On this date in Browns history, May 12

On this date in Browns history, May 12

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By STEVE KING

Tuesday marked the 60th anniversary of the arrival of safety Don Fleming to the Browns and the beginning of a sad and historic odyssey.

It was on this date in Browns history, May 12, 1960 that Cleveland acquired Fleming in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals for a sixth-round draft choice.

The deal was made possible with the help of Cleveland Browns Legend Bernie Parrish, who made the Mount Rushmore of Browns cornerbacks the other day. Parrish and Fleming were good friends after having played together at the University of Florida in the late 1950s.

Fleming had been taken in the 28th round – two rounds from the bottom – in the 1959 NFL Draft by the Cardinals, who were still based in Chicago then. Fleming didn’t want to be with the Cardinals and told Parrish so. Having been born and raised in tiny Shadyside, Ohio, the home of iconic Browns longtime radio play-by-play announcer Gib Shanley, who would be hired a year later, he wanted to play for the Browns instead of the perennially-struggling Cardinals.

Parrish went to Browns head coach Paul Brown, told him about the situation and was able to convince him that Fleming could help the team, and a trade was worked out.

Parrish was right. Fleming became a starter as a rookie and had five interceptions. He added three more in 1961 and two in ’62, giving him 10 in just three years and making him one of the top young safeties in the league.

Then came tragedy. Fleming was electrocuted in an offseason construction accident on June 4, 1963, becoming the third – and final – Browns player to die in a 4½-month period. Running back Ernie Davis, who was acquired from the Washington Redskins in a trade involving Bobby Mitchell, had died of leukemia on May 18, 1963, and Tom Bloom a two-way back from Purdue who was a sixth-round draft choice in 1963, was killed in a car accident on I-70 in Western Ohio on Jan. 18, 1963.

It was the most tragic offseason not just in Browns history, but arguably also the most tragic one in NFL history.

However, sometimes within horrible stories like that there’s a sliver of a great tale, and that is the case here. It involves Blanton Collier.

Collier, who had been an assistant coach – Paul Brown’s top aide, close friend and confidante – on the first eight Browns teams before the Kentucky native left to become the head coach at the University of Kentucky in 1954. He returned to the Browns in 1962 as an assistant and took over as head coach when Brown was unceremoniously fired about three weeks after the end of the 1962 season.

Think about that: Collier was following the man for whom the Browns were named. Geesh!

Collier’s hiring came a week before Bloom’s death. Then, before the Browns got to their first training camp under their new head coach, Davis and Fleming passed away.

That was devastating, but there was also the fact that Collier was inheriting a team that had not won the Eastern Conference title for five years, or the NFL championship for seven seasons, and was coming off a 1962 season in which Cleveland finished just 7-6-1, Brown’s second-to-worst record in his 17 years here.

Then there was this big problem: the Browns lacked a true starter at quarterback, the most important position in team sports, after Frank Ryan and Jim Ninowski had split the job evenly in 1962 with only moderate success.

So, then, Collier faced a huge – almost numbing — challenge in a number of different ways. It probably would have melted most coaches, but he made it work.

After Collier instituted Ryan as the starter and empowered the players to have input in his decisions, something that Brown never did, the offense – and team overall – took off like a rocket in that first season of 1963 in a 6-0 start. The Browns went on to finish 10-4, good enough for second place in the East, just a game behind the New York Giants, with whom they had split the season series.

Then in 1964, the Browns won the 1964 NFL championship with a 27-0 upset victory over the Baltimore Colts.

A lot of that was because of the genius of Collier. He was well-versed not only in football, but also in communicating with, and earning the respect of, players.

One more thing: In a sad, unrelated note, John Teerlinck, who served as Browns defensive line coach under Bud Carson in 1989 and ’90, and whose personality was as big as he was, passed away over the weekend. He was 69. His line helped the 1989 Browns break a team record with 45 sacks. It is still the second-most in club history.

Cleveland went 9-6-1 in 1989 and won the AFC Central title for the fourth time in five years, making it to the conference title game against the Denver Browns for the third time in four seasons.

Teerlinck was an assistant coach in the NFL for two decades overall, being part of three Super Bowl championship teams. An annual award for the NFL’s best defensive line coach is named after him.

On this date in Browns history, May 12 was written by Steve King

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On this date in Browns history, May 12