"WHEN PAUL BROWN SMASHED THE COLOR BARRIER"

In today’s (September 25) New York Times, columnist Bill Rhoden notes that, in a year of celebration about Jackie Robinson’s historic breakthrough in baseball, professional football played an important role in opening the way for African-American players in the modern era of professional sports. Rhoden called it "one of the lesser-known stories of integration."

In 1946, one year before Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Rhoden writes that Paul Brown, founder-owner-coach of the Cleveland Browns, signed the first two black players in the All-America Football Conference -- lineman Bill Willis and fullback Marion Motley. That same year, 1946, the Los Angeles Rams also signed the first black players of the NFL’s modern era -- offensive end Woody Strode and halfback Kenny Washington.

Cincinnati Bengals President and General Manager Mike Brown was 11 years old in 1946 when his father made what turned out to be a historic decision. Following are the comments of Mike Brown about Paul Brown as they appear in Bill Rhoden’s column:

• "It's interesting, in a way, because he did it before they did it in baseball. I'm not sure why professional football is not given more credit for breaking the color line. It's always intrigued me that that was the case, though keep in mind that back in the '40's, baseball was the principal sport in the country. It definitely was the bigger sport. Maybe that was part of it, but it's almost forgotten.

• When he coached at Massillon High School, he had many black players on his teams. When he coached at Ohio State, he had many black players on his team. When he coached in the service, the same thing was true. When he got to the Cleveland Browns, he looked around and he knew where he had better football players than he had with the Browns. Guys who formerly played for him.

• He didn't do it for any other reason than to make the team better. It wasn't to sell tickets in the sense of drawing people because we had a couple of black guys on the team.

• He was a person of his times and he had high standards and he believed people should be treated the same.

• He was going to make sure that these guys got treated the same…His comment to me was that, 'This wasn't anything I did to advance a cause. All I was trying to do was get the best football players; I thought these were the best football players and they should have a chance to play."