brown have had the success Collier did if he continued coaching? Collier was 79-38-2 from 1963-70.
Would Jim Brown have continued playing after 1965 if someone other than Modell owned the team?
Would a different person have owned the Browns for 35 years as Modell did?
Would a different owner have kept the Browns from ever moving?
So many questions without answers from one simple “What if?” question.