Steelers icon Dick LeBeau talks Browns, Buckeyes at Pro Football Hall of Fame Luncheon Club
CANTON - Dick LeBeau should have gone in as a Brown.
Instead, LeBeau walked into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Monday with the Detroit Lions, Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers all over his bronze bust upstairs.
That is not how he introduced himself to the Hall of Fame Luncheon Club.
"I'm an Ohio guy from the tip of my head to the tip of my toes," he said.
LeBeau played 14 years for the Lions. He went to five Super Bowls as a coach during runs of 18 years with the Bengals and 16 with the Steelers.
His football story might have been Browns, Browns, Browns.
In presenting LeBeau to a crowd of 225, Katie Hiestand of the Hall noted the Browns drafted LeBeau but soon cut him.
"It was a big mistake," she said.
Dick LeBeau grew up a Cleveland Browns fan
"I was unbelieveably happy when the Browns drafted me," LeBeau said as he began his speech.
He grew up in central Ohio farm country. His family lived in the town of London, near the courthouse.
"We had family in East Canton and Alliance," he said. "The way roads were then, you just didn't see family much. In the summers, we would come up to East Canton for family picnics."
He turned 9 the year the Browns were born. Paul Brown's team won championships and grew on the family. On autumn Sundays, the LeBeaus would drive north until the car got within radio range of the play-by-play.
"That was when they had Marion Motley and Otto Graham and Lou Groza … I mean, I've been a Cleveland Brown fan forever," LeBeau said.
He supposed he would become an accountant, his dad's profession, or a teacher/coach, but he kept making plays.
Dick LeBeau was a versatile star for Woody Hayes on an Ohio State national championship team
On the 1957 Ohio State team that finished No. 1 in the coaches' poll, he tied for the team lead in receptions, was second in touchdowns and was third in rushing yards. The Buckeyes beat Oregon in the Rose Bowl on a late Don Sutherin field goal.
It was the seventh of Woody Hayes' 28 years in a head coaching tenure that ended when he punched a Clemson linebacker during a bowl game.
"Woody was as fine an American as you would ever want to meet," LeBeau said. "He had a temper, and it ended up getting him in trouble."
Drafted by the Browns
LeBeau was an Ohio State senior in 1958 and then was drafted by the Browns at No. 58 overall in 1959.
"Training camp was at Oberlin College, and Paul Brown was the coach," LeBeau said. "Thirty-one men made the squad.
"We got $35 a week for … needles and thread if you ripped your clothing? I don't know what it was for. But you got no money until you made the team and played the first game.
"Training camp lasted two and a half months. As it went, there were cuts every Tuesday. You got a letter. It either said, 'report to practice,' or 'thanks for your efforts.'"
He was in the last round of cuts.
"The Browns were the first people in my life who said, 'We don't want you,' LeBeau said. "They weren't the last."
Dick LeBeau becomes star with the Lions, innovative NFL defensive coach
He landed in Detroit and gave the Lions 62 career interceptions.
"Hell, they only threw the ball about 20 times a game then," LeBeau said. "If I played today I'd probably have about a 162."
He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2010 based on his play at cornerback. He would be in many conversations on the topic "best assistant coach all-time."
He invented the zone blitz, a pass-rush system quarterbacks thought must have been written by Stephen King.
He said he first suggested it to Sam Wyche, a "futuristic coach" who was his boss with the Bengals. Later, he had to sell it to Bill Cowher, his boss with the Steelers.
With playful sarcasm about Cowher, LeBeau said, "Oh, he was a lot of fun to work with."
LeBeau was Cowher's defensive coordinator when Pittsburgh won the 2005-season Super Bowl. He helped the Steelers win the 2008 Super Bowl with Mike Tomlin as head coach.
LeBeau and Tomlin parted ways after the 2014 season. LeBeau was the Tennessee Titans' defensive coordinator/assistant head coach from 2015-17, working through age 80. He turned 86 on Sept. 9.
LeBeau is famous for seeming way younger than he is, and that came through Monday.
LeBeau's many personal encounters leave him regarding Woody Hayes, Paul Brown, Vince Lombardi and Don Shula as something of his Mount Rushmore of coaches.
"They were totally different personality guys," he said. "Some quick tempered. Some you could hardly hear them speak. But they all had something that was particularly arresting about their personality."
LeBeau's public delivery doesn't blow you out of your chair.
"I never tried to Hollywood anything up," he said.
One might say his is a cumulative charisma.
From a cold point of view, players loved him because he put them in position to make lots of money.
It is said, though, that tremendous warmth, including in audience reception, permeated his performance, from memory, of "The Night Before Christmas," during a special team gathering each December.
The entire Steelers team attending LeBeau's 2010 enshrinement in Canton was one for the books.
Troy Polamalu was there.
"People come up and say, 'Bet you can't guess my favorite player,'" LeBeau said. "Right away, I'll say, 'Troy Polamalu.' They say, 'How did you know that?' I tell them, 'Because you're the 5,286th person to tell me your favorite player is Troy Polamalu.'"
Someone asked the defensive legend to name his least-favorite receiver to face.
It was Paul Warfield, a former Buckeye and Brown.
"Yeah ... an Ohio guy from right up the street."
LeBeau did not apologize.
"I'm a Buckeye, man. I'm one of you guys."
Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com
On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Hall of Famer Dick LeBeau talks Browns, Buckeyes at luncheon club
