Another one...Appropriately titled "Remember When" lol
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Remember when ... off-season was work time for the Cleveland Browns (and all pro athletes)?
Updated: May. 27, 2010, 4:34 a.m. | Published: May. 27, 2010, 3:34 a.m.
Dealer Historical CollectionIn the winter of 1961, future Hall of Fame defensive end Willie Davis spent his off-season hard at work teaching students (Dennis Kovach, left, and Demetrius Berry) about mechanical drawing at the Audubon School. “All of our guys worked,” said former Browns guard John Wooten, who also taught. “Nobody just sat around and ‘worked out.’”
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- At the Browns' Berea headquarters and elsewhere around the NFL, the players are back on the field for off-season training.
But "off-season" once meant players slipped out of their helmets and pads and into the uniforms of teachers, preachers, farmers and salesmen, not to return for at least six months. Players had to find "real" jobs to help pay the bills and prepare for their football after-lives -- including many Browns who wound up in the Hall of Fame.
Dealer Historical CollectionIn the winter of 1961, future Hall of Fame defensive end Willie Davis spent his off-season hard at work teaching students (Dennis Kovach, left, and Demetrius Berry) about mechanical drawing at the Audubon School. “All of our guys worked,” said former Browns guard John Wooten, who also taught. “Nobody just sat around and ‘worked out.’”
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- At the Browns' Berea headquarters and elsewhere around the NFL, the players are back on the field for off-season training.
But "off-season" once meant players slipped out of their helmets and pads and into the uniforms of teachers, preachers, farmers and salesmen, not to return for at least six months. Players had to find "real" jobs to help pay the bills and prepare for their football after-lives -- including many Browns who wound up in the Hall of Fame.
BrownsAs Browns fans perused their gameday programs at the stadium, it wasn't hard to figure out what many players -- in this case linebacker Jim Houston -- did when football wasn't in season.
The average NFL salary is about $2 million. The rookie minimum for 2010 is $305,000. Players can afford to spend the first chunk of the off-season to mend and decompress before heading back to the gym. Some run side businesses, but not necessarily because they have to.
"You've got to remember," said former Browns flanker Gary Collins, the three-touchdown hero of the city's last sports championship in 1964, "some of the guys are making more than [Art] Modell paid for the franchise." Modell bought the team for about $4 million in 1961.
But when the Browns made Ohio State linebacker Jim Houston their first-round selection and eighth overall in the 1960 NFL draft, they signed him for $10,000, plus a $1,000 bonus. With inflation, that's about $80,000 today -- roughly the average NFL salary 30 years ago.
Houston, now 72 and living in Sagamore Hills, remembers when head coach Paul Brown first addressed the rookies at old League Park.
"Gentlemen," Brown said, "you're going to be off Mondays and Tuesdays. Get a job."
"So I did," said Houston, who opened an insurance and financial planning company that he still runs from his basement office. "All of us tried to get jobs that would help sustain the off-season. You needed money, you had to go to work."
Staying close to the community, to make ends meet
Houston, who retired after the 1972 season, said he earned considerably more in insurance than football. That wasn't unusual. The NFL was decidedly different. It was before multi-billion-dollar TV contracts meant players could be set for life if they played long enough and managed their money right. It was before the roster carousel of free agency, so players often spent their whole careers with one team, in one city. Many stayed to work in the community.
#HelmetHornsMatter
“Well, the color is good, I like the metallic blue,” Youngblood recently said while laughing, via NFL Journal. “The horn is terrible. It looks like a ‘C.’ When I first saw it on the logo I honestly thought it was a Charger logo.
“Now when I see it on the helmet, it just isn’t a ram horn. There is no distinct curl like a mature ram horn. I don’t know how the Rams could get that wrong. That is your symbol and it has been for what? Seventy years or more? Longer than I have been alive? It’s just not us, it’s not the Rams.”---Mr. Ram Jack Youngblood
Remember when ... off-season was work time for the Cleveland Browns (and all pro athletes)?
Updated: May. 27, 2010, 4:34 a.m. | Published: May. 27, 2010, 3:34 a.m.
Dealer Historical CollectionIn the winter of 1961, future Hall of Fame defensive end Willie Davis spent his off-season hard at work teaching students (Dennis Kovach, left, and Demetrius Berry) about mechanical drawing at the Audubon School. “All of our guys worked,” said former Browns guard John Wooten, who also taught. “Nobody just sat around and ‘worked out.’”
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- At the Browns' Berea headquarters and elsewhere around the NFL, the players are back on the field for off-season training.
But "off-season" once meant players slipped out of their helmets and pads and into the uniforms of teachers, preachers, farmers and salesmen, not to return for at least six months. Players had to find "real" jobs to help pay the bills and prepare for their football after-lives -- including many Browns who wound up in the Hall of Fame.
Dealer Historical CollectionIn the winter of 1961, future Hall of Fame defensive end Willie Davis spent his off-season hard at work teaching students (Dennis Kovach, left, and Demetrius Berry) about mechanical drawing at the Audubon School. “All of our guys worked,” said former Browns guard John Wooten, who also taught. “Nobody just sat around and ‘worked out.’”
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- At the Browns' Berea headquarters and elsewhere around the NFL, the players are back on the field for off-season training.
But "off-season" once meant players slipped out of their helmets and pads and into the uniforms of teachers, preachers, farmers and salesmen, not to return for at least six months. Players had to find "real" jobs to help pay the bills and prepare for their football after-lives -- including many Browns who wound up in the Hall of Fame.
BrownsAs Browns fans perused their gameday programs at the stadium, it wasn't hard to figure out what many players -- in this case linebacker Jim Houston -- did when football wasn't in season.
The average NFL salary is about $2 million. The rookie minimum for 2010 is $305,000. Players can afford to spend the first chunk of the off-season to mend and decompress before heading back to the gym. Some run side businesses, but not necessarily because they have to.
"You've got to remember," said former Browns flanker Gary Collins, the three-touchdown hero of the city's last sports championship in 1964, "some of the guys are making more than [Art] Modell paid for the franchise." Modell bought the team for about $4 million in 1961.
But when the Browns made Ohio State linebacker Jim Houston their first-round selection and eighth overall in the 1960 NFL draft, they signed him for $10,000, plus a $1,000 bonus. With inflation, that's about $80,000 today -- roughly the average NFL salary 30 years ago.
Houston, now 72 and living in Sagamore Hills, remembers when head coach Paul Brown first addressed the rookies at old League Park.
"Gentlemen," Brown said, "you're going to be off Mondays and Tuesdays. Get a job."
"So I did," said Houston, who opened an insurance and financial planning company that he still runs from his basement office. "All of us tried to get jobs that would help sustain the off-season. You needed money, you had to go to work."
Staying close to the community, to make ends meet
Houston, who retired after the 1972 season, said he earned considerably more in insurance than football. That wasn't unusual. The NFL was decidedly different. It was before multi-billion-dollar TV contracts meant players could be set for life if they played long enough and managed their money right. It was before the roster carousel of free agency, so players often spent their whole careers with one team, in one city. Many stayed to work in the community.
#HelmetHornsMatter
“Well, the color is good, I like the metallic blue,” Youngblood recently said while laughing, via NFL Journal. “The horn is terrible. It looks like a ‘C.’ When I first saw it on the logo I honestly thought it was a Charger logo.
“Now when I see it on the helmet, it just isn’t a ram horn. There is no distinct curl like a mature ram horn. I don’t know how the Rams could get that wrong. That is your symbol and it has been for what? Seventy years or more? Longer than I have been alive? It’s just not us, it’s not the Rams.”---Mr. Ram Jack Youngblood
