By Ryan Leonardo

    Long before there were the scandals of illegal videotaping of teams and performance enhancing drug use, there was a great coach from the Buckeye State named Paul Brown who only needed his brilliant mind, innovative spirit, pure determination and discipline to get the most from his teams and players.  Paul Brown forever changed the game of football not only in Ohio, but across the nation with his innovations, inventions and genius philosophies that made coaching football the exact science it is today.

    Paul Brown was an incredible coach in every aspect of the game.  The Massillon High School football Tigers under Brown compiled an astonishing record of 80-8-2.  Brown captured the first National Championship for The Ohio State University in 1942, despite losing many of his top recruits to the war.  Brown also founded and coached the Cleveland Browns in 1946 through 1962.  He also started and coached the Cincinnati Bengals from 1968 to 1975.  

    The Ohio State University head football coaching job is by far the most coveted in collegiate sports.  Brown referred to it in his autobiography as “the only job I ever wanted.”  Brown put together what many experts call the greatest recruiting classes in Ohio history in his short tenure with the Buckeyes.  His 1942 championship was Ohio State’s first, although he had lost many scholarship players to military service.  Brown left Ohio State after the 1943 season, after only three years, to coach the Great Lakes Naval Academy and serve the country.  Paul Brown was an Ohio man and coached in the “heart of it all” almost his entire career. Even after all of his success with the Browns, Bengals and Massillon, he still wanted to go back to Ohio State.  Next time you hear that song on a Saturday afternoon, think of Paul Brown.  The mystique and glory of being head coach of the Ohio State University Buckeyes was the only desire of one of the greatest coaches the gridiron has ever seen.