Dub Jones, Doug Dieken and Dino Lucarelli to carry Browns history forward

By Steve King

Former longtime Browns trainer Leo Murphy is gone, having passed away the weekend before last at the age of 94, and with that a lot – actually, a whole lot – of history of the early days of the team is now gone, too.

Murphy worked for the Browns for 40 years, from 1950 through ’88, and as such was a walking, talking encyclopedia of the team. He knew everything and everybody inside and out. After all, he had witnessed it, and them.
It wasn’t the famous helmet in which he installed a radio transmitter for a 1956 game.



And first-hand accounts are history at its best – at its core.

You can hear, see and learn plenty – probably more than you really want to – by taping a guy’s ankles and standing on the sideline behind Paul Brown listening to him talk strategy with his coaches and players.

So, who carries that information – those stories, that history, that precious heirloom – forward? It’s incumbent upon everyone who knew Murphy to do that. They all have their own stories and observations and need to share them with anybody and everybody who will listen so that future generations of fans know it.

But the bulk of it will fall on three key people: Dub Jones, Doug Dieken and Dino Lucarelli.

Jones, now 93 (he will turn 94 on Dec. 29), is still sharp as a tack, and working for his family’s construction company in Louisiana, if you can believe that. The running back/wide receiver played pro football for 10 seasons, the first two of which were spent with a pair of the Browns’ rivals in the All-America Football Conference, the Miami Seahawks and Brooklyn Dodgers, before he was traded to Cleveland in 1948. He finished his career by playing with the Browns for eight seasons, through 1955, before retiring.

Jones, who shares an NFL record with two Pro Football Hall of Famers in Ernie Nevers and Gale Sayers by having scored six touchdowns in a 1951 game against the Chicago Bears, is a member of what serves as the Browns hall of fame, which is known as the Cleveland Browns Legends. He was part of five league championships as a player and then another one, in 1964, when he served as offensive coordinator for five seasons (1963-67).

Dieken is beginning his 45th year with the team, the longest such association in Browns history. He was the starting left tackle from the midpoint of his rookie season of 1971 through ’84, after which he retired and went to the radio booth. He will be in his 31st season as the color analyst on broadcasts. He also did goodwill work for the Browns for the three years, 1996-98, when the franchise was held in trust by the NFL.

Lucarelli, who will turn 86 in about two weeks, attended the first Browns regular-season game in 1946 as a 12-year-old boy from the Cleveland suburb of Garfield Heights. He worked in public relations with the Cleveland Barons and Indians before being hired by Browns owner Art Modell to serve a PR role with the Cleveland Stadium Corp. Modell moved him to Browns public relations/player appearances in 1980. He stayed there through 1995 and then worked the next three football-less years in ticket sales for the Browns Trust.

When the Browns returned to the field in 1999, he was re-hired to work in alumni relations for them and remained in that role until retiring in 2014. The media room at Browns Headquarters is named for him.

Lucarelli lives in the Cleveland suburb of Independence.

All three of them – Lucarelli, Dieken and Jones – were already looked upon as team historians per se, but now with the passing of Leo Murphy, they will come much more into focus in that role.