The Kardiac Kids era has as much – or perhaps even more — shelf-life than any in Browns history.

It’s been more than 3½ decades since that 1980 season, yet fans remember it as it were yesterday, and with tremendous fondness. Want to make a Browns fan smile, whenever and wherever, and maybe even get a little – or a lot — emotional? Then mention the Kardiac Kids. It works every time it’s tried.

There are a lot of reasons for that, one of which is the quality of the players both on and off the field. It was a likeable bunch of guys. They were, and still are with rare exception, as good as human beings as they were as players. That doesn’t happen nearly enough in pro sports.

All of this was recalled – again – in the CBS’s pregame show for Saturday’s round-of-32 game between Duke and Yale in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

There was a fun, little segment about Yale product Calvin Hill, a running back whose contributions to the Kardiac Kids have never gotten their due (he caught 27 passes out of the backfield, including a team-high of six for touchdowns, in 1980), and his son, former Duke basketball star Grant Hill, who went to a two-decade career in the NBA. Like his father, Grant is as classy as it gets.

Although Calvin, who had six touchdowns, second-best on the team, among his 25 catches in 1978 in the first of his four seasons with the Browns, became a Duke man when Grant played there, he made it clear to CBS’s studio host, Greg Gumbel, that his full allegiance would be to Yale. Grant, of course, said he would be pulling for the the Blue Devils.

The Hills were then asked if there would be any ribbing between the two following the outcome of the game.

Grant said he would not because, “You have to respect your elders.”

Calvin, now 69 years young and living in Baltimore, agreed, then he changed his mind, admitting with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, “Yeah, I would probably talk a lot of trash to him for a long time.”

Calvin Hill, of course, won’t get that chance – at least not this time – but he almost did. Duke led by 27 points in first half and appeared headed for a rout, but Yale rallied and got the deficit down to only three points with just under 40 seconds left before the Blue Devils held on to win 71-64.

But that’s OK, because it was great to get some unexpected Kardiac Kids flavor in the middle of March Madness.

And one more thing: While we’re talking about Calvin Hill, whose 12-year NFL career began with the Dallas Cowboys and also included a stint with the Washington Redskins before it ended in Cleveland following the 1981 season, you might – or might not – remember that he was part of one of the prospective ownership groups for the re-born Browns in 1998. His group – and several others – lost out to the one led by Al Lerner and Carmen Policy. We’re all too well aware of the Browns’ incredible struggles in the expansion era. It’s been awful. But would it have been different – better – had the bid by Hill’s group been accepted instead?

We’ll never know, but it’s certainly interesting to think about, especially on a day like Saturday.