The Browns and one of their former players from nearly 60 years ago are now part of the high-profile discussion in the NFL about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease that can come from concussive injuries or head trauma through contact sports over a period of time.
It comes with the release this weekend at the Freep Film Festival in Detroit of the 88-minute documentary, “Requiem for a Running Back.”
Put together chiefly by Rebecca Carpenter, it is described as “an emotional, deeply personal look” at the life of former Browns running back Lew Carpenter, her late father. Carpenter died Nov. 14, 2010 at the age of 78 and left his brain for science after having had odd episodes of forgetfulness and confusion following his retirement as a player. It was 13 months later, in December 2011, that test results determined he had CTE, which at that time was far from the hot-button topic that it is today.
Carpenter played two of his 10 NFL seasons with head coach Paul Brown’s Browns after being traded from the Detroit Lions in 1957. In Cleveland, he played both years with his younger brother, wide receiver/running back Preston Carpenter, who had been a first-round choice, at No. 13 overall, in the 1956 NFL Draft by the Browns and remained with them for four years, through 1959.
In 1957, which was running back Jim Brown’s rookie season, Lew Carpenter finished as the team’s third-leading rusher with 315 yards and four touchdowns and Preston Carpenter was the second-leading receiver with 27 catches as the Browns finished 9-2-1 and won the Eastern Conference title.
The Browns just missed repeating as conference champions in 1958, losing to the New York Giants in a special playoff game, as Lew Carpenter (308 yards) again finished third in rushing while Preston Carpenter topped the club with 29 receptions.
After leaving Cleveland, Lew Carpenter finished his career by playing on head coach Vince Lombardi’s first five Green Bay Packers teams (1959-63). He won two NFL titles with the Packers in 1961 and ’62 after having captured one in 1953 in his rookie season with the Lions, who edged the Browns 17-16 in the championship game. He also played in the league title contest in 1954 with the Lions when they lost to the Browns 56-10 in the rematch and in 1960 with the Packers, giving him six NFL Championship Game appearances overall.
Immediately after his playing career ended, he coached in the pros for 33 years, all but one of which was in the NFL.
Lew Carpenter did not play in 1956 because of serving in the Army.
Preston Carpenter, whose 12-year pro career also included stints with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Washington Redskins, Minnesota Vikings and Miami Dolphins, died June 30, 2011, just a little over seven months after his brother. He was 77. He is not known to have had CTE.
Rebecca Carpenter, who was born in 1964, a year after Lewis Carpenter retired, and is the youngest of his four children, all girls, said she spent nearly every dime she had to help fund the $425,000 project.
“This is beautiful insanity,” she said in a Detroit Free Press story published last Thursday. “I mean, don’t make me out to be a crazy person, but the point is, I guess when your dad comes from like high poverty in Arkansas and gets you and your whole family out of really dire circumstances and gives up his brain to do it, you don’t just go, ‘Hey, thanks, Dad,’ and skip off into the sunset. He paid. I want to pay my respects to what he did for me.”
She added that making the film was “completely cathartic. I wanted to find out what CTE was. I wanted to find out if it was real. If it was real, I wanted to find out if my dad’s symptoms were like other players’ symptoms. I wanted to find out why they all played football and what was in to for them. I wanted to revisit my childhood in different parts of his coaching career and put things into context now that I know this.
“And then I think I wanted to be able to bury him having sort of fully grieved that dad that I got, the dad that I didn’t get and take parts of him I really just loved and take that with me into the rest of my life and let go of all the rest of it. And I feel like I did that.”
