Assistant coaches on the Browns – and on most NFL teams, really – come and go as if they are moving through revolving door.
It’s just the way the league is now. Head coaches come and go, too, and when there is a coaching change, the new coach fires most, if not all, of the existing assistants and brings in his guys as their replacements.
But back in the day, there was a lot more stability everywhere in the world, including in pro football coaching. The staffs were much smaller, and the members tended to stay a long time.
Monday marks the anniversary of the arrival of one of those longtime assistants to the Browns. It was 65 years ago, on April 10, 1952, that the club hired Howard Brinker as ends coach.
A native of tiny Canal Fulton, Ohio, located just northwest of Massillon, Brinker played for head coach Paul Brown’s first team at Massillon High School in 1932 and went on to be a center at Miami (of Ohio), playing alongside guard Fritz Heisler, another Massillon High product who went on to coach with him on the Browns (more on Heisler in a minute).
Brinker coached prep football in Massillon and Steubenville before going on to Ohio University and then to Cleveland, where he was hired by his former coach at Massillon, Brown, who was getting ready to start his seventh season as head coach of the Browns.
Brinker had no idea he would outlast Brown in Cleveland. Brown spent another decade with the Browns before getting fired following the 1962 season. Brinker remained with the team for 22 seasons, through 1973, serving as defensive coordinator for the last 20 of those years. He was the architect of the greatest defensive performance in team history, as the Browns overwhelmed the star-studded Baltimore Colts offense in the 1964 NFL Championship game, leading to a stunning 27-0 victory.
Heisler, who was an assistant under Brown at both Massillon and Ohio State, followed him to Cleveland in 1946 and served as offensive line coach for 25 years. When he retired following the 1970 season, he was the only original member of Brown’s staff still coaching with the Browns.
Eddie Ulinski coached linebackers for 17 seasons (1954-70) with the Browns following his having been a guard on the club’s first four teams from 1946-49. After he finished his coaching career, he spent a long time as film coordinator of the Browns.
Paul Bixler, a native of Louisville, Ohio who played at Mount Union, served as an assistant at Akron and then was the head coach at Ohio State in 1946, spent nearly 20 years with the Browns in coaching and as player personnel director.
Even the support people with the Browns back then spent a long time in their roles. Leo Murphy was the trainer for nearly 40 years, while Morrie Kono was the equipment manager for almost 30 seasons.
