July 23, 2019 • 19 mins
With training camp beginning soon, Bengals.com Senior Writer Geoff Hobson chats with Bengals Team President Mike Brown about the franchise, training camp memories and how head coach Zac Taylor will operate in the preseason.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Hobson's Choice Podcast, a very
special training camp edition here with the owner of the
Cincinnati Bengals, Mike Brown, making his Hobson's Choice Podcast debut.
I know that's throwing for you, Mike. Oh, thanks for
having me, Jeff with training camp coming in and I
was trying to figure this up the other night, but
(00:23):
this might be your seventieth NFL teeding camp, which is
there isn't anything you haven't seen once this part of
the season rolls around. Well, probably there's a lot that
I haven't seen, but I do date back along ways
to the late forties when my father had the Cleveland
(00:43):
Browns at Bowling Green for training camp. That was the
first training camp I used to go to. And you
were at that point you were you were looking at
your heroes, right. They were my heroes. The ones that
we're special heroes for me were Bill Willis, Marion Motley,
(01:05):
and Horace Gillum. They were the three African American players
at the Brown sign and broke the color barrier for
pro football when they did so. They had a corner
room up on the second floor of the dormitory and
(01:29):
I would go up there sneak up there, and I
was probably twelve years old or thereabouts, and they would
take me into their card game. They played Hearts, and
they treated me as a full blown participant. I took
it quite seriously. And the object was to put the
(01:53):
Queen of Spades on Marion Motley, who would if you
did that make a great big commotion. He used to
although scare me. They thought it was funny, and I'm
sure he was just pretending to press me. But it
was great fun and they were nice to me. I
(02:14):
played with them a number of times. They were always
consider it and reached out, were pleasant and kind, and
they were my heroes then, and that would have been
maybe forty seven. I guess they are my heroes still.
(02:38):
Did your dad let you? Did your dad know you
were going up there? Did he want you to go
up there? Or did he mind it? Or did he
I never asked, and I don't think he ever knew. Right,
But that had to heaven. Guys like that, Heaven heroes
like that had to help you. I mean that obviously
got you into the game, you know, get you into
these guys lives and made it so much more interesting.
(02:59):
I would think, well, I was close to them and
identified with them as they played, even when they practiced.
They were guys that I would keep my eye on.
And there were others on those Browns teams back then
(03:19):
that were wonderful people. When players Otto Graham, Dante Lavelle
come to mind, they were super people. Just this week,
I got a call from Jim Ray Smith. He was
a guard and I've forgotten just exactly when Jim Ray
came on with the Browns. I think of him as
(03:42):
the best guard during the time my father coached the Browns,
and he was a wonderful player. And here it is,
all those years later and they still have contact with him,
which I find quite amazing but wonderful. It's it was
so you know they talk about training camp back then,
(04:04):
it's they make it sound so romantic. You know, the
players were close to the fans, and the fans were
always seemed to be around, and they were there for
so long, right, you guys were in camp for so
long back then? Well they were. You had, however, many
preseason games, but the camp before preseason games was weeks
(04:26):
and it was I thought, great, what would any twelve
year old rather do? Yeah, you were a ballboy or anything.
Michael Oh, they didn't have ball boys. I helped Maury Kono.
He was the equipment manager. My job was rowing up
(04:49):
socks and jack straps into a T shirt and make
it a ball and put it in the player's locker.
That was as high as I ever rose. But it
was different in those days. The practices were on a
field at Bowling Green and there was hardly anyone that
(05:13):
came out to watch. It was just the players and
a few people on the sidelines. The dorms had no
air conditioning. The place where the players ate was called
the Falcons Nest. I think it's still active on the
Bowling Green campus. But it was wonderful. It had glazed
(05:36):
doughnuts and what work did you ask that? So the
times were different. People weren't looking for so much, the
money was less. What were so what was that first
Mangles training camp? What was that first Mangles training camp?
(05:56):
Like back in nineteen sixty eight, guys were just seemed
like showing up every day. Guys were leaving and coming
on the bus every day. We had a lot of
guys go through. We just tried out about anybody who
could walk and get there. We had a bus station
was downtown in Wilmington, and on occasions I had the
(06:21):
unpleasant duty of having to drive players to the bus
station and say good luck, goodbye. That was it. It
wasn't so uh so. It wasn't so extravagant as it
is today in the sense that back then they were
on their own when they left at the bus station.
(06:42):
These days, we of course pay for their travel and
they go by plane and stuff like that. We had
some You had some great players in that first camp,
Well we did, and yeah, we had some interesting guys
with that first unit. Bob Johnson was a standout person.
(07:08):
That's why we drafted him. My dad was keen on
that he wanted the first guy we ever picked to
be someone that the fans in Cincinnati would respect and
think of positively, think that playing football was what produced
good people, and Bob, of course was all of that.
(07:31):
Bob Trumpy came in. He was something like a thirteenth
round draft pick. Today we only have what seven rounds.
Bob was a skinny guy for a tight end, and
it was a question whether he was going to be
(07:51):
a receiver or a tight end. As a tight end,
he had great speed and um he could really catch
the ball and run. He was a great player, and
(08:13):
his career reflected that as he went along. But he
says he used to He said he used to put
the weight. He used to hide weights on him when
he went to get way. Oh, they make up these stories.
Who knows whether they're true or not. He was reading
in the paper today where many pakuwell was at the
bocher's name Paccio, however you pronounce it, was victorious at
(08:38):
age forty in a big fight. And he went back
in his memory to say when he started as a
sixteen year old, he put rocks in his pants to
make sure he made the weight when he weighed in.
There seems to be a lot of guys who put
rocks in their pants. I wonder, and now and now
today Mike assistance come completely opposite. I mean, you used
(09:02):
to be at camp for eight weeks. They used to
hit every day, they would hit twice a day. And
now it's uh, now it's now you're here. Now you're
here at the stadium. Everybody goes home at night, and
it's just a different world. Trading camps at different world.
It is different. I don't went to over drama tize
(09:22):
how it was back then with my father anyway, as coach,
they didn't hit twice a day. They didn't hit at all.
In the mornings. It was very similar to what we
call walk through. A little bit more than that, but
not much. In the afternoon they would block and they
(09:43):
never tackled. They only scrimmaged as they got to about
the I guess the end of the second week we scrimmaged.
It wasn't a totally different way of going about it.
They added al a day. That was all. We had
one running play and one passing play. You took the
(10:05):
running play on in the morning to pass play on
in the afternoon, and gradually you piled up your playbook
that way. It was slow, but it was intended to
be meticulous and you were expected to know that play
and you were not forgiven if you didn't go about
(10:29):
it the right way. Whether it was two days later
or three weeks later, you were expected to know it.
I guess it depends on the coach. Because Forest Grace
practices or fuck the guys like Dave Wlapham, he was,
he was pretty tough. Forrest was incredibly physical with his practices.
(10:49):
I guess he went through that with Lombardi, and he
thought that was the way to do it. There are
different ways you can skin the cat. With Forrest, there
was contact both in the morning and in the afternoon.
(11:10):
It was sometimes serious contact. I always remembered when I
was up there at one time watching practice with a
friend of mine, Bob Stackler, who was a lawyer for
the team. And Bob just passed away this last week,
but we were standing there with the lawyer friend that
(11:32):
he brought with him, and the lawyer friend watched the
practice and said to Bob after a few minutes, why
this is brutal. I guess in his eyes, that was brutal.
It was remarkable that they all piled in with each other,
they hit each other, and very rarely did anybody get
(11:55):
hurt injured. I was talking, you know, it's funny we're
you know, we're talking about that piece of training camp.
Talking to Zach Taylor, it sounded like he's going to
be more leaning to the to the Paul Brown thing
where I'm not going to be on the field very long.
That's what has happened in the offseason here with Zach.
(12:16):
We are out there briefly. It's efficient, it is very
highly organized, that doesn't waste time. His practices are the
way I remember with my father. I like that, and
I think it's the best way to go about it. Now.
(12:38):
Every year you greet the team with always a very
interesting speech, and it's I gotta believe it. Not many
owners in the league do that anymore, but I think
it's obviously something that you picked up from your dad.
With a new coach coming in, is there any do
you think you'll think you with that speech? Will it
be pretty standard as an introduction or or oh I
(13:02):
talk to the team. I talk for a short period
of time, ten fifteen minutes, that's all, and I'll say
something unlike my father, who literally gave the same speech
year after year and his talk went on for an
hour and a half. I'm just there to let them
(13:25):
know that I'm around. And then I like to introduce
the administrative people who are with us in the meeting
and tell them how important the administrative people are, that
they're just as important as owners or coaches or players,
and it's an opportunity to say something about how we
(13:53):
function here, about how the family fits into the overall
direction the team. When my father did it, he was
the coach and he set forth all the rules that
they had and the reason for all the rules, and
it was an unusual start for some. There were others
(14:24):
who went through it for ten years or longer, and
they would sometimes make fun of what he would say
at which I would hear, you know, and being around them,
And then many, many years later you would be with
the same guys and they would be talking about the
(14:47):
talk my father would give to the team, and they
would remember explicitly what he had said. It had sunk
in and that was what his intent was. He wanted
them to hear the way it was going to work
and be ready to live up to those standards. Yeah,
(15:08):
I mean I guess now the guy who does the
rules is Zach, right, I guess he's the guy who Yes,
Zach will be the one that is the person that's
in front of them daily and they will learn to
follow him in the same way they followed my dad
(15:29):
and maybe other head coaches here over the years. Do
you do you think about your speech? You do you
write it down? Do you beat you try to tailor
it to that particular team that particular year. It isn't
anything I give a thunderous amount of thought to I
have an idea or two and then stand up and
(15:51):
say something. I'm not a natural born art or. It
just is not my skill, but I can manage a
few minutes, and that's what I do. Do you it?
(16:12):
Is there any one thing that you liked with this speech?
Is there any one thing that you like to leave
them with any What would be the main message? Well,
the one thing I want them to know is that
the family, the ownership group here cares and we're going
to be involved on a daily basis and we want
(16:32):
to help them anyway we can. And they're free to
see us if they think they should, and we're with them.
I think you also like to give them a little
bit of background with Paul and the Cleveland Browns. Right. Oh,
I've talked about all kinds of different things over the years.
I don't remember myself what I said a year ago,
(16:56):
let alone ten twenty years ago. But you get nothing
special plan, I guess for with Zach coming in, Well,
I'll say my little bit, but the guy they're going
to have on a daily basis in front of them
is going to be Zach, not me. He's the coach
and we're here, we're behind him. We're behind them, and
(17:19):
that's a basic message that I want to leave them
one last thing like is you know years, for years
you've gone away. You know, you went to I think
you went to Highram College, you went to Bowling Green
with the Browns, Wilmington, Georgetown, Kentucky with the Bengals. But here,
you know, it's kind of a it's kind of a
(17:39):
nice thing to be at home. Fans come down to
a beautiful setting here in Cincinnati. They can do any
number of things once before and after they go to practice.
I mean, it really is kind of a kind of
interesting deal down here. When camp opens, we have a
very good arrangement. We're right next to the stadium where
(17:59):
we practice. It is a beautiful setting. You can see
the skyline of the stadium above the trees that fringe
the practice grounds, and the fans can come in, sit
and watch as much as they choose. It should be
(18:22):
something of interest for Bengals fans. It's as convenient as
it gets. You don't have to drive forty miles or
ninety miles whatever it would be to Wilmington or Georgetown.
You just drive downtown and come on in and sit
(18:43):
and watch. You're welcome, we invite people, we encourage them
to come and hope they will, and we'll be at it,
believe it or not. Again on I guess we'll be
on the field Sunday right out here in Saturday and
Dayton Sunday at Barbara Own Stadium. And maybe it's just
sixty eight sixty seventh seventieth camp. But the one thing
(19:05):
we know, whether it's in Wilmington or Georgetown of Paul Brown,
you'll be there on the sideline watching very intently. I've
done that for all my life, it seems, and I
want to do it as long as they can. Mike,
thanks for stopping buy it before to seeing you on
the field in the nice a couple of weeks. Thank you.
Daf
Welcome to another edition of Hobson's Choice Podcast, a very
special training camp edition here with the owner of the
Cincinnati Bengals, Mike Brown, making his Hobson's Choice Podcast debut.
I know that's throwing for you, Mike. Oh, thanks for
having me, Jeff with training camp coming in and I
was trying to figure this up the other night, but
(00:23):
this might be your seventieth NFL teeding camp, which is
there isn't anything you haven't seen once this part of
the season rolls around. Well, probably there's a lot that
I haven't seen, but I do date back along ways
to the late forties when my father had the Cleveland
(00:43):
Browns at Bowling Green for training camp. That was the
first training camp I used to go to. And you
were at that point you were you were looking at
your heroes, right. They were my heroes. The ones that
we're special heroes for me were Bill Willis, Marion Motley,
(01:05):
and Horace Gillum. They were the three African American players
at the Brown sign and broke the color barrier for
pro football when they did so. They had a corner
room up on the second floor of the dormitory and
(01:29):
I would go up there sneak up there, and I
was probably twelve years old or thereabouts, and they would
take me into their card game. They played Hearts, and
they treated me as a full blown participant. I took
it quite seriously. And the object was to put the
(01:53):
Queen of Spades on Marion Motley, who would if you
did that make a great big commotion. He used to
although scare me. They thought it was funny, and I'm
sure he was just pretending to press me. But it
was great fun and they were nice to me. I
(02:14):
played with them a number of times. They were always
consider it and reached out, were pleasant and kind, and
they were my heroes then, and that would have been
maybe forty seven. I guess they are my heroes still.
(02:38):
Did your dad let you? Did your dad know you
were going up there? Did he want you to go
up there? Or did he mind it? Or did he
I never asked, and I don't think he ever knew. Right,
But that had to heaven. Guys like that, Heaven heroes
like that had to help you. I mean that obviously
got you into the game, you know, get you into
these guys lives and made it so much more interesting.
(02:59):
I would think, well, I was close to them and
identified with them as they played, even when they practiced.
They were guys that I would keep my eye on.
And there were others on those Browns teams back then
(03:19):
that were wonderful people. When players Otto Graham, Dante Lavelle
come to mind, they were super people. Just this week,
I got a call from Jim Ray Smith. He was
a guard and I've forgotten just exactly when Jim Ray
came on with the Browns. I think of him as
(03:42):
the best guard during the time my father coached the Browns,
and he was a wonderful player. And here it is,
all those years later and they still have contact with him,
which I find quite amazing but wonderful. It's it was
so you know they talk about training camp back then,
(04:04):
it's they make it sound so romantic. You know, the
players were close to the fans, and the fans were
always seemed to be around, and they were there for
so long, right, you guys were in camp for so
long back then? Well they were. You had, however, many
preseason games, but the camp before preseason games was weeks
(04:26):
and it was I thought, great, what would any twelve
year old rather do? Yeah, you were a ballboy or anything.
Michael Oh, they didn't have ball boys. I helped Maury Kono.
He was the equipment manager. My job was rowing up
(04:49):
socks and jack straps into a T shirt and make
it a ball and put it in the player's locker.
That was as high as I ever rose. But it
was different in those days. The practices were on a
field at Bowling Green and there was hardly anyone that
(05:13):
came out to watch. It was just the players and
a few people on the sidelines. The dorms had no
air conditioning. The place where the players ate was called
the Falcons Nest. I think it's still active on the
Bowling Green campus. But it was wonderful. It had glazed
(05:36):
doughnuts and what work did you ask that? So the
times were different. People weren't looking for so much, the
money was less. What were so what was that first
Mangles training camp? What was that first Mangles training camp?
(05:56):
Like back in nineteen sixty eight, guys were just seemed
like showing up every day. Guys were leaving and coming
on the bus every day. We had a lot of
guys go through. We just tried out about anybody who
could walk and get there. We had a bus station
was downtown in Wilmington, and on occasions I had the
(06:21):
unpleasant duty of having to drive players to the bus
station and say good luck, goodbye. That was it. It
wasn't so uh so. It wasn't so extravagant as it
is today in the sense that back then they were
on their own when they left at the bus station.
(06:42):
These days, we of course pay for their travel and
they go by plane and stuff like that. We had
some You had some great players in that first camp,
Well we did, and yeah, we had some interesting guys
with that first unit. Bob Johnson was a standout person.
(07:08):
That's why we drafted him. My dad was keen on
that he wanted the first guy we ever picked to
be someone that the fans in Cincinnati would respect and
think of positively, think that playing football was what produced
good people, and Bob, of course was all of that.
(07:31):
Bob Trumpy came in. He was something like a thirteenth
round draft pick. Today we only have what seven rounds.
Bob was a skinny guy for a tight end, and
it was a question whether he was going to be
(07:51):
a receiver or a tight end. As a tight end,
he had great speed and um he could really catch
the ball and run. He was a great player, and
(08:13):
his career reflected that as he went along. But he
says he used to He said he used to put
the weight. He used to hide weights on him when
he went to get way. Oh, they make up these stories.
Who knows whether they're true or not. He was reading
in the paper today where many pakuwell was at the
bocher's name Paccio, however you pronounce it, was victorious at
(08:38):
age forty in a big fight. And he went back
in his memory to say when he started as a
sixteen year old, he put rocks in his pants to
make sure he made the weight when he weighed in.
There seems to be a lot of guys who put
rocks in their pants. I wonder, and now and now
today Mike assistance come completely opposite. I mean, you used
(09:02):
to be at camp for eight weeks. They used to
hit every day, they would hit twice a day. And
now it's uh, now it's now you're here. Now you're
here at the stadium. Everybody goes home at night, and
it's just a different world. Trading camps at different world.
It is different. I don't went to over drama tize
(09:22):
how it was back then with my father anyway, as coach,
they didn't hit twice a day. They didn't hit at all.
In the mornings. It was very similar to what we
call walk through. A little bit more than that, but
not much. In the afternoon they would block and they
(09:43):
never tackled. They only scrimmaged as they got to about
the I guess the end of the second week we scrimmaged.
It wasn't a totally different way of going about it.
They added al a day. That was all. We had
one running play and one passing play. You took the
(10:05):
running play on in the morning to pass play on
in the afternoon, and gradually you piled up your playbook
that way. It was slow, but it was intended to
be meticulous and you were expected to know that play
and you were not forgiven if you didn't go about
(10:29):
it the right way. Whether it was two days later
or three weeks later, you were expected to know it.
I guess it depends on the coach. Because Forest Grace
practices or fuck the guys like Dave Wlapham, he was,
he was pretty tough. Forrest was incredibly physical with his practices.
(10:49):
I guess he went through that with Lombardi, and he
thought that was the way to do it. There are
different ways you can skin the cat. With Forrest, there
was contact both in the morning and in the afternoon.
(11:10):
It was sometimes serious contact. I always remembered when I
was up there at one time watching practice with a
friend of mine, Bob Stackler, who was a lawyer for
the team. And Bob just passed away this last week,
but we were standing there with the lawyer friend that
(11:32):
he brought with him, and the lawyer friend watched the
practice and said to Bob after a few minutes, why
this is brutal. I guess in his eyes, that was brutal.
It was remarkable that they all piled in with each other,
they hit each other, and very rarely did anybody get
(11:55):
hurt injured. I was talking, you know, it's funny we're
you know, we're talking about that piece of training camp.
Talking to Zach Taylor, it sounded like he's going to
be more leaning to the to the Paul Brown thing
where I'm not going to be on the field very long.
That's what has happened in the offseason here with Zach.
(12:16):
We are out there briefly. It's efficient, it is very
highly organized, that doesn't waste time. His practices are the
way I remember with my father. I like that, and
I think it's the best way to go about it. Now.
(12:38):
Every year you greet the team with always a very
interesting speech, and it's I gotta believe it. Not many
owners in the league do that anymore, but I think
it's obviously something that you picked up from your dad.
With a new coach coming in, is there any do
you think you'll think you with that speech? Will it
be pretty standard as an introduction or or oh I
(13:02):
talk to the team. I talk for a short period
of time, ten fifteen minutes, that's all, and I'll say
something unlike my father, who literally gave the same speech
year after year and his talk went on for an
hour and a half. I'm just there to let them
(13:25):
know that I'm around. And then I like to introduce
the administrative people who are with us in the meeting
and tell them how important the administrative people are, that
they're just as important as owners or coaches or players,
and it's an opportunity to say something about how we
(13:53):
function here, about how the family fits into the overall
direction the team. When my father did it, he was
the coach and he set forth all the rules that
they had and the reason for all the rules, and
it was an unusual start for some. There were others
(14:24):
who went through it for ten years or longer, and
they would sometimes make fun of what he would say
at which I would hear, you know, and being around them,
And then many, many years later you would be with
the same guys and they would be talking about the
(14:47):
talk my father would give to the team, and they
would remember explicitly what he had said. It had sunk
in and that was what his intent was. He wanted
them to hear the way it was going to work
and be ready to live up to those standards. Yeah,
(15:08):
I mean I guess now the guy who does the
rules is Zach, right, I guess he's the guy who Yes,
Zach will be the one that is the person that's
in front of them daily and they will learn to
follow him in the same way they followed my dad
(15:29):
and maybe other head coaches here over the years. Do
you do you think about your speech? You do you
write it down? Do you beat you try to tailor
it to that particular team that particular year. It isn't
anything I give a thunderous amount of thought to I
have an idea or two and then stand up and
(15:51):
say something. I'm not a natural born art or. It
just is not my skill, but I can manage a
few minutes, and that's what I do. Do you it?
(16:12):
Is there any one thing that you liked with this speech?
Is there any one thing that you like to leave
them with any What would be the main message? Well,
the one thing I want them to know is that
the family, the ownership group here cares and we're going
to be involved on a daily basis and we want
(16:32):
to help them anyway we can. And they're free to
see us if they think they should, and we're with them.
I think you also like to give them a little
bit of background with Paul and the Cleveland Browns. Right. Oh,
I've talked about all kinds of different things over the years.
I don't remember myself what I said a year ago,
(16:56):
let alone ten twenty years ago. But you get nothing
special plan, I guess for with Zach coming in, Well,
I'll say my little bit, but the guy they're going
to have on a daily basis in front of them
is going to be Zach, not me. He's the coach
and we're here, we're behind him. We're behind them, and
(17:19):
that's a basic message that I want to leave them
one last thing like is you know years, for years
you've gone away. You know, you went to I think
you went to Highram College, you went to Bowling Green
with the Browns, Wilmington, Georgetown, Kentucky with the Bengals. But here,
you know, it's kind of a it's kind of a
(17:39):
nice thing to be at home. Fans come down to
a beautiful setting here in Cincinnati. They can do any
number of things once before and after they go to practice.
I mean, it really is kind of a kind of
interesting deal down here. When camp opens, we have a
very good arrangement. We're right next to the stadium where
(17:59):
we practice. It is a beautiful setting. You can see
the skyline of the stadium above the trees that fringe
the practice grounds, and the fans can come in, sit
and watch as much as they choose. It should be
(18:22):
something of interest for Bengals fans. It's as convenient as
it gets. You don't have to drive forty miles or
ninety miles whatever it would be to Wilmington or Georgetown.
You just drive downtown and come on in and sit
(18:43):
and watch. You're welcome, we invite people, we encourage them
to come and hope they will, and we'll be at it,
believe it or not. Again on I guess we'll be
on the field Sunday right out here in Saturday and
Dayton Sunday at Barbara Own Stadium. And maybe it's just
sixty eight sixty seventh seventieth camp. But the one thing
(19:05):
we know, whether it's in Wilmington or Georgetown of Paul Brown,
you'll be there on the sideline watching very intently. I've
done that for all my life, it seems, and I
want to do it as long as they can. Mike,
thanks for stopping buy it before to seeing you on
the field in the nice a couple of weeks. Thank you.
Daf
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.