SOMETIMES THE BALL DOESN’T BOUNCE YOUR WAY

By STEVE KING 

As we always tell you about our website, Browns Daily Dose, you’re going to get a steady diet of interesting, informative and/or thought-provoking things that you’re not going to see, or hear, anywhere else.

And such is the case today as the Browns get ready for their big road game against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.

Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, of course, was a standout at first Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit High School and then Ohio State before going on to a fine NFL career with the New England Patriots. His dad, Chuck Vrabel, was a longtime school administrator and high school boys basketball coach in the Akron area, including in the late 1970s at Norton High School, located between Akron and Wadsworth. Before I started covering the Browns, I did a lot of high school basketball games, which was just fine with me because I love the sport. It’s how a lot of sport writers got started in the business back then, and is still the case now. 

I covered a lot of Norton games during that period because the schools I covered all played the Panthers. One of those games produced the best — and funniest — thing I ever saw on a basketball court.

Norton was hosting Akron Coventry, whose head coach was Biff Lloyd, a former Barberton assistant under the legendary Jack Greynolds who went on to Brecksville, where he coached former Browns punter Tom Tupa. The schools had been bitter rivals for years, and didn’t particularly care for each other.

As usual when the Panthers played Coventry, the game was close and hotly-contested throughout in front of a packed house. A Norton player was driving to the basket midway through the fourth quarter when he collided with a Comets defender, sending both boys sprawling to the floor and setting up a block-or-charge foul, which has been the most difficult call to make in basketball forever.

Tom Collier, a veteran and well-respected official who had seen everything in his many years on the job, didn’t hesitate. He walked right over to the scorer’s table, near where I was sitting, and called it a charge, saying that the Coventry defender had established a stationary position before the collision.

The Norton player lost his cool, grabbing the basketball in front of his own bench, just a couple feet away from Vrabel, and slamming it onto the floor as hard as he could. The ball soared high into the air. As everyone watched, Collier walked over to the kid and, just as the ball was nearing its apex and would be starting its descent, put his arm around his shoulder and said, “Son, if that ball comes back down and hits the floor, it’s a technical foul.”

The player’s eyes got as big as saucers and a horrible look came over his face, and when the ball came back down to earth seconds later, Collier teed him up.

True story.

By the way, Coventry ended up beating the Panthers on that long-ago night, winning at Norton for the first time since 1957.

Here’s hoping on Sunday that Vrabel’s team — Mike’s Titans — loses again.