Before he went to Ohio State and the Browns, Paul Brown was a heckuva high school head coach at Massillon in the 1930s.

And he also did really well guiding the Tigers in football.

Yes, Brown, in addition to coaching the football team at Massillon to greatness, did the same while coaching the school’s boys basketball squad.

Brown took the Tigers to the Class A (big-school) state tournament twice in four seasons from 1937-40. Both times, they met arch rival Canton McKinley in the semifinals, splitting the games.

In 1937, the Tigers beat McKinley 33-28 and then lost 37-32 t o Hamilton in the title game.

Then in 1940, the Tigers were manhandled 46-14 in the semis by McKinley, which then fell 30-22 to New Philadelphia in the finals.

A year later, in 1941, Martins Ferry, led by All-Ohio center Lou Groza, won the state championship by defeating Xenia Central 36-34 in the semifinals and then Lakewood 37-30 in the title contest.

Why mention all this?

There are three reasons.

First, this is a site covering the Browns.

Brown and Groza earned their way into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with their performances on those first Browns teams.

And this year’s boys state basketball tournament begins Thursday morning and continues through Saturday night at Value City Arena in Columbus.

The game – basketball — has changed a lot since those bygone days when Brown was coaching and Groza was playing. The Ohio High School Athletic Association had just made a major rule change to quicken the pace of the games, abolishing the jump ball after every basket and allowing the team that was on defense to take the ball out of bonds under its own basket. Imagine that.

Enjoy the tournament in all four classifications – Division I, Division II, Division III and Division IV, the latter two of which will kick things off Thursday with their semifinal games.

May the best teams win.