July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Closing the loop for local football fans (01/02/08)
Back in the Saddle
By By JACK RONALD-
Maybe this closes the loop.
Maybe the fact that Cleveland Browns fans were rooting for the Indianapolis Colts to win on Sunday against Tennessee ties up some knot in fan history for those of us in this corner of east central Indiana.
Once upon a time, you see, we were all Browns fans. All of us who watched the National Football League in those black and white days in the 1950s.
The reasons were obvious.
Number one, of course, was Pete Brewster. It's safe to say that Pete was the first NFL player I was ever aware of. That's because he was a hometown boy. Brewster played for Portland on what was, arguably, the best team that high school ever had. (A team in the 1930s and my brother's team in 1958 were also in the running.)
Brewster also went on to be a standout at Purdue University, then - when the NFL was still a pretty young institution - joined the Browns in Cleveland. He played defensive end, and as a kid I thought that was the most important position on the field. (Not coincidentally, it was the same position my big brother Steve played.)
The number two reason had to do with television.
In the mid-1950s, pretty much all you could get in Jay County was a VHF signal from Dayton or Indianapolis. If you lived in Portland, you got a better signal from Dayton. If you lived in Dunkirk, you got a better signal from Indy. In either case, the signal wasn't very good and the phrase "we're experiencing technical difficulties" entered the American lexicon during that era.
The Indianapolis stations, for reasons I've never understood, broadcast the Chicago Bears games, while Dayton broadcast the Browns.
Keep in mind that during that era, we weren't feasting on several games a week. The dose was one-per-week, administered on Sunday afternoon only. (Major League Baseball had similar dosage restrictions, sticking us with "The Game of the Week" and Dizzy Dean rather than the abundance of choices we have today. At our house, we could see the Browns most Sundays in the fall and early winter.
And there was a third reason to be a fan. These Browns were something special. Paul Brown was coaching from the sidelines, and the immortal Jim Brown was running the ball in a way that made jaws drop all over America.
These days, it's another story.
The Browns are on the rebound and have had a better season than many of their long-suffering fans would have expected.
But as I was writing this, on Sunday afternoon, it still was not clear whether or not they would make the playoffs. Their fate, because of the Byzantine rules of the NFL, was decided Sunday night by the Indianapolis Colts.
If the Colts, who now claim the fan loyalty of both Dunkirk and Portland and more, had knocked off Tennessee, the Browns were in. But the Colts lost, so the Browns are not. I had been hoping the Hoosier connection - the Pete Brewster connection, if you would - might make the difference.
Maybe that was asking too much.[[In-content Ad]]
Maybe the fact that Cleveland Browns fans were rooting for the Indianapolis Colts to win on Sunday against Tennessee ties up some knot in fan history for those of us in this corner of east central Indiana.
Once upon a time, you see, we were all Browns fans. All of us who watched the National Football League in those black and white days in the 1950s.
The reasons were obvious.
Number one, of course, was Pete Brewster. It's safe to say that Pete was the first NFL player I was ever aware of. That's because he was a hometown boy. Brewster played for Portland on what was, arguably, the best team that high school ever had. (A team in the 1930s and my brother's team in 1958 were also in the running.)
Brewster also went on to be a standout at Purdue University, then - when the NFL was still a pretty young institution - joined the Browns in Cleveland. He played defensive end, and as a kid I thought that was the most important position on the field. (Not coincidentally, it was the same position my big brother Steve played.)
The number two reason had to do with television.
In the mid-1950s, pretty much all you could get in Jay County was a VHF signal from Dayton or Indianapolis. If you lived in Portland, you got a better signal from Dayton. If you lived in Dunkirk, you got a better signal from Indy. In either case, the signal wasn't very good and the phrase "we're experiencing technical difficulties" entered the American lexicon during that era.
The Indianapolis stations, for reasons I've never understood, broadcast the Chicago Bears games, while Dayton broadcast the Browns.
Keep in mind that during that era, we weren't feasting on several games a week. The dose was one-per-week, administered on Sunday afternoon only. (Major League Baseball had similar dosage restrictions, sticking us with "The Game of the Week" and Dizzy Dean rather than the abundance of choices we have today. At our house, we could see the Browns most Sundays in the fall and early winter.
And there was a third reason to be a fan. These Browns were something special. Paul Brown was coaching from the sidelines, and the immortal Jim Brown was running the ball in a way that made jaws drop all over America.
These days, it's another story.
The Browns are on the rebound and have had a better season than many of their long-suffering fans would have expected.
But as I was writing this, on Sunday afternoon, it still was not clear whether or not they would make the playoffs. Their fate, because of the Byzantine rules of the NFL, was decided Sunday night by the Indianapolis Colts.
If the Colts, who now claim the fan loyalty of both Dunkirk and Portland and more, had knocked off Tennessee, the Browns were in. But the Colts lost, so the Browns are not. I had been hoping the Hoosier connection - the Pete Brewster connection, if you would - might make the difference.
Maybe that was asking too much.[[In-content Ad]]
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