The wait is over
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BY KARL VOGEL
Bob Brown has waited for this weekend for almost half of his life.
Year after excruciating year, the former University of Nebraska All-American anticipated the call that would bring him home to Ohio to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.
The wait hasn't been without its share of disappointment or pain. But it's finally ended.
On Sunday, three decades after a 31-year-old giant of a man walked off a football field for the last time, Brown is finally returning to the game he played with the subtlety of a wrecking ball. He'll be honored by the only people who can fully appreciate him for the football player he was - the greatest players the game has ever known.
"I was disappointed after the first five years out of ball," Brown said in a recent telephone interview from his home in Oakland, Calif. "I thought I'd have been nominated and elected after that long. But it didn't happen. Then I was nominated another four times with no success.
"After a decade or so, I finally let it go. I figured any of the guys who were around when I played and knew who Bob Brown was had either retired or passed on. I'm glad to know that some of them are still around."
When he slips on the yellow jacket at the annual enshrinees dinner tonight, Brown will become just the third former Husker to be immortalized in the Hall, joining NFL pioneers Roy "Link" Lyman and Guy Chamberlin, who were inducted in 1964 and 1965, respectively.
The man called "The Boomer" for his aggressive on-field style will be putting some football demons to rest.
"This road I've taken has been arduous and interesting," Brown said. "If I would have played my entire pro career with one team, maybe I'd have been selected sooner. I had to take this walk on my own because I was a gypsy.
"But a thousand years from now, I'll still be enshrined here along with the best players in history."
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Brown's road to Canton actually began an hour's drive north, in a Cleveland neighborhood where he worked with his father Ulysses in the family delicatessen. He attended East Tech High School, which also produced Olympic heroes Jesse Owens and Harrison Dillard.
At East Tech, Brown bulked up his body and his mind, developing an appreciation for football, weight training, academics and cars.
"I took automotive shop because I always liked cars, but I never had the money to afford one," Brown said. "But I loved lifting weights and I studied hard, too."
In fall 1959, his senior year, Brown received a visit from NU freshman coach Warren Schmakel, who sold the Brown family on an educational opportunity first, and lured two sons, Bob and Ulysses Jr., to Lincoln.
Bob enrolled at NU in January 1960 after graduating a semester early. An NCAA rule prohibited freshmen from varsity play, so Brown spent his first year on NU's fabled freshman team while working toward a degree in biology.
Once he took the field with the varsity in 1961, Brown showed his talents right away. He split time on the offensive and defensive lines with captain Ron McDole, who would later have a distinguished NFLcareer as a defensive tackle, often across the line from Brown.
Coach Bill Jennings was fired after the 1961 season and replaced by Bob Devaney, who immediately brought a winning attitude to NU.
In 1962, Brown played key roles in the Huskers' upset of Michigan and made an interception near the end of the Gotham Bowl against Miami to clinch Nebraska's first bowl win.
The next year, the Huskers went 10-1 and Brown drew the attention of pro scouts. The Denver Broncos made him the first player chosen in the AFL's draft in December and the Philadelphia Eagles used the NFL's No. 2 overall pick on the 6-foot-4, 280-pounder.
As Brown and the Huskers played Auburn in the Orange Bowl, Broncos coach Jack Faulkner was on the sideline trying to woo Brown to the fledgling AFL. But The Boomer had already made up his mind.
"I had concluded that the NFL was the best football league in the world, and I wanted to compete against the best players in the game," Brown said. "The AFL, at that time, held no attraction for me, so I took less money to go to the (Philadelphia)Eagles."
It turned out to be a wise choice.
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Brown was voted the NFL's top rookie in 1964 and earned his first All-NFL honor the following season. It was the first of seven all-league designations he would receive in his career. But they weren't the biggest honors he received.
At the insistence of his father, Brown enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania and began working on a master's degree in educational administration.
His academic background and cat-like quickness went against the stereotype of offensive linemen being just dumb, slow jocks. Add to that his desire to make defenders feel pain and Brown was a lethal weapon.
"When he pulls out to lead a sweep, there are two things for a guy like me to do: Get out of the way or get hurt," said Herb Adderley, a Hall of Fame cornerback with Green Bay and Dallas.
Minnesota Vikings defensive end Carl Eller, who joins Brown, John Elway and Barry Sanders as 2004 Hall enshrinees, said he never had a tougher opponent than The Boomer.
"He would strike out at you; he wanted to do bodily harm," Eller said. "I always felt satisfied when I had a good game against Bob because his intention was to inflict pain."
Brown's refusal to be bested by anyone was never more evident than during a matchup with Rams Hall of Famer Deacon Jones, who was known for his violent slaps to the helmets of offensive linemen in an attempt to get to the quarterback.
Brown replaced the short screws in his helmet with longer ones that had been filed to a point. On the first play of the game, Brown warned Jones not to slap him. On cue, Jones slapped the right side of Brown's helmet, impaling his left hand. It left a scar that Jones still carries today.
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Personal honors rolled in through Brown's five seasons in Philadelphia, though the Eagles didn't experience much success as a team. After the 1968 season, despite being chosen the NFL's top offensive lineman for the second time, Brown was shipped to the Los Angeles Rams. There he anchored the 1969 line that set a league record for fewest sacks allowed and led the Rams to a playoff berth, the first of Brown's career. But a 23-20 loss at Minnesota was a bitter pill for Brown to swallow.
His relationship with Rams coach George Allen soured in 1970 and led to Brown being traded in 1971 to the Oakland Raiders, who had a reputation for making room for players who didn't fit in anywhere else.
Brown let his new teammates know he meant business. On the first day of the Raiders' training camp in 1971, Brown walked over to an old, wooden goalpost, got down into his stance, fired out and gave the post a forearm shiver that sent it crumbling to the ground.
Coach John Madden remembered Brown walking over to him and saying, "Coach, The Boomer has arrived."
In Oakland, Brown became part of the most decorated offensive line in NFL history, with five future Hall of Famers - Art Shell (left tackle), Gene Upshaw (left guard), Jim Otto (center), Brown (right tackle) and backup tackle Ron Mix. No other team has ever had more than three Hall of Fame linemen in the same year.
"Not only did we have phenomenal success at the point of attack (Raiders backs averaged a whopping 4.6 yards per carry), we could pass block anything born from a woman," Brown said. "It was the best time in my football career ... for the first time I was working with guys who were just as committed as me not to be second. They weren't middle-of-the-pack guys."
Despite missing the playoffs in 1971, Oakland rebounded to win the AFC West in 1972. But the road to the Super Bowl was short-circuited when Franco Harris made his "Immaculate Reception" late in a playoff game to give the Pittsburgh Steelers a 13-7 win against the Raiders.
The next season, the Raiders lost 27-10 at Miami in the AFC championship. It was Brown's last game, played on the same field where he played his final college game. He walked away at age 31, in the prime of his career, just like legendary running backs Sanders and Jim Brown.
Sanders and Jim Brown were voted into the hall the first year they were eligible. Bob Brown had to wait for his 26th year of eligibility.
"We (offensive linemen)really don't have statistics to work from. If we play well, you don't notice," Brown said. "If we play poorly, the quarterback gets molested and everyone knows we're not blocking well. There are no statistics to determine how good you are and how well you are playing."
Perhaps the long wait for the call from Canton was because his attacking style of play was unusual for an offensive lineman in his day, leading some to conclude Brown was mean-spirited.
"I was going to come hard all day when I played against you. I knew that I had to do whatever it took to wear you down, and if that meant physically beating on somebody so that he was weak and vulnerable in the fourth quarter, so be it," Brown said. "When I went down that tunnel, I made Attila the Hun look like Little Miss Muffet.
"But I was that way just on game day. When it was over, I was just another guy who had to deal with people just like I wanted to be dealt with."
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In retirement, a kinder, gentler Brown is finally able to do the things he enjoys most: taking care of his mother, spending time with Cecelia, his wife of 40 years, lifting weights and tinkering with cars.
"I'm a muscle-car guy. There's nothing like building a '70 Camaro and putting a big-block engine in it," he said. "I've built God only knows how many of them, but I've never built one with the idea of selling it. I put too much of my heart and money into them. They're like my family."
This weekend in Canton, it will be real-life family taking center stage at the induction ceremonies. For the first time in Hall history, all the enshrinees will be introduced by family members - Elway by his daughter, Sanders by his father, Eller and Brown by their sons.
Brown said his choice of 37-year-old Robert S. Brown as his presenter was simple.
"I love Robert more than any other man who walks the earth," the elder Brown said. "He's the one who called me every year that I wasn't chosen and told me that it's going to be all right. I want him to have a piece of history with me and this is my opportunity to give it to him.
"When I called him to ask if he'd present me, I asked him if he's ready, and he said, 'Dad, I've been ready since I was 12.'"
Even if Robert rambles on about his dad, don't expect Bob Brown to make much of a speech. It would go against his nature.
"People in Canton are going to love me. I'll be up and down in three minutes," Brown said. "I know how hot and humid it can be in Ohio in August, and it doesn't take a long time to say thank you."
But if The Boomer decides to take a little more time than that, after having waited so long, there probably isn't anyone who will try to stop him.
Reach Karl Vogel at 473-7432 or kvogel@;journalstar.com.
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