Paul (E) Brown - High school and college coaching career, Professional leagues

Coach of American football, born in Norwalk, Ohio, USA. He achieved success at all coaching levels. His Massillon High School teams (1932–40) won state championships, his 1942 Ohio State University team was voted the national crown, and his professional Cleveland Browns (1946–62) won seven league titles. In 1968 he founded the Cincinnati Bengals. Extremely innovative, he brought classroom techniques to coaching, including detailed play guides, film study, and intelligence tests.

Paul Brown
Date of birth	September 7, 1908
Place of birth	Norwalk, OH
Date of death	August 5, 1991
Position(s)	Head Coach
College	Miami
Awards	1949 Sporting News NFL COY 1951 Sporting News NFL COY 1953 Sporting News NFL COY 1957 UPI NFL COY 1969 UPI NFL COY 1970 UPI NFL COY
Honors	Paul Brown Stadium
Career Record	166-100-6
Championships          Won	1946 AAFC Championship 1947 AAFC Championship 1948 AAFC Championship 1949 AAFC Championship 1950 NFL Championship 1954 NFL Championship 1955 NFL Championship
Coaching Stats	DatabaseFootball
Team(s) as a coach/administrator
1946-1962 1968-1975	Cleveland Browns Cincinnati Bengals
Pro Football Hall of Fame, 1967

Paul Eugene Brown (September 7, 1908 - August 5, 1991) was an athletics coach of American football and a major figure in the development of the National Football League. A seminal figure in football history, Brown is considered the "father of the modern offense," with many claiming that he ranks as one of if not the greatest of football coaches in history.

Born in Norwalk, Ohio, Brown's family moved to Massillon when he was nine. Brown graduated from Washington High School in Massillon, Ohio in 1925, having played varsity quarterback in the wake of Harry Stuhldreher.

High school and college coaching career

Enrolling at The Ohio State University as a freshman quarterback, Brown found his 145-pound frame would not stand the rigors of major college football, and transferred to Miami University in Ohio, losing a year of eligibility in the process. Under Coach Chester Pittser, Brown played two years and was named to the All-Ohio small college second team by the AP at the end of the 1928 season.

As his academic credentials indicate, Brown was as much a teacher as he was a coach.

Washington High School Tigers

Tasting success with a 16-1-1 mark in two seasons at Severn, Brown gave up a brief attempt at law school in 1932 to become at age 23 the head football coach of his hometown Massillon Washington High School Tigers.

Brown not only ended that frustrating losing streak, but also won the next six games with McKinley, and an overall total of 58 of the next 60 contests, tying one, and gaining six straight Ohio state high school football championships (1935 through 1940) for Massillon. During this period, Brown's achievements also helped build a new stadium for the high school that seated 20,000 people, and drew crowds that surpassed every football program in Ohio except The Ohio State University.

Brown had achieved this success by implementing a system at Massillon based on techniques developed by Dr. John B. Sutherland had played professional football for the pioneer Massillon Tigers club when Brown was a boy and had gone on to success as a coach. Brown planned every phase of his program, detailing practice schedules, assigning assistant coaches (which he dubbed "position coaches") specific duties, and installing his entire system in Massillon's junior high schools so that players would already know his system when they reached high school.

Ohio State Buckeyes

With avid support from influential groups including the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association and future Purdue University head coach Jack Mollenkopf of Toledo Waite High School, Brown moved into the college ranks by becoming head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes on January 14, 1941.

In his first season at Ohio State Brown went 6-1-1, losing to Northwestern University and their running back Otto Graham, and tying Michigan. The Buckeyes tied for second place in the Western Conference, finished 13th in the AP poll, and Brown was voted fourth place on balloting for National Coach of the Year behind Frank Leahy, Bernie Bierman, and Earl Blaik.

The following year, despite losing 18 lettermen to graduation and to military service in World War II, Brown led the Buckeyes to the university's first National championship, using a team of 3 seniors, 16 juniors, and 24 sophomores.

Brown had recruited what was reputedly the finest freshman team in Ohio history in 1942 but lost virtually all of them to military service.

After Brown was re-classified 1-A in February 1944, he was commissioned April 12, 1944, as a lieutenant (junior grade) in the United States Navy.

After the war, despite still being Ohio State's head coach in absentia, Brown chose instead to become the first head coach for Arthur 'Mickey' McBride's new All-America Football Conference franchise, the Cleveland Browns, signing his contract February 8, 1945, while still in the Navy.

Until 1951 Brown retained an interest in coaching the Buckeyes. However Brown had also alienated many of his supporters within the Buckeye alumni ranks for failing to return to the coaching position reserved for him at the end of World War II, and the athletics department by signing Buckeye players, Lou Groza chief among them, to professional contracts before their college eligibility had ended.

Professional leagues

Cleveland Browns

While the AAFC lasted only four seasons, the Browns served as the gold standard for the league, winning the championship each year and outdrawing the Cleveland's NFL franchise, the Rams, who had left town for Los Angeles after winning the NFL championship in 1945.

Brown had put together a talented team, primarily by combining players from Massillon, Ohio State and Great Lakes.

Following the merger between the NFL and AAFC, The Browns, along with the San Francisco 49ers and the first Baltimore Colts franchise, moved to the NFL in 1950 and didn't miss a beat, winning the NFL Championship in their first year.

Brown gained a reputation as an innovator during his time in Cleveland. After the Browns had soundly defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the opening game of the 1950 NFL season, Eagles head coach Greasy Neale dismissed the Browns by saying, "All they do is pass the ball."

Fired

Brown was fired as coach on January 9, 1963 by majority owner, Art Modell, who had purchased the club in 1961 and looked to take more control over the team.

The relationship, which had never been warm, had continued to deteriorate because of what Brown felt was Modell's infringing on his duties.

In exile after more than 30 years of coaching, Brown spent the next five years on the sidelines, never once attending a Browns contest.

Cincinnati Bengals

On September 26, 1967, Brown officially returned to football as part-owner of the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL's rival American Football League. In each of those seasons, as well as a number of preseason clashes, Browns' Bengals took on his former Browns team, reigniting the bitter rivalry between Brown and Modell.

Honors

Brown was honored in 1967 by his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. In addition to that accolade, two stadiums bear his name: Paul Brown Tiger Stadium in Massillon, and Paul Brown Stadium, current home of the Bengals. One could also say that a third stadium is named after Coach Brown: the "Cleveland Browns Stadium."

Brown's first wife, Kathryn "Katie" Brown, died in 1969 and in 1973 he married his former secretary, Mary Rightsell.