Paul Brown was a great high school football coach in Ohio.

His nine seasons (1932-40) at Massillon were about as good as it gets. It was historic in that he was winning not just state championships but national titles as

well.

His tenure at Massillon were so good, in fact, that the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association lobbied Ohio State officials to hire Brown for the head coaching job there. The school listened and hired him in 1941, and then the next season, he guided the Buckeyes to their first national championship.

But what you may not know is that Brown was an outstanding boys basketball coach as well at Massillon. He is also the school’s greatest head coach in that sport. The Tigers have made it to the state tournament six times, all from 1933-45, and exactly half — three — of them came with Brown at the helm. He guided the Tigers to the Class A (big-school) state tourney in 1937, ‘39 and ‘40 before heading off to Columbus to coach Ohio State football.

The Tigers (24-1 and with a 21-game winning streak) were trying to make it to state for the first time in 81 years when they played Euclid (17-8) in the Division II regional title game on Saturday night at the College of Wooster. Euclid, incidentally, was trying to get to the state tournament for the first time since 1968.

Brown got the Tigers to the state title game for the only time ever in that first trip in 1937. They beat their arch rival, Canton McKinley, 33–28, in the semifinals and then lost 37–32 to undefeated Hamilton (24-0) in the title game. The Tigers finished 22–2.

So, considering all this, then, is Brown the greatest head coach in Ohio high school history for those who have coached both football and basketball? That seems almost a given, doesn’t it?

Indeed, every time you take a look at Paul Brown, you find something else about him that really stands out. And now you know that that goes well beyond just his time in pro football as a coach for first the Browns and then the Cincinnati Bengals.

Steve King