Wednesday is the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the Browns were a part of one of the countless sidebar stories that ensued, all of which still exist today with an tragedy that continues to resonate all these years later.
It was Nov. 22, 1963 that Kennedy, only 46, was shot by sniper Lee Harvey Oswald as he was riding in a motorcade with his wife and Texas Gov. John Connelly and his wife.
That was on a Friday about noontime.
After much consternation, NFL Commissoner Pete Rozelle decided to play the league’s normal schedule of games just 48 years hours later, on Sunday, Nov. 24. Years later, he said that decision was the biggest regret of his career.
The Browns, under first-year head coach Blanton Collier, who was promoted to the job when his best friend, Paul Brown, was unceremoniously fired 3-1/2 weeks after the end of the 1962 season by a young owner by the name of Art Modell, were 7-3 and losers of three of their last four games as they jostled with the two-time defending Eastern Conference champion New York Giants atop the standings. The Browns, though winning their first six games, finished 10-4 and in second place, one game behind their arch rivals (11-3). New York would end up losing 14-10 to the Chicago Bears in the NFL Championship Game. A year later, in 1964, the Browns won the East with a 10-3-1 mark and then stunned the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts 27-0 to claim the league title.
The Browns’ opponent that day in 1963 at Cleveland Stadium was the Dallas Cowboys, a fourth-year franchise that was struggling to find its way under head coach Tom Landry, the former defensive coordinator of the Giants. They were struggling along with a 3-7 record on their way to a 4-10 finish. They were hardly “America’s Team” back then in more ways than one.
There was some national hostility toward the city of Dallas as the game approached.
The contention was, “Your town allowed our president to get killed.”
It only exacerbated the situation when, about an hour before the 1:30 p.m. kickoff, Oswald was shot by Dallas night club owner Jack Ruby on live television as he was being transferred in a Dallas jail. He died an hour and a half later, in the first half of the game. Now the city was also unable to protect Kennedy’s killer, denying the mourning nation the opportunity to see Oswald tried and punished for his heinous crime.
The Browns, who had defeated the Cowboys 41-24 at the Cotton Bowl in Week 2 in the teams’ first meeting, won the rematch 27-17 on two touchdown passes from Frank Ryan to wide receiver Gary Collins, safety Ross Fichtner’s 36-yard interception return for a TD and two Lou Groza field goals.
Ryan and Collins would combine for three touchdown passes, and Groza wound kick two field goals, to account for all the scoring in the championship game victory over Baltimore a year later.
Perhaps the most interesting story from the Cowboys win was that the loud, raucous crowd noise that was prevalent at Browns games was missing. Kennedy’s death had carved out everyone’s heart, and emotions. Playing football seemed out of place. As such, there was only polite applause on big plays from the 55,096 in attendance, the second-smallest Browns home crowd of the season. Some people with tickets never even bothered going.
The next day, Monday, Nov. 25, as Kennedy’s funeral was being held, Bernard Kosar Jr. was being born in a Youngstown hospital. Bernie Kosar would begin quarterbacking his boyhood team, the Browns, 21 years later.
Steve King
