Character Matters. The Johnny Manziel Fiasco

In college Johnny Manziel was a superstar.

Cleveland baseball and football fans have had a pretty rough go of it during the past sixty years. The city's bad luck in baseball was so legendary that a book was written about it: Terry Pluto's The Curse of Rocky Colavito. Cleveland Browns fans haven't fared much better. In fact, the last bit of really good news for Browns fans was when owner Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore but allowed Cleveland to retain the Browns name and uniforms. 

Bill Bellicek was head coach at that time, with an outstanding record in the works when, mid-season, Modell announced the move. Things quickly unravelled and have never been the same.

One good thing about a losing record in the NFL is that you get top draft picks. The worst teams become first in line for the annual crop of college stars on the auction block.

In 2014 the Browns selected Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel to lead them back to becoming a contender. The kid had talent, they said. The moment he was drafted, however, it became apparent he was missing something. Flaunting his mega-millions contract, it seemed plain that this was not going to be the hero who would carry this team. It's truly a shame because the opportunity was right there in front of him. Instead, he derailed his career with a combination of poor decisions and personal issues. 

Here's a short list of reasons Johnny boy failed in Cleveland and was unable to get a gig with any other NFL team afterwards.

His off-field behavior was a constant issue. He faced legal troubles, including allegations of domestic violence, bar fights, and reckless driving. These incidents tarnished his reputation and led to disciplinary actions from the NFL and his team.

Substance abuse was another issue, primarily alcohol and partying, which negatively impacted his performance and behavior. His partying lifestyle was well-documented in the media, and it raised concerns about his commitment to football.

His lack of preparation was similarly indicative of his lack of commitment to Cleveland success. Leaders lead by example. Tom Brady's preparation for games was legendary. There were reports that Manziel did not put in the necessary effort to prepare for games and improve his skills as a quarterback. This lack of dedication and focus on his career hindered his development as a professional player.

By his inconsistent performance on the field it became apparent to all that he was in over his head at the pro level. Combined with the distractions of his personal life, legal issues and public disputes, it's easy to see why Manziel stumbled. Add to this his unwillingness to assume responsibility for his own behavior and you have the kind of player who becomes odious to fans. He disrespected his team mates as well as the Browns organization that had recruited him. After two years his NFL career was over. 

Such a shame.

Moral of the Story: Pride goes before a fall. 

Character counts. It doesn't matter how smart or talented you are, if you lack character you will very likely undermine your dreams of future success. 

Manziel photo is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

With the Oxford Incident Behind Us, Juneteenth Moves Us Forward

"How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?"

James Meredith, 1962. Library of Congress

Today, Juneteenth has officially become a National Holiday. What follows are some thoughts I shared in 2013 regarding Bob Dylan's "Oxford Town." 

We often hear people talk about the 50's as the "good old days." In reality, the very things that were wrong in the 50's are what led to the upheavals of the 60's, no issue moreso than racism.

The conflicts over race long preceded the Freedom Riders who put their lives on the line to draw awareness to this special problem of the Deep South. Poet/journalist Carl Sandburg shone a light on this issue when he wrote about the Chicago race riots of 1919 in which 38 people were tragically killed as a result of an incident that occurred on the segregated beachfront of Lake Michigan.

In a preface to the 1969 re-release of this volume Ralph McGill identifies WWI as one of the events that increased awareness of the racial divide. Black soldiers who put their lives on the line for America and freedom returned to the States as second class citizens.

World War II revived this same set of feelings for American blacks who served overseas only to return home to maltreatment and blatant injustice. The difference this second time around was the advent of television, by which means the rest of the country was made aware of the consequences of Jim Crow laws being enforced in the former Confederacy. Television not only made people aware of these problems, it also became a means for showing determined blacks the methodology of non-violent resistance.

Dylan's song "Oxford Town" was written in October 1962 in response to a call for songs by Broadside magazine seeking songs about James Meredith and his attempt to attend Ole Miss, which was his constitutional right. The governor exerted intense pressure to prevent Meredith from entering the school as a student. Meredith refused to back down and put his life on the line in an effort to get the Kennedys to respond to what was happening in the South.

Simultaneously the Kennedys were dealing with the Cuban missile crisis. Racial tensions and global tensions put tremendous pressure on JFK and Bobby who did everything in their power to keep the conflicts from escalating. The calls for action in Oxford were coming hard from Mississippi on the one hand and the calls for action from the Pentagon were being pressed from the other.

Oxford was a problem both Kennedys wanted to go away, but when riots broke out they ultimately took action and (according to Wikipedia, citing Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.) called in 500 U.S. Marshals to take control, who were supported by the 70th Army Engineer Combat Battalion from Ft Campbell, Kentucky. They created a tent camp and kitchen for the US Marshals. To bolster law enforcement, President John F. Kennedy sent in U.S. Army troops from the 2nd Infantry Division from Ft. Benning, GA under the command of Maj. Gen Charles Billingslea and military police from the 503rd Military Police Battalion, and called in troops from the Mississippi Army National Guard.

It was during this time that Bobby Kennedy, while looking at a map of Cuba asked his brother how far those Russian missiles could go. Then, tongue in cheek, he followed up with, "Do you think one of those missiles could hit Oxford?"

* * * 

It was against this backdrop that the young Dylan penned "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," which appeared in 1963 on The Freelwheelin' Bob Dylan, his second album, his first to be all original material. Freewheeling is comprised of many songs that are now considered classics, opening with "Blowin' in the Wind," followed by "Girl from the North Country" and "Masters of War." "Hard Rain" is so dense that he purportedly stated that every line could be a song of its own. It's impossible for me not to hear the line "I saw a white man walking a black dog" as his indictment of America's unique form of racism.

It seems strange to many of us who lived up North to think blacks had been playing professional baseball for more than a decade, and my football hero Jimmy Brown had been playing for the Browns more than five years at this point. Growing up in white suburbia, most of us in the North were oblivious to the realities of segregation. In this, and many other songs of that period, Dylan drew attention to that which we were failing to see.

Oxford Town

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev’rybody’s got their heads bowed down
The sun don’t shine above the ground
Ain’t a-goin’ down to Oxford Town

He went down to Oxford Town
Guns and clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown
Better get away from Oxford Town

Oxford Town around the bend
He come in to the door, he couldn’t get in
All because of the color of his skin
What do you think about that, my frien’?

Me and my gal, my gal’s son
We got met with a tear gas bomb
I don’t even know why we come
Goin’ back where we come from

Oxford Town in the afternoon
Ev’rybody singin’ a sorrowful tune
Two men died ’neath the Mississippi moon
Somebody better investigate soon

Oxford Town, Oxford Town
Ev’rybody’s got their heads bowed down
The sun don’t shine above the ground
Ain’t a-goin’ down to Oxford Town

Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1992 by Special Rider Music

Things I Learned about Jimmy Brown from Reading Terry Pluto’s Things I’ve Learned from Watching the Browns

In case you don’t know, I’m a Browns fan. Cleveland Browns. NFL Football. I don’t always wear it on my sleeve, but it’s always there like a genetic disposition. I was born in Cleveland in 1952 and my earliest memories were formed during the glory years of the Cleveland Indians and the Browns. Even though I moved away in my twelfth year and have spent the rest of my years elsewhere, the Browns have never moved far from my heart. Browns fans everywhere know this feeling.

Back in those days the sports page each week would print the rosters from both teams so you could learn the numbers of all the players and follow them during the game. Bill Glass, Vince Costello, Lou “The Toe” Groza, Gary Collins, Leroy Kelly, Frank Ryan and our hero of heroes, Jimmy Brown.

From nearly the beginning the Browns training camp was at Hiram College, which just happened to be where my parents met as students and eventually married upon my dad’s early graduation. This may have contributed to our Browns fandom, though proximity to Cleveland gave the primary impetus. It also gives one a bit of Browns cred to be able to say “My dad once watched the Steelers play the Browns from the Dawg Pound.” (It wasn't really the Dawg Pound yet, though. They were the cheap bleacher seats in the end zone where the beer turned fans into rowdies.)

In the fall of 1963, my last full year in Ohio, I opened a pack of football cards and got a Jimmy Brown card. It was as if the gods had smiled. Life was good. And then the unthinkable happened. Some of the packs of football cards we acquired had been stolen. My younger brother was caught red-faced and red-handed, and a police car paid our home a visit. Somehow the punishment seemed excessive because Ronnie had been the thief, but all of our football cards were to be burned, including mine. As the cards were being dropped onto the flaming charcoals I found myself holding Jimmy Brown and could not bring myself to do this dastardly thing. I ran to the garage and slid the card in between the cinder blocks that formed its foundation. I would never see the card again, but knew it would be preserved from the fire. (Several decades later I visited my childhood home and that garage, along with its treasure, had been demolished.)

Terry Pluto is one of the great sportswriters of all time in my estimation. He’s certainly a most respected journalist in Cleveland where he has remained a faithful advocate for high ideals and all things good there.

If you are a Browns fan and do not already have Pluto’s Things I’ve Learned from Watching the Browns, then you're missing something special. Every chapter is a treasure, beginning with “Being a Browns fan is completely irrational. But you already know that.” Ten pages later the story every Browns fan needs to read is about the Fumble. Pluto demonstrates unequivocally that “The Fumble didn’t cost the Browns a chance to go to the Super Bowl.” Every Browns fan knows which fumble we're talking about here.

So now let’s talk about Jimmy Brown, the greatest running back of all time. Chapter 9. The Browns almost didn’t draft Jim Brown. How Jim Brown became a Brown is a story in itself. If the Hall of Fame Browns quarterback Otto Graham hadn’t retired when he did, the Browns would have continued to be a great team. In his last three seasons as QB the Browns only lost six games. But the year after he retired the Browns were so weakened that it became their only losing season in their first 28 years as a pro franchise. The upside was a chance to get a high draft pick in the first round.

Coach Paul Brown (another great chapter in this book is dedicated to this “greatest Browns Brown”) was eager to nab a quarterback to replace Graham, but the three he had his eye on were snatched before he could get his mitts on them. Upshot was this Son of Hercules, this Superman of an athlete who became a Browns legend.

Man on the move, Jim Brown.

Most of us who watched Jimmy Brown as fans knew how powerful he was, and we also knew the psychological game he played with opposing players. After every run he got up slow. You’d think he had exhausted his strength, or was hurt in some way as he lumbered back to the huddle. Then he would explode again into the line, dragging opponents downfield, sometimes carrying them on his back. We knew, too, how he never made a show when he scored a touchdown, as if to say, “Been here before. Will be here again. All in a day’s work.” Brown’s greatness was unquestioned and to this day no runner has ever averaged more yards per game over an entire career than Jimmy Brown. In fact, he is the only player to average more than 100 yards per game (104.3) lifetime.

Terry Pluto gives Browns fans an overview of the star's college achievements and amazing high school stats as well. Brown earned 13 high school letters in five sports. His senior year he averaged 38 points per game in basketball. He set new records in track. He averaged 14.9 yards per carry in football. Seems like having Brown on the team would have been an unfair advantage for any school.

Once with the Browns Jim Brown not only played every game, he never missed practice. One year he played an entire season with a broken wrist. He was tough, not just physically but mentally as well. Said Brown, “If you were a marked man like I was back then, you had to be tough. You had to take the pain.”

In Brown’s autobiography Out of Bounds, he shared how opposing defenders would sometimes take gravel or dirt and fling it in his eyes to blind him after they tackled him. Pluto tells how when tacklers got their hand inside his facemask, he would bite their fingers. These images of the game aren’t always visible from the stands.

There's plenty more to tell, but that's it for now. The rest of what I learned is there in the book. And much, much more.

Thank you, Terry Pluto, for yet another gift for Browns fans everywhere.

The team I remember best was the best.