Cleveland's Finest

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Vince McKee. Cleveland's Finest

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This book is dedicated to my beautiful wife, Emily, and my incredibly adorable daughter, Maggie. I love you both deeply, and you remain the best reason to wake up every morning and come back home from work every day. My life is better because of you.

Introduction

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Things finally came to a head between owner and coach when Paul Brown traded Bobby Mitchell for the rights to Ernie Davis, a Heisman Trophy–winning running back out of Syracuse. Davis was no stranger to the end zone, having broken all of Jim Brown’s rushing records at Syracuse. This was a trade that did not sit well with Jim Brown, and he was not happy to have Davis as a teammate. Sharing the spotlight was not something Jim Brown preferred. Sadly, Ernie Davis never played a single game as a Cleveland Brown—he was diagnosed with leukemia before the start of the 1962 season.

Paul Brown was a methodical and disciplined coach who tolerated no deviation from his system. He ran a well-oiled machine, which was simply not the way Jim Brown wanted to be coached. In the end, Modell sided with Jim Brown and fired the legendary coach on January 7, 1963. This was right in the middle of a newspaper strike that allowed Modell to keep this move under the radar. It was the first of many shocking moves and disappointing decisions that Cleveland sports fans would have to endure by Modell that would occur over the next forty-plus years. Blanton Collier, Paul Brown’s longtime assistant, was later named as the team’s new head coach.

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