RE-LEARNING ABOUT THE LERNERS, ALL THESE YEARS LATER

By STEVE KING

Ohio has even billionaires, according to Forbes, and three of them are from the family of the late Al Lerner, the original owner of the expansion-era Browns.
His widow, Norma, is ranked number five on that list, while her daughter, Nancy Lerner, is sixth and brother Randy Lerner, who took over as owner of the team when his father passed away from brain cancer nearly 20 years ago, on Oct. 8, 2002, is seventh. All have a net worth of $1.1 billion.
Norma Lerner, who must have a few more dollars than her kids, has banking listed as her source of wealth, while Nancy and Randy have banking and credit cards listed as their sources of wealth. Following their father’s death, they ran MBNA, which at the time was the second-largest credit-card holding company in the world. It was acquired by Bank of America in 2006.
In any event, yes, the Lerners are still very wealthy. Big shock, huh?
Randy Lerner sold the Browns to Jimmy and Dee Haslam in August 2012, just as training camp was beginning.
Randy owned the team for all but the last two of the 10 years I worked for it. I liked him, and still do. I found him to be gracious, kind and selfless. Even though I was at the bottom end of the food chain in terms of my place on the organizational flow chart, he never failed to greet me and call me by name wherever our paths crossed.
His father had a passion for owning  the Browns. Al had been a minority owner of the Aty Modell0owned Browns. Randy didn’t have that zeal. He got the Browns by default and, because he knew they were such a large and important community asset, he did his best to run them in the right way, all the while keeping his eyes open for a buyer, He eventually — just short of 10 years later — found that in the Haslams. He was only too happy to sell. It was a huge relief for him.
But it begs a question.
More to come.