That’s the way the ball bounces
By STEVE KING
If you’re looking for an insightful technical breakdown of Sunday’s Browns-Tennessee Titans game at Cleveland Browns Stadium, then I’m sorry because you’re not going to get it here — at least not today.
Now, you may counter by saying you don’t get that any day here — I hope not, but perhaps, and I’m kinda half-kidding. Regardless, that’s another story for another time.
However, what you will get here now, today — and hopefully every time you visit this website, and I’m definitely not kidding at all about that — will be interesting, thought-provoking and/or humorous pieces that will make you smile, if not laugh.
We should have know that the Titans’ Mike Vrabel was going to be a good head coach because his dad, Chuck, was an outstanding head coach for a long time in high school boys basketball, mostly in the Greater Akron area at Norton, which is located between Akron, Barberton, Wadsworth and Copley Township.
Before I started covering the Browns, I covered a lot of high school sports, including boys basketball, in Greater Akron and beyond beginning 45 years ago and did a lot of games at Norton, in the old school near the intersection of Cleveland-Massillon and Greenwich roads, involving Vrabel’s teams.
Full disclosure here, but at no time during any of those visits did I think that the little guy serving as a ball boy for his dad’s teams, bouncing around the sideline in and around the Panthers’ bench, was going to someday play football at Ohio State and in the NFL and would be a head coach in the pros.
One of Norton’s arch rivals at that time was the Coventry Comets, who had competed against the Panthers in the Metro League and then eventually followed them into the Suburban League. All that time allowed plenty of bad blood to build up, so their meetings were serious business.
While Chuck Vrabel was kind of quiet and reserved during games, Coventry head coach William “Biff” Lloyd was extremely animated, a cross between Bobby Knight and Rodney Dangerfield, as short-fused as the former and as funny as the latter. I’ve interviewed a number of coaches in a number of differrnt sports at a number of different levels over nearly a half-century, and Biff is the only one who comes even remotely close to former Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano, the GOAT, when it comes to funny quips and one-liners.
Anyway, the difference between the two men’s personalities and coaching styles made the Norton-Coventry games just that much more interesting and watch-worthy.
With Vrabel appearing cool, calm and collected and Biff appearing as if he were auditioning for a spot on “Dance Fever,” the teams met at Norton in 1979 before a loud, raucous packed house. The game went back and forth like a heavyweight fight, with the teams trading roundhouse punches. It was close all the way.
In the late stages of the fourth quarter, a Norton player drove for a layup and plowed into a Comet bar the basket, sending them both crashing to the floor. The block-charge is the toughest call in basketball. It has been that way for years, and it will continue to be that way for years to come. It is basketball’s equivalent of the pass interference call in football. It is not clearly defined. The lines are blurred. No one — not even the officials themselves — seem to have a good grasp of it.
Had the Coventry player already stopped moving and established himself, or not?
Tom Collier, one of the best high school officials I’ve ever seen, and a guy who had the ability to stay calm, even in the most pressure-packed moments, like this one, was, as usual, in exactly the best spot to see the play clearly and make what he truly believed to be the right call. As such, he didn’t hesitate one bit.
Collier immediately walked toward the scorer’s table, put his left hand behind his head and thrust his right arm forward.
“12 white, offensive foul!,” he said loudly and with total conviction.
The Norton bench and fans exploded. Even Vrabel showed some emotion.
What happened next was the greatest — and funniest — moment I ever saw in a sporting event. It also produced the best line I ever heard.
The Norton player who was called for the foul stood in front of his team’s bench. He grabbed the ball and, with every ounce of strength he could muster, slammed the ball against the floor.
Collier, with Vrabelesque calm and decorum, walked over to the player and put his arm around him
as they joined everybody in the gym watching the ball soar toward the ceiling.
Just as the ball reached its apex and stopped for a monent before its descent, Collier said to him in matter-of-fact fashion, “You know, son, if that ball comes down and hits the floor, it’ll be a technical foul.”
The young man’s eyes got as big as saucers.
And, just as promised, when the ball hit the court near where they were standing, Collier, as promised, promptly t’d him up.
Coventry, in no small part on the strength of that pivotal play, went on to win the game by only a few points. It was a seminal moment for the program, for Biff pointed out to me afterward that it was the first time the Comets had won at Norton since 1959, 10 years before.
It would have been really cool if Biff had stolen a Sam Rutigliano quote and told his team in the locker room afterward, “Hey, guys, I’ve got my best line of the year, ‘Chuck Vrabel kicked in the wrong door.’ “
It was in 1959 that Houston secured a franchise in the new American Football League that would begin play the following year. The Oilers stayed there through 1996 before moving to Tennessee, first to Memphis and then to Nashville, where they are known as the Titans.
And now those Titans, with the former Norton Panthers ballboy as their head coach, play the Browns on Sunday in his old stomping grounds of Northeast Ohio.
I bet that Chuck Vrabel, whose time on the sideline for all those years planted a coaching seed in his son’s head, is very proud.
