I’ve talked in recent posts about the Browns getting much, much better both on and off the field – that is, about them winning a whole lot more games and their players getting a whole lot more recognizable to fans.
It used to be like that with the Browns.
There was the five-year stretch from 1985-89, when the Browns made it to the playoffs five straight times, winning four Central Division titles and advancing to the AFC Championship Game on three occasions. The players loved Cleveland, and Cleveland loved them. Cleveland still loves them, in fact.
There was also 1980, unquestionably the most exciting season in Browns history when the Kardiac Kids captured the Central championship with a slew of pulsating, down-to-the-wire victories, causing all the players to become like rock stars – even now.
Everybody remembers the two times the fans jammed – really, really jammed — Hopkins International Airport to welcome the Browns home from big road wins in 1980.
The members of the current Browns regime do not want to hear about any of that “old stuff,” but they would do well to not only hear it, but also to listen to it, study it and emulate it as much as much as they possibly can. That 1980 season is the gold standard in this town for thrilling the fans.
A case in point – and what I’ve thought about a lot as the Browns have struggled in the expansion era – is a story involving Dick Ambrose, a very good, tough-as-nails inside linebacker for the club from 1975-83. He hit so hard that he earned the nickname of “Bam Bam.” Like many of his teammates, he was at his best in that 1980 season.
Ambrose, of course, has transitioned into being a longtime Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge. His most high-profile trial was that of Anthony Sowell, who was charged – and eventually convicted and sentenced to death – for murdering 11 women and burying the remains around his Cleveland home.
At one point during the trial, a woman took the stand to testify. After sitting down, she petitioned Ambrose for permission to ask him a question.
He granted it, after which the woman said, with all the seriousness in the world, “May I call you Judge Bam Bam?”
There was laughter throughout the courtroom for the only time during that sickening trial.
Thinking about it for a moment, Ambrose smiled and said, “Yes.”
Only in Cleveland.
That’s the kind of memories – and legacies – these re-born Browns need to create.
