As a life-long Cleveland Browns fan, Condoleezza Rice isn’t sure why she loved coach Paul Brown.
She suspects it was his fedora and tie, his whole look on the sideline.
But Rice, then 8 years old, remembers her reaction when owner Art Modell fired the Hall of Fame coach on Jan. 9, 1963.
“I went and ripped all the Browns posters off the wall in my room,” Rice said. “I have to admit for a little while I was a Cincinnati Bengals fan. For a very little while. Then when the Browns came back, I went all-in again.”
Former U.S. Secretary of State Rice, 67, was honored as the 2022 Ambassador of Golf in a Thursday night dinner reception at Firestone Country Club during the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.
A native of Birmingham, Alabama, who watched the Browns with her father, Rice is director of the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow on public policy at Stanford University. But when asked her favorite Browns victory since the franchise returned in 1999, Northeast Ohioans heard the Clevelander come out.
“I really have to work at that one,” she joked.
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Her choice was the Browns’ 48-37 AFC wild-card victory at Pittsburgh on Jan. 10, 2021, in their first playoff appearance since 2002. In jumping out to a 28-0 first-quarter lead, the Browns earned their first playoff triumph since Jan. 1, 1995. They were making their first postseason appearance since the 2002 season.
“I said to someone, ‘The problem is when you’re a Browns fan and you go up by 28 points, you start to worry,’ ” Rice told the Firestone audience. “I remember a friend of mine was going to come over and watch the game and we were already up 21-0 when she showed up. I said, ‘Let me be very clear, if something goes wrong, you go home right now.’
“Fortunately, we scored again. That was so unexpected in some ways and so wonderful.”
She called her second choice “really kind of sad,” the 20-17 home victory over the San Diego Chargers on Dec. 24, 2016, that saved the Browns from a winless season. She didn’t mention the Browns' Jamie Meder, who blocked a 32-yard field goal with 3:49 remaining.
“I don’t remember who the team was, but they missed a field goal so we won that game and did not go 0-16 and I cheered like we won the Super Bowl,” Rice said. “So I’m looking forward to some better memories.”
Marla Ridenour can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.
