A TREASURE TROVE OF COOL STUFF

By STEVE KING

It was 22 years ago, in 1996, when, while working for the Medina County Gazette, I spent five hours one mid-summer afternoon with former longtime Browns trainer Leo Murphy at his home just outside Medina.

I was the beat writer covering the Browns then for the paper and its sister publication, the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, but with the team being held in trust by the NFL after the original franchise’s move to Baltimore following the 1995 season, Sports Editor Betty Szudlo had me covering all kinds of other stories, especially ones such as the one on Murphy that involved the Browns.



I did a lot of stories like that for the three years the Browns did not play before returning to the field in 1999. Most of them were pretty good – pretty interesting. About two or three were outstanding, and the best one of that small group was the one I was sent to do about Murphy. He had lived in the area for years, and this would be a retrospective of his life, particularly, of course, that which involved the Browns.

I knew Murphy, who passed away last weekend at 94, and I thought I knew a lot – just about everything, really – about him. How wrong I was. As good as I thought the interview would be – and I thought it was going to be really good – it was much, much better than that.

And the whole experience, aside from just the interview? It was better than anything I could have imagined.

Murphy’s home was a treasure trove of the four decades he spent with the Browns, from 1950, when they entered the NFL, through 1989 when, by then the trainer emeritus after retiring as a full-timer two years earlier, he retired altogether. There were all kinds of really cool artifacts – game balls, photos and awards, just to name some of them, some of which, I’m sure is headed to the Pro Football Hall of Canton if they aren’t already there. Indeed, the list goes on and on.

And Murphy, as good of a storyteller as you’re ever going to meet, had at least one tale – and many times two or three – about each and every item.

More on this – and other things about the man — in my next post.