If the great Paul Brown were still around, wouldn’t he be proud when he woke up this morning?
For that matter, if the great Martin Luther King Jr., the man whose legacy is honored today, and was also the impetus for January being designated Black History Month, were alive, wouldn’t he be beaming as well?
The answer is yes on both counts.
The movement that Brown started 70 years ago was pushed forward a little more last Wednesday when the team he started and is named after him, hired Hue Jackson as its head coach.
Jackson becomes the second African American head coach in Browns history, following Romeo Crennel, whose tenure lasted four seasons (2005-08).
In addition, with Jackson’s hiring, the four-team AFC North now has three African American head coaches, the others being Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Marvin Lewis of Cincinnati Bengals, the other club that Brown started and the one from which Jackson comes. The division also had three head coaches in 2007-08 with Crennel, Lewis and Tomlin.
Having just completed 13th season with Cincinnati, Lewis, in fact, is the second-longest tenured head coach in the NFL, and the longest-tenured African American head coach in league history.
Back when Brown started coaching in pro football and Harry Truman was president, and back when Rev. King was leading matches and preaching equality during the presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy, such things were so inconceivable that they weren’t even pipe dreams. They were impossibilities.
Along the way, Larry Doby became the first African American player in the American League when he took the field for the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947.
Carl Stokes became the first African American mayor of a major American city when he was elected in Cleveland on Nov. 7, 1967.
Frank Robinson became the first African American manager in the major leagues when he debuted as a player-manager for the Indians on April 8, 1975.
But before any of those men came onto the scene – and even before Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson rose to prominence — two men named Bill Willis and Marion Motley were breaking down barriers.
And if you’re a Browns fan and don’t know this story, you need to read on, especially today. If you already know the story, then please read on as well. Perhaps it’s been a while since you’ve heard it, and as such you need a refresher.
It’s not that the story, as follows, is necessarily well-written. It’s just that it’s such a good story, and if you follow the Browns, it needs to be part of your DNA. Its scope – its importance – far transcends anything on the football field. It dwarfs it, in fact.
But back to Willis and Motley.
More than eight months before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier when he began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in April 1947, Willis, a middle guard, and Motley, a fullback, permanently broke the color barrier of not not just pro football, but pro sports overall, when they began playing for the Cleveland Browns on Sept. 6, 1946.
Both were native Ohioans, and Motley was from this area, having starred at Canton McKinley High School. They got their chance because of the forward-thinking approach of the head coach of the Browns, Brown, another local native after having grown up in Massillon, and played and coached at Massillon High School.
Brown is called “The Father of Modern Football” for all the innovations he brought to the game, but what he has never gotten credit for is the way he opened doors for African Americans in the sport. That may be his biggest contribution of all. While segregation and bigotry kept African Americans out of the game, he didn’t bat an eye in signing Willis, a product of Columbus East High School and Ohio State, and Motley for his first team in Cleveland 70 years ago, and then adding more African Americans in rapid-fire fashion in succeeding years. In fact, his third African American player came in the following season of 1947 when he signed one of his former Massillon High stars in punter Horace Gillom.
In fact, Brown was so far ahead of the curve in all realms of pro football, including bringing in African Americans, that when he traded running back/wide receiver Bobby Mitchell to Washington in 1962, it not only gave the Redskins a future Hall of Fame player, but it also integrated their franchise for the first time.
To be sure, having African Americans on his teams was not some kind of publicity stunt. Brown was blind to color. He wanted talented players no matter their race. creed or nationality. Willis and Motley, both of whom played on the first eight Browns teams from 1946-53, are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with Brown. Gillom, whom Brown called the greatest high school player he ever coached, is a Cleveland Browns Legend, which is the team’s hall of fame. Gillom was known for kicking the ball above the lights at what is now known as Paul Brown Tiger Stadium in Massillon, and he carried that skill right into the pros as evidenced by the fact he is still the Browns’ career punting leader.
Willis, Motley, Gillom and the others – and for that matter, Robinson and Doby in baseball – were more than just great players in their respective sports. They were societal icons for the way they helped move their race forward. Sports are played out on a big stage, and when they succeeded in front of thousands of fans all across the country, it began opening up doors for African Americans in all facets of society.
Willis had played for Brown when he coached at Ohio State in the early 1940s after leaving Massillon, having been an All-American on the Buckeyes’ first national championship squad in 1942.
When World War II ended and Brown was gearing up his first team in Cleveland to play in the new All-America Football Conference, Willis was coaching at tiny Kentucky State University. There was no pro team for him to go to as a player.
Brown invited Willis to one of the Browns’ first training camp practices at Bowling Green State University in the summer of 1946, and just as Brown had hoped, Willis got the itch to play as he stood there and watched the Browns work out. When Brown offered him a chance to “try out,” which was just a formality because he knew Willis certainly had the talent to play at that level, he jumped at the chance.
After Brown signed Willis, he signed Motley, whom he knew all too well from having coached against him in high school, so that they could be a team within a team and offer each other support as they faced the backlash from angry whites in those early years. In fact, Brown was very up front with them, telling both players they couldn’t retaliate against any of the hate they would face, for if they did, it would send this integration process back decades.
Willis and Motley were best friends for life. When Motley died in June 1999, just as the expansion Browns were getting ready to take the field again, it killed Willis emotionally and he never really recovered.
I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Willis, a perfect gentleman in every sense of the word, about 10 years ago. I asked him how he withstood all the bigoted abuse he faced, and he just smiled.
“I knew I was a better player than the players who were doing and saying all those things to me,” he said. “Along about the third quarter when they discovered they couldn’t beat me on the field, you’d be surprised how those people would begin to shut up.”
When Willis died in 2007, his funeral was held on a bitterly cold Tuesday morning in the big Columbus church he attended. Bengals owner Mike Brown, the son of Paul Brown, hightailed it to Columbus from Pittsburgh, where his team had played a Monday Night Football game against the Steelers the night before, to serve as one of eulogists and ended up paying Willis a great tribute.
“When my dad was coaching the Browns and I was a kid growing up in Shaker Heights, Bill Willis was my hero,” Brown said. “He could do no wrong. I idolized him.”
A white kid worshipping an African American athlete as his idol 70 years ago? Martin Luther King Jr. would be proud, for there could be no greater story than that to illustrate the changes he was trying to make in the world.
And he would thank Paul Brown for doing so much to make it a reality.
By Steve King
