Browns Scrapbook

Excerpts from

Spirit of Togetherness Permeated Camps at Hiram

“Not even a beer joint in this town.”

That was the comment of Preston Carpenter in 1956 to a woman standing next to him as they looked out the window of a sitting room in the Centennial Dormitory at Hiram College.

Katie Brown just smiled in reply. She probably never told her husband—coach Paul Brown—about this initial reaction of the running back, the first draft pick from Arkansas.

The Browns spent 26 summers in that bucolic, beerless spot, and I was with them for 24 of those years. It all started for me on a warm Sunday afternoon in 1954 after a drive down Route 82 from Cleveland.

My car radio was tuned to an Indians doubleheader against the New York Yankees from the Stadium. The Tribe had been my first sports love since joining the Plain Dealer eight years earlier.

The club was on its way to win 111 games and the American League pennant. But my assignment had been changed and I was being tried out as the Browns beat writer.

In assigning me to the Browns beat a few days earlier, Plain Dealer Sports Editor Gordon Cobbledick warned: “We'll see what kind of a job you do. This is a very important beat.”

Never did I think that it would be so much fun, or that this would become an assignment that would occupy most of my working days for 24 years.

Memories of those summers at Hiram College and Kent State University flood back each year as Cleveland's pro football team prepares for another training camp.

Hiram College and the quiet town at the intersection of Routes 82 and 700 turned out to be a second home. The media people were housed with the players in those days and usually went home only on weekends.

Nothing ever will quite duplicate the togetherness that was prevalent at Hiram.

It probably started with the people at the college. Bill Hollinger was athletic director and basketball coach. But during many of those summer months, he was the unofficial host of the Browns.

One of the fine people in athletics, he worked closely with Paul Brown and then with Blanton Collier and Nick Skorich, the head coaches of the team during that tenure. He did all in his power to make the days glide by smoothly, whether it was by lining the field or hosting a social hour.

His daughters even pitched in as hostesses. They often worked in the cafeteria.

Dr. Elmer Jagow was president of the college during most of those years. A pleasant, interesting man, he could be found on the sidelines at practice for some part of almost every afternoon.

It was at Hiram that the two greatest players in the history of the team—quarterback Otto Graham and fullback Jim Brown—trained. Graham came out of a brief retirement to rejoin the club at Hiram in 1955 for his last season.

Graham hadn't practiced or played for more than a year when he returned that August, but he stepped back in as the starter immediately. As I stood behind the offense and watched him throw that first morning in that first practice, I noted only one sign of age. There was a faint bald spot beginning to show at the back of his head.

Jim Brown arrived on the scene two years later and also after practice was well under way. He drove up in a fire engine red convertible after an all-night trek from Chicago, where he had played in the College All-Star Game. Brown also immediately became the starting fullback.

Nature took care of watering the solitary football field for the most part. It occasionally became rock hard, however, and if the players complained enough, trainer Leo Murphy and equipment manager Morrie Kono solved the problem by buying the Garrettsville firefighters a few drinks. The volunteers would drive their trucks to Hiram and do some late-night watering with hoses attached to the two fire hydrants near the field.

The menu has changed considerably through the years, but one characteristic of all camps from Bowling Green to Berea has been excellent food. Preparation always has been by the school cafeteria workers, but top-drawer products always have been purchased without regard to cost.

The kitchen at Centennial Hall was not a large one, so on “steak night,” the T-bones or porterhouses were char-broiled outside.

“One of my best memories of Hiram is walking up the hill from the field and smelling those steaks,” former all-pro offensive tackle Dick Schafrath said. And Schafrath, now a state senator, was one of those who could down two or three of them for dinner.

Hiram did have the Hub, where a player could get ice cream or a soft drink and listen to a juke box, as well as a barber shop and post office. But beer was available not too far away. Practices usually were followed by caravans of cars to Garrettsville, a mile down the road, where alcohol was available. There also was the Aurora Inn to the west and the Welshfield and the Red Horseshoe Inn to the north. The coaches didn't encourage the beer runs, but they privately admitted that replenishing the body fluids after a long, hot workout was not a bad idea.

Leo and Morrie were up early and about their jobs. The days sometimes ended for them late in the afternoon when after practice they would drive over to nearby Garretsville, G-Ville as it was called by the players, to have a beer or two before dinner. Then they would return to work if needed, and they usually were.

Paul Brown was an early to bed guy. His meetings with the assistant coaches finished promptly at 9 p.m. and he was tucking up the covers before 10. That's when his aides, usually accompanied by some of the media, would tiptoe by his door at the end of the corridor and relax with a beer or two.

The late Ralph Hunter was the primary mover in bringing the Browns to Hiram College for summer workouts. A friend of Paul Brown, he heard that the team was thinking of leaving their training quarters at Bowling Green.

The Browns had worked there since the team was formed in 1946, its first year in the All-America Conference. Bowling Green seemed an ideal spot with it dormitories, classrooms and fields.

There was one drawback. The distance from Cleveland was about 100 miles of country roads, and few fans saw the club until the start of the season.

Brown wanted a spot about an hour away from Cleveland proper—close enough to visit but too far for his charges to sample the delights of the bright lights. He found Hiram, smaller than Bowling Green but with all the other requirements.

The team went to the new training site down Route 82 for the first time in 1952 as a test. It stayed for 23 summers.

Eventually, when rosters were expanded, more room was needed for practice and housing, and the Hiram dorms weren't air conditioned. So the club moved on to Kent State University.

The summers at Hiram are remembered fondly by many, even by some of the players. They also are recalled as a spot of successful preparation for the season. The team had just two losing seasons in those 23 years.