By now, some of you may have pieced this together that I am originally from Ohio. Specifically, I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. As a life long sports fan and native of Cleveland, you can probably guess what my experiences have been like rooting for Cleveland sports teams.
I was born in the 80’s and would be best classified as a child of the 90’s, and although I’m not that old in the grand scheme of life, I’ve witnessed a more than lifetime of sports disappointments and heartbreak from all of my Cleveland sports teams, to which no one city should be subjected. I’ve witnessed my teams have the best record in the league in the regular season, only to fail in the playoffs. I’ve witnessed my teams get their heart cut out by the greatest to ever do it, only to have their heart cut out again by one of our own years later. I’ve witnessed my teams cough up leads, blow easy opportunities and lose games in spectacular fashion. The creativity in which we’ve lost players, games, series, CHAMPIONSHIPS, is unparalleled for one city…
And I haven’t even touched on the Browns yet.
The Browns. The most snake-bitten of all of our teams. The Browns were the last major pro sports team to bring a championship to Cleveland; we’re actually closing in on an even five decades since our last title. In 2014, it will be an even 50 years since our last championship. We will have had three teams for 44 of those years. We even briefly had an NHL team in the 70’s that didn’t win anything.
Watching a Cleveland team’s season unfold is like sitting alone in an empty room with the third verse from Scarface’s I Seen A Man Die on repeat. Accepting the inevitable fate of losing in the most heart-wrenching way imaginable is usually the best course of action.
Yet we always come back. “Maybe next year” has become the battle cry for “Believeland”.
As passionate fan bases go, Cleveland is on par with Philadelphia, Detroit, Oakland, Chicago, New York and every other major-market “sports town” you can think of— and the loyalty of our fans surpasses them all (often to a fault). No Cleveland team had received more of that unconditional adulation than the Browns.
That is why when Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore, he opened up a wound that will never heal. Winning a Super Bowl might exercise some of those demons, but the pain will never fully vanish. People lost jobs, others lost their businesses, the city lost its flag bearer. You don’t move the Celtics from Boston, you don’t move the Yankees from New York and you don’t move the Browns from Cleveland (yeah, I went there), a franchise with 21 Hall of Famers, that won seven championships in 10 years in the 1940’s and 50’s.
Sidebar: Mike Ditka was on point in both of his segments in this clip.
All this is to say, the news of the passing of Art Modell probably isn’t all that somber in the eyes of most Browns fans. While HHSR isn’t here to play the role of moral police, we can offer some insight into the fragmented psyche of the Cleveland sports fan.
The 87-year-old will be remembered as two things in the mind of Clevelanders: the man who fired Paul Brown and the man who moved the Browns to Baltimore. Those two events were the bookends of his ownership of the Cleveland Browns, which ran from 1961-1995 (Brown was fired in 1963). The middle years included the city’s last championship in ’64 and a bunch of near misses, particularly in the 1980’s. Cleveland reached the postseason 17 times and won 11 division titles under Modell, but never reached the Super Bowl since the game’s inception in 1967. Some even believe Modell was accountable for the premature retirement of Jim Brown, arguably the game’s greatest player.
Modell was largely responsible for the creation of Monday Night Football (the Browns defeated the Jets in the 1st ever MNF game at Cleveland Municipal Stadium) as well as the integration on television and revenue sharing in the NFL. He won championships as the owner of one franchise in two cities. However, with the Pro Football Hall of Fame being located in Canton, OH, Modell will be lucky to ever get there, even posthumously.
“I had no choice.”
Above everything else, Modell was a businessman. He did not have the assets to keep patching up Municipal Stadium. He was taking out personal loans to repair the building, which, much like his finances, was falling apart all around him. He once took out a personal loan (in his wife’s name due to his horrific credit) to pay for the signing bonus of free agent receiver Andre Rison. He was insulted and felt underappreciated when the Indians and Cavaliers received new facilities, as the Gateway Project paved the way for Jacob’s Field and Gund Arena in 1992 (not to mention the construction of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame). Moreover, the Indians were Modell’s only tenant at Municipal Stadium and their move out of the stadium left Art alone in the dilapidated building (a stadium that was barely up to code to even host NFL games).
When questioned about moving the team, Modell famously said, “I had no choice.” Yet that stance has often fallen on deaf ears. The Browns would end up getting their new stadium anyway and Art never considered selling the team and leaving town as a failed businessman. He was too proud. Leaving the franchise to his children was his hallmark as a man. The truth of the matter: whether right or wrong, many people, even Clevelanders, would do the same thing Art did if they were in his shoes. Ironically, Art would be forced to sell his majority stake in the Ravens to Steve Bisciotti in 2004. Not only did he move the Browns from the shores of Lake Erie, but he never got to pass his beloved franchise down to his family.
Hall of Fame tight end Ozzie Newsome was a high ranking player personnel executive with Browns, his former team, when the move took place in 1995 and became general manager of the Ravens in 2002 (Modell made Newsome the 1st black GM in NFL history). In 1996, the Ravens had two first round picks; Baltimore selected future Hall of Famers Jonathan Ogden fourth overall and Ray Lewis 26th overall with those picks…
Sure would’ve been nice to have those guys in orange and brown— it’s no wonder Art lifted the Lombardi Trophy in 2001.
“I had no choice.”
Conversely, the Browns have been a complete travesty of a franchise since returning in 1999. Couple that with the team’s tragic losses in the 1980s and it makes you wonder if the Browns are still paying for Modell’s original transgression of firing Paul Brown 49 years ago.
The legacy of Art Modell is very different depending on who you ask. You’ll hear many kind things about Art Modell coming from the city of Baltimore today, a city that had its own professional football franchised ripped from them in the 1980’s. His family has released an official statement speaking on Art’s love for the city of Baltimore— no mention of Cleveland was made.
Maybe that’s where things should remain.
Cleveland is as loyal and tight-knit a community as you’ll find in this country. If you’ve ever met somebody from Cleveland, you’ll quickly learn that if you say something negative about the city or its people, you’ll probably find yourself in a shouting match (at least). There isn’t much that’s glamorous about the city of Cleveland and the city has been a punchline for comedians on late night TV for years. All Clevelanders have is their history and each other. This is why the passion for those who have wrong the city burns so very deep.
The city of Cleveland’s hatred for LeBron James (although often compared) will NEVER reach the astronomical levels it reached for Modell after he uprooted the Browns.
It was because Art Modell moved the Browns that the LeBron James decision cut to the core.
James was a Northeast Ohio native and lived through the Browns move to Baltimore. He was aware of the city’s pain from having lost something so close to the hearts of fans. Unlike LeBron though, Modell left and never came back to Cleveland. Ever. Call it fear, call it shame, call it shrewd safety measure. My vote is for D- All of the above.
“I had no choice.”
Once the move to Baltimore was imminent, the Browns organization hosted a “say goodbye to the Browns” day at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. I still have vivid memories of my dad taking me down to the stadium that afternoon. People were ripping out pieces of the seats and bleachers, and chiseling blocks of cement out of the stadium walls as keepsakes. While we walked on the field, my dad dug up some dirt with his sneaker right off of the 50-yard-line and put it in a plastic sandwich bag we happened to have with us. It’s moments like this that made me the Browns fan I am to this day. While I would much rather have memories of champagne showers, Gatorade baths and championships, the exit of the Browns during my formative years endeared me and my generation to this team. The Browns however have never been the same since returning in 1999 and are in grave jeopardy of losing an entire new generation of fans.
Despite his decades of contributions to the city of Cleveland (see third paragraph from the bottom), Modell’s actions could unequivocally be classified as an ultimate act of selfishness. Yet understanding full well the current crisis this franchise is in, it is my hope that the passing of Art Modell will allow Browns fans to exhale and finally turn our undivided attention to the current Browns. The Browns have a new owner in Jimmy Haslam and fans need to now focus their energy on supporting this team. It’s the only way Cleveland will come to grips with the sins of Modell. Attendance is low, morale is even lower and the Browns need their fans just as much in 2012 as they did in 1995 because the threat of the Browns fading into the abyss is just as palpable now as it was then.
The man quickly changed on us, just as colors change in the foliage during the months in which this great game is played. Change can be difficult, but change can be equally liberating. Hopefully, Cleveland will let the change that is Art Modell’s death be the change fans will need to move forward and resurrect this once proud franchise.
We have no choice.