THE DAY THAT BELICHICK AND SABAN BECAME LITTLE KIDS AGAIN WHEN JIM BROWN SHOWED UP

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the fourth in a multi-part series of items that did not make it into our Fourth of July series, entitled, “250 for 250, Browns Style,” and also some items that did make it in but only partly so and thus deserve further explanation. We’ll call this series, “250 for 250, The Encore.”

By STEVE KING

254) — Here’s another Jim Brown story.

We in the media covering the Browns used to joke 35 years ago when both Bill Belichick and Nick Saban were coaching the Browns — think about that for a moment, everybody, now the greatest head coaches in the history of pro football and college football, respectively, were working in Cleveland before anybody really knew who they were — that they were so laser-focused that even a nuclear explosion couldn’t distract them during practice.

And so it was one day during the 1993 season when bad weather forced the Browns to practice in their indoor facility. Belichick, in his role as head coach, stood behind the offense and closely watched that unit work against the defense, which was under the watchful
eye of its coordinator, Saban.

And all of a sudden, into the facility, walked Jim Brown. He walked around the back of the end of the field where the defense was and then turned and strolled down the sideline.

Saban was bent over, his hands on his knees, as he checked out the action. But, ever so slightly out of the corner of his eye, he began checking out Brown. About 30 yards away, there was Belichick, standing straight up but doing the same thing, peering at Brown out of the corner of his eye.

These guys — Belichick and Saban — were the age that they had watched Brown play while growing up and thus became a little like kids again as they studied him more than their players at that practice.

Yes, there is a pecking order in pro sports, and the media people at practice were getting the opportunity to see it play out right before their very eyes.

Brown had pretty much been estranged from the Browns since following his sudden retirement just before the 1966 training camp began. He was in England to start filming a movie and told the Browns that he was done as a player at the still very young age of 29. It was, though, the perfect age to start an acting career. That was 60 years ago. As it turned out, his retirement at a time when he was at the top of his game, still had plenty of years left and was fully healthy, made a lot of players, including the one who is so often compared to him, running back Barry Sanders, get out of the game when they were healthy and still had seasons left.

Brown had gotten coaxed back to Cleveland in 1984 for a 20-year reunion of the 1964 NFL championship team, being greeted warmly when he and his former teammates were introduced at halftime of a home game. But then he disappeared again for about a decade until Belichick, who was hired on Feb. 5, 1991, invited him back to serve as an advisor to the team. Belichick really appreciated and valued excellence, and Brown was all that, and then some. He was the greatest player in the history of the game, and Belichick thought his perspective could help out some of the younger players. It did.

The just-described scene that played out during the indoor practice was not long after Belichick had brought Brown back. Browns owner Art Modell not just signed off on it, but appreciated it greatly because he wanted to repair the relationship with Brown. It was a bad look for both him and the organization. It was way past time for the enduring face of the franchise to become that again not just for the people who remembered his career, but also those who had never seen him play. They had heard so much about him and were intrigued by him and wanted to get to know him.

Brown stayed connected with the Browns throughout the short period of the original franchise’s existence, and then eventually the relationship
was reinstituted when the new franchise began its tenure. That it culminated with a statue of Brown being placed outside the current stadium can be traced back to Belichick‘s reaching out to him so many years before.

Steve King