It’s so appropriate, which brings a smile that carries with it a tinge of bittersweet.
This is where it started for me so long ago with this tie to the Browns, playing the Lions in Detroit.
And Sunday is the anniversary of the day when it ended, at least in a seminal sense, a good number of years later, though it continues to this day.
A little confusing, perhaps?
Sure, I understand. But let me explain.
It was almost 68 years ago, on Dec. 29, 1957, that the Browns played the Lions at Briggs Stadium, later known as Tiger Stadium, in the NFL Championship Game. It marked the fourth time in six seasons that the teams had met in the title contest.
When the clock struck 2, kickoff time, at our house eight miles south of Akron, my dad got up out of his easy chair, walked to that big, ol’ Zenith combination TV/radio/phonograph — it was so heavy that it took three grown men to simply budge it, as I would learn years later — grabbed the nob on the channel changer and clicked it over to the Cleveland TV station carrying the black-and-white telecast of the game.
I had been sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons on another station. When the characters disappeared from the screen, I mustered up all the strength that a 2-year-old was capable of and let out a blood-curdling scream.
My mother came charging into the living room to see what was going on. When she learned what had happened, she walked her 5-foot-2 frame up to my dad, a big man who had played some college football in the mid-1930s until being summoned home by my grandmother to provide for the family after my grandfather lost his job working on a WPA road-building project — reached up, stuck her crooked index finger in his face and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to turn the cartoons back on until they ended.
He didn’t say a word. He simply found his radio and turned it on to listen to the broadcast. Smart man.
He didn’t miss anything. By the time he got to see that telecast, the Browns were way behind and well on their way to a 59-14 shellacking.
Ugh.
My dad was a huge fan of the Browns, along with the Indians and Ohio State (the Cavaliers did not exist until my freshman year of high school). He was about the same age as all the great players on those early Browns teams, plus Indians stars like Bob Feller, Larry Doby, Bob Lemon and Al Rosen. He and my uncle, who was just a few years younger than my dad, would, at my fervent and incessant urging when I was in the 10- to 12-year-old range, tell me story after about those players, teams and seasons. I soaked up every word like a sponge. By then, I was beating my dad to the TV to turn on Browns games. I was hooked for life. It was why I chose sportswritng as a career, with the ultimate goal of covering the Browns someday. By the grace of God, I have gotten to do it.
But long before that Browns assignment came, I got sacked emotionally.
My dad was stricken with what turned out to be colon cancer. He underwent surgery on a Friday and then on that Sunday, Sept. 28, 1980, exactly 45 years ago, my mom and I visited him in his room at Barberton Citizens, where I was born and where my mom would pass away 8-1/2 years later, and the guys watched the Browns play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on TV while my mom, who was not a sports fan but patiently and dutifully tolerated them, sat in the corner and busied herself reading the newspaper and flipping through a magazine, being careful not to say a word and interrupt the game.
It was a scene that our family had repeated countless times over the years, only always at home. None of us had any idea that it would be the last time.
The Browns, in typical Kardiac Kids fashion, fell behind 13-3, went ahead 31-13 and then had to hang on for dear life to survive 34-27 by recovering an onside kick in the final minute.
My dad was not so lucky. He died of cardiac arrest caused by a blood clot very early — in middle of the night, really — the following Tuesday morning. He was 63.
I had lost my best friend and my Browns buddy. It was tough watching the games the rest of that season without him, whether it was on TV and or in person at Cleveland Stadium in Section 50, right in the middle of the bleachers, where we all always sat. That includes the following week’s game against the Denver Broncos on Oct. 5, two days after his funeral. I didn’t offer anyone his ticket. It just didn’t seem right — not yet, at least. I wasn’t ready. I wanted to be alone with my feelings.
The unparalleled excitement of that 1980 season was great medicine for me. It kept me going. When Mike Davis intercepted Brian Sipe’s pass into the end zone intended for Ozzie Newsome to seal the playoff loss to the Oakland Raiders, I was shocked, just like everyone else. But mine was not that the great season was over, but rather that it hit me like a ton of bricks that my dad was gone.
Sunday will be a remembrance of both games, both dates. Because of him and the way he inspired me, even when he wasn’t there, it’s been one heckuva ride, with still much more to come, I hope and pray. But we don’t determine that.
Anyway, thanks, Dad — bunches.
I’ll be at the game rooting for our team to win.
Steve King
