Class Seperates Browns from "Winners"

Wednesday, October 13, 1999

By SALLY GARDOCKI

THE PLAIN DEALER

Class.

Class is like a fresh-scrubbed face that needs no makeup to appear beautiful to the world.

It stands out, distances itself from the norm in a crowded room.

It commands respect without demanding it.

It always does the right thing, taking the high road, the road less-traveled, the road most difficult.

It is quietly respectful, especially in its greatest moments of victory.

It always knows its place and understands innately that living selfishly for the moment only serves to rob it of many others.

I can take class to lunch with me and proudly introduce him to my son.

Class blazes brightest in the middle of the darkest night. Or a dark season, whichever comes first.

"We lost again!" they say.

"Put in Madre Hill!" they say.

"Start over from scratch!" they say.

Our team's players, however, keep their minds on their work, ignoring the jeers, tasking themselves harder at practice, focusing and refocusing until the whole NFL world becomes a mere dot on a screen in the film rooms of Berea. Our team will not quit because our team is that blue-collar worker upon which this town so prides itself, and because of that, our team has held it together even after five screaming defeats.

Our team has class.

And this, my friends, is the first real lesson we have learned about this expansion team of the Cleveland Browns and the management staff who brought them here.

Some will unfortunately remember this much-hyped inaugural season as a disappointment because of the record. That almighty W-L column I have grown to despise because it never, ever tells the whole story will be the benchmark for those who only see the world in black and white.

Others, like myself, who try daily to see that whole forest, will take to heart much more than stinging statistics, and will take more away from the game than the game itself.

I am going to remember with pride how a group of people, a team and its coaches, held their heads high week after week and didn't quit on each other or the town they represented.

I'm going to look back and remember that in a world where your paycheck is dictated by your week-to-week performance, with jobs on the line every snap of the ball, nobody pointed fingers.

I'm going to remember all of this one day when the Browns do make it to the playoffs, and I'm going to thank my lucky stars that I was there when the going was bad.

Bad, you say?

Yes, bad, because it will make the future victories all the sweeter.

We all need to understand from where we came to appreciate where we are.

This time last year Cleveland had no football team.

You answer the question, "Which was better?"

It's an easy answer for me. I'm going to sit back and enjoy this season for what it is and what it yields. I've learned in nine years to be a very patient woman.

I've also learned that sometimes other things are more important than, get ready for this, the final score.

Whoops! Lombardi just flipped. I felt it. Did you?

When your kids play soccer, baseball and football, do you tell them that winning isn't everything, it's the only thing?

Of course not!

We teach our kids about sportsmanship, we teach them to push themselves to be the best they can be, to compete from within, and we don't yell at them in the car on the way home because they dropped the ball that could have made the difference in the game.

We don't run up and down the sidelines screaming at them, "Losers! Losers! You're all losers because you didn't win! We want a new coach! Let's draft another JV team!"

I know, I know, you're shaking your head and telling yourself that I have to say all of this. That I am part of the "party line." Well, I'm not. I've never even met (Browns owner Al) Lerner and I'm not on the Browns payroll.

It's just that I appreciate having something entertaining to watch on Sunday afternoons. You'd never guess what we used to do. We played with a Ouija board! How about that for entertainment? We didn't have a team to root for or go see in South Carolina.

Maybe that's why I'm just glad to be here. Maybe that's why I looked around the stadium after that awesome special-teams touchdown and felt connected with all of Cleveland right at that moment, understanding we had all just seen something really spectacular.

Let Akili Smith spoil my Sunday? No way!

He has nothing on me and he has nothing on you, either.

Class. It's not taunting fans post-victory as if to say, "You should have taken me! See! I won this game!"

It is not about being King for a Day, but King for a Decade.

It is not about winning to show off, but winning to praise your competition for its fine level of play.

Class is having the strength of character to do the right thing when the going gets tough.

And let me tell you, it's tough to lose by one point. Much tougher than losing by 10 or 20 because the victory was so close you could taste it.

But the victory will come. It will come because of hard work, dedication and a refusal to give up. It will come because this Browns team has patience and a whole lot of class.

Sally Gardocki is married to Browns punter Chris Gardocki. Throughout the Browns season, Sally will write a weekly column on her life as an athlete's wife. She will express her unique views about football, Cleveland and life in general. Educated at Clemson and Saint Louis University, with a law degree specializing in sports law, Sally wrote for the Indianapolis Star while her husband played for the Colts. Her column will run each Wednesday in the Plain Dealer.

©1999 THE PLAIN DEALER. Used with permission.

Special Thanks to Joey Morona. No Thanks to Joe "Get a Life" Noga!

Here's the link to the original story

Back to Doamin of DawgEers