First off, can you let me know what you’ve been up to since your playing days?
I’m just raising my kids now. I worked for a telecom company – a small one you may have heard of – AT&T! A friend of mine from church talked to me after I retired from the NFL. I was in Ohio and was looking to move to Indiana for a job with Ameritech and the Yellow Pages when he told me he was looking for someone there in Ohio. So I ended up working for them.
Was the adjustment to post-NFL life difficult?
It wasn’t the easiest thing to go through, to go from being an athlete to working a day-to-day, 40-hour a week job. It wasn’t easy. That’s what happens though when you are so focused on getting to that level in sports that you don’t think about a career afterwards. For some they are so talented they don’t need to think about the next thing, but most of us were just doing what we can to get there and stay there. It was even hard for me in college to find something to study that I was excited about outside of football.
How did you end up in Cleveland in ’86 after playing in Baltimore/Indianapolis?
I was traded to Cleveland after the ’85 season. I was a starter for four years with the Colts, then in ’85 there was a coaching change. We struggled that season but those last four weeks I felt as a young team we were headed in the right direction. I was AFC Player of the Week then.
But then a few days before the draft they traded for Hogeboom from Dallas. That didn’t bother me. I competed against so many quarterbacks with he Colts I just felt like, “Ok, bring on another one!” But the next day they drafted Trudeau in the second round. That’s when I started wondering what this was all about. The next day they told me they were trading me.
It was incredibly disappointing. I didn’t want to go. The year before I asked to be traded and they said no. Then when I wanted to stay they traded me.
Did any of those Cleveland players make the adjustment easier?
I rented a house for the first couple of years and I lived close to Matt Bahr, Mark Harper and Dave Puzzuoli. Having them close by helped me to transition to a new city. I was in Baltimore for two years, Indianapolis for two years and now Cleveland. That’s the life of an athlete sometimes.
Do you think fans appreciate and understand that aspect of a player’s career?
It’s not their fault but fans don’t understand 95% of what an athlete’s life is about. You don’t know what you don’t know. They see what happens on Sunday afternoons and read or watch some interviews and think they understand the lifestyle, but they don’t.
It’s constant pressure – every day can be your last. A career-ending injury could happen any day.
Were you very aware of the rivalry with the Steelers when you went to Cleveland?
I was from Arizona. I knew the rivalry existed but didn’t know much about or the intensity of it. It was very eye-opening when I realized it. I played at Arizona State and that team in our state – I can’t say their name – that was a huge rivalry for us for lots of reasons. This was similar.
The intensity of the Steelers-Browns rivalry was eye-opening. Not in a negative way. The two cities just loved hating each other in public. It’s funny though – if anyone on the outside of the rivalry said anything disparaging about the other team there would be a brawl. They were like brothers who fight but would never let anyone else say anything bad about the other.
When did you start realizing the intensity of the rivalry?
In training camp. In camp I’d talk to Cleveland fans and they were already talking about beating Pittsburgh. We weren’t playing Pittsburgh for a month yet. They talked about how many years it was since Cleveland beat Pittsburgh. It was, what, 16 years where Cleveland had never beaten the Steelers at Three Rivers. That’s a long time!
What do you remember most about those rivalry games?
The season opener in 1989. That was Bud Carson’s first game as a head coach after being an assistant for years. He was the defensive coordinator for the Steelers. We beat Pittsburgh 51-0 – that was on September 10th. I remember that date and it’s the only game ball I still display. That’s because I loved Bud – he was an awesome human being. We played an unbelievable game. It was just one of those days – a top to bottom win. I still like to kid people from Pittsburgh about that.
Any other memories stand out?
I was Mark Malone’s backup for two years in college – competing against his team in the NFL was fun. We had a good relationship. Watching our defense go after him was fun. The Steelers also had that weird hybrid defense under LeBeau. It made those games fun for me – more exciting. Most teams ran a standard 4-3 or 3-4. But Pittsburgh’s defense was totally different. It was an incredible challenge.
How did you prepare for that defense?
You just had to be that much more focused in practice. Teams like, say, Cincinnati, they weren’t as complicated. You just had to concentrate a lot more when preparing for the Steelers. You had to make sure the offensive line knew what it was doing and was accounting for the linebackers in the run game and blitz packages. You had to be sound in your schemes. And while you felt like you knew what was coming, they would always throw a new wrinkle at you. So you had to make sure you were able to adjust quickly.
I watched how that ’89 unfolded – everything just bounced our way. When I played in that 1990 game it was the complete opposite. We had nine turnovers – eight fumbles. Even Ozzie Newsome fumbled and he never fumbled. Just those emotional ups and downs. Knowing how intense it was at Three Rivers and the animosity fans had towards us was fun, because I know the Steelers felt the same way when the played in Cleveland. That just made them play even scrappier.
When you were a broadcaster for those Browns games, how did you approach that work as a former player – how much of your personal experience did you bring into your actual commentating?
It’s a good question. It’s very difficult separating your experience from commentary. I think my experience helped me because my main goal was to take that person who was listening to the game but maybe didn’t understand the game well, to say something that would get them to think “Wow – I learned something today!” I felt my job as an analyst and commentator was to bring some information to everyone that made them feel like it made the game more interesting.
What do you think about the Browns-Steelers rivalry today?
To be honest I don’t follow the NFL closely now. I haven’t lived in Cleveland for 10 years. It used to be so ingrained in me, but for the last 15 years I haven’t even watched a sporting event.
Wow – why?
My dad was a high school coach – he coached football and baseball until he was 85. I grew up in high school. I was involved in sports all day – all I knew was being an athlete. I played three sports in high school and two in college. Really three in college – I played one unofficially. I have two boys of my own and one stepson. My y0ungest son played for Mike Kruczek for a short time at UMass but got a concussion and couldn’t play any more. He was 6’6″, 235 pounds and could throw the ball 98 yards. I talked to Mike – he said my son was making four-to-five throws in practice most NFL players couldn’t make. But his concussion derailed his career.
So that’s all to say I think I just had enough of sports for a while. Plus, my wife was on my case too to do more than sports. She was never a sports person and she challenged me to expand my horizons beyond sports. That was a blessing to me. I’ve become a novice historian, a handyman and more. We just remodeled our entire first floor ourselves!