Paul E. Brown Museum Kicks Off Fundraising Campaign

Seventy-five years ago, when football’s greatest innovator, Paul Brown, took the helm of the Massillon (Ohio) Washington High School football team, the face of football changed forever. Fittingly, the legendary coach and his ideals will be memorialized by the new Paul E. Brown Museum in Massillon.

Harris Day Architects have completed the museum’s conceptual design and organizers are now kicking off the fundraising campaign.

Paul Brown turned football coaching into a science. He invented the facemask and the playbook. He was the first coach to call plays from the sidelines and the inventor of the draw play. He created the concept of sports booster clubs. He first used practice and game films, classroom techniques, the forty-yard dash, and IQ tests as coaching tools. Brown helped to permanently integrate professional sports by signing African Americans Bill Willis and Marion Motley to the Cleveland Browns a year before Jackie Robinson stepped onto a major league baseball field.

Brown coached the Massillon Tigers to an 80-8-2 record with six state and four national championships. He led the Ohio State Buckeyes to their first national championship, was the first coach of the Cleveland Browns, and founded the Cincinnati Bengals. [Paul Brown chronology]

The late Pete Rozelle, who served thirty years as commissioner of the National Football League, said of Brown, “He changed the game forever. Whether they know it or not, nearly everyone in the game has been affected by Paul Brown.”

The 3,000-square-foot Paul E. Brown Museum, to be located at One Paul E. Brown Drive Southeast in Massillon, on the campus of Washington High School, will be adjacent to Paul Brown Tiger Stadium and the school, where it will be accessible to the public and to students. “It’s important that we keep the Paul Brown and Massillon Tiger tradition in front of student athletes on a daily basis,” said Massillon football coach Tom Stacy.

“The museum’s overarching educational themes will be history, the value of tradition and discipline, and the attainment of goals,” according to Gene Boerner, one of the museum’s organizers.

Numerous donors including Mary Brown, widow of the late football great, have contributed artifacts and memorabilia in the Paul E. Brown Museum’s collection. The Paul and Carol David Foundation and the Massillon Tiger Football Booster Club have provided seed money for the museum.

Interactive displays will make background information easily accessible, and large video displays with stadium seating will provide entertainment and education as visitors watch Paul Brown’s “Science of Football” and other video attractions.

The building will brim with meaningful memorabilia: the suitcase Brown toted to away games—complete with personal items he would have packed (glasses, Bible, clothing, and more); his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction jacket; and his World War II uniform from Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Visitors will see family and football photographs as well as the camera he used in Massillon as the first coach to use photography as a coaching aid. They will see a book written and autographed by Knute Rockne—Paul Brown’s football “bible” during his early coaching career—complete with Brown’s margin notes and play diagrams he devised while reading.

Because all artifacts will be secured behind glass, the museum can be unattended and accessible. Admission will be free; donations will be accepted.

“This is an excellent time to initiate this project,” said committee spokesperson Bill Dorman. “It’s the diamond anniversary of Paul Brown’s coming to Massillon and the 65th anniversary of Ohio State’s national title under his leadership. In 2008, we’ll mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of this great man.”

The committee has set a preliminary goal of $750,000. The campaign will seek significant financial support (Pledge Card), but contributions of any size will be welcome. Major contributors will be recognized in the form of “autographs” on a unique football-shaped donor-recognition “wall” in the museum.

To learn more about the Paul E. Brown Museum, a 501(c)3 organization, contact Bill Dorman at 330-495-2147 or teammates@PaulEBrownMuseum.com. Tax-deductible donations for construction of the museum and installation of its exhibitions may be mailed to the Paul E. Brown Museum c/o FirstMerit Bank (One First National Plaza, Massillon, Ohio 44646) or to Dorman’s attention at the Paul E. Brown Museum, P.O. Box 1162, Massillon, Ohio 44648.

Media Contact: Gene Boerner, Committee Media Liaison - 330-936-2411 - media@PaulEBrownMuseum.com

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