There are several more aspects of the Modells I want to touch on in relation to David Modell’s passing last Friday. But I’ll have to get back to that later this week, because Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the Browns, because of what they did way back when, and have continued to do to the present day, embody the opportunities-for-all philosophy that the great Dr. King preached.

As such, then, on the heels of a season when the club hit rock-bottom in their 70-year history, it’s time for a little pick-me-up for fans with the reminder that the Browns were once far and away the leaders both on and off the field.

Paul Brown, the head coach of those first Browns teams, had an eye for talent. And it was an eye for which color didn’t matter.

When Brown signed fullback Marion Motley, a product of Canton McKinley High School, and middle guard Bill Willis from Columbus East High School and Ohio State, he got not only great players – both are enshrined with Brown in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and Willis played for Brown on Ohio State’s first national championship team in 1942 – but also great men. When the two African-Americans began playing on Brown’s first Cleveland team in 1946 in the All-America Football Conference, Willis and Motley were the ones to permanently break the color barrier in pro football coming out of World War II.

A year later, in 1947, Brown signed another person of color in Horace Gillom, whom he called “the greatest high school player I ever cached” when he played for the coach at Massillon High School. A Cleveland Browns Legend, Gillom is the top punter in club history.

Three years after that, in 1950, another iconic African-American was added in defensive end Len Ford. He and Willis are the only two defensive members among the 15 Browns players who are in the HOF.

In 1969, one of Brown’s former assistants and the man who followed him as head coach in Cleveland, Blanton Collier, hired Ernie Green as running backs coach. Green, the Browns’ seventh all-time leading rusher and a member of the 1964 NFL champions, thus became one of the first African -American assistant coaches in NFL history.

And a year ago, Hue Jackson became the Browns’ second African-American head coach. The other was Romeo Crennel from 2005-08.

Enjoy the holiday on Monday, but more importantly, remember the reasons for its existence.