It was a great group of coaches, and men, on those long-ago Browns teams of the first half of the 1990s.
Kirk Ferentz, who we featured the other day about his appearance at the Big 10 Football Media Days in his role as the longtime head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes, is right at the top of that list. He was as kind, friendly and selfless as the day is long during his three seasons (1993-95) as the offensive line coach of the Browns under head coach Bill Belichick.
Ferentz and I are almost exactly the same age. One day, he came out of Browns headquarters for an afternoon practice during training camp.
“I’m turning 40 today,” he told me with a laugh. “You hit 40, and it isn’t pretty. Parts of my body are flying off as we speak. You’ve got that to look forward to soon.”
Ferentz, who will celebrate his 71st birthday on Saturday, is heading into his 28th season at Iowa, which makes him the longest-tenured active FBS head coach. He is also the winningest coach in Big Ten history. He is close friends with another successful college head coach with whom he worked in Cleveland, former defensive coordinator Nick Saban.
Michael Dean Perry, one of the best defensive tackles in Browns history, and Belichick battled each other on a number of things, and it came to a head during the 1994 training camp when Perry walked off the field in the middle of practice and went home, staying away for 44 hours before returning. It was, as you might remember, a big, big deal.
These were the days when media members were able to eat lunch with players, coaches and other team employees in the cafeteria during training camp.
Several media people were eating in there one day several days after MDP returned when Saban sat down at the table with us.
“I’m sure you guys want to know what happened with Michael Dean,” Saban said after a few minutes of small talk. “Look, it’s like this: When your kid acts up and storms out of the house, you wait until he comes back, you wack him on the rear end a few times and then everybody and everything goes back to normal. OK?”
With that, Saban looked at each one of us, said bye and got up and left.
Less than a yeat earlier, on Nov. 8, 1993, when the Browns unceremoniously cut star quarterback Bernie Kosar, Saban summed it up this way to several of us: “It was the right decision. Now, could we have handled it a little better? Yeah, probably.”
Saban would also talk to us from time to time concerning non-Browns subjects. He knew I worked for the Medina Gazette, and one day, he said he and his wife, now affectionately known as Ms. Terri, purchased a home near Medina because there was a good school there for their special needs son, Nick.
Saban trusted us, and we trusted him.
I have rooted for him, and Ferentz, ever since. We had no idea then of the high places that those two men, plus Belichick, would reach in their careers.
Looking back on it now, it all seems so surreal.
Steve King
