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Warren’s Ross Browner made a big splash on the gridiron
By Steve Ruman
If not for a little bit of peer pressure, and if not for the girls, there’s no telling what type of swimmer Ross Browner would have become.
You see, before he made a name for himself as an all-time football great, Browner spent much of his youth in the area swimming pools.
“I loved it. I practically grew up at the Warren YMCA,” Browner said. “I competed as a swimmer and diver. I put a lot of time into the sport.”
Then came those influential teenage years.
“It was like this,” Browner says with a laugh. “All my brothers and friends were playing football in our side yard. I didn’t want to get left behind. Plus, I was noticing that the girls were going for the football players.”
Browner’s decision to get out of the water and onto the gridiron resulted in a a football career which was as decorated as any to come out of the Valley.
Browner is a 1973 graduate of Warren Western Reserve High School, where he earned All-American status as a defensive end. His play helped lead the Raiders to Ohio’s first playoff state championship in the fall of 1972.
One year earlier, Warren G. Harding was crowned Associated Press state champs.
“That whole East Side-West Side rivalry which existed in Warren back then — that really prepared me for what was to come,” Browner said. “Later on in my career, people would ask how I was so mentally prepared for big games. I would tell them, ‘If you could survive the intensity of Harding versus Reserve as a teenager, you can handle anything.’”
Soon after the ’72 season, the list of college coaches who visited the Browner home seeking the services of Ross read like a who’s who of coaching greats. Ara Parseghian (Notre Dame), Woody Hayes (Ohio State), Bo Schembechler (Michigan), Joe Paterno (Penn State), Tom Osborne (Nebraska), Johnny Majors (Pitt) and John McKay (USC) all came to Warren.
It wasn’t until signing day in February of 1973 that Browner decided to go to Notre Dame.
“Up until then, I really didn’t know,” Browner said. “But my dad always preached the importance of education, and I wanted to go to a big football school. I kept going back to Notre Dame being a perfect fit for academics and athletics.”
Browner’s choice could not have worked out better. In 1978, he graduated with a B.A. in economics. Along the way, the Irish won a pair of national titles (’73 and ’77) and Browner went on to win the Outland, Lombardi and Maxwell Trophies, the latter symbolic of the nation’s top player. He was a four-year starter and a two-time collegiate All-American.
Browner was a first-round pick of the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1978 draft. The same year, he was named the team’s most valuable player.
“Shortly after being drafted, (Cincinnati owner) Paul Brown reminded me that we had met in Canton when I was playing in a high school all-star game,” Browner said. “He told me, ‘Son, I kept my eye on you all these years. I drafted you because I didn’t want to play against you.’”
Browner helped lead the Bengals to the 1981 AFC title game against San Diego. The game was infamously known as the Ice Bowl. Wind-chill temperatures that day reached 59 degrees below zero.
“I remember being all fired up, and coming out of the locker room to have sweat instantly turn to ice,” Browner said. “I went up to the referee and said, ‘Do we really have to do this?’ It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”
The Bengals prevailed, and a week later met San Francisco in the Super Bowl. Despite Browner setting a Super Bowl record for most tackles by a defensive lineman, the 49ers — and Browner’s ex-teammate Joe Montana — prevailed 26-21.
“At Notre Dame, I always looked at Joe as my little brother,” Browner said. “That day, both teams played a great game, but he was magnificent.”
Browner retired from the NFL in 1987 and promptly joined the business world. He resides in Nashville, Tenn., where he recently stepped down as an assistant vice president at a credit union.
Today, he is President of Browner Productions, a sports entertainment company.