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About the Author
Chuck Heaton earned a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. He is one of a select group of writers to receive the prestigious Dick McCann Memorial Award, awarded to one journalist each year for a lifetime of excellence in football reporting. He received the award in 1980 while still actively reporting on the Cleveland Browns for the Plain Dealer. Heaton began writing as a city reporter for the Plain Dealer in 1942, earning $50 a week, and stayed with the paper for 51 years. In 1946 he eagerly accepted a job writing in the sports department, where he covered the Cleveland Indians for several years, including a World Series. In 1954 he began covering the Browns as a football writer, a position he filled until 1993. Heaton was one of the first electors to the Hall of Fame in 1963 and served in that role for thirty years. In 1990 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cleveland Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He was elected to the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame in 1992. He retired from the Plain Dealer on October 1, 1993. He was chosen by Leroy Kelly to be his presenter when Kelly was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1994. Heaton s lifelong emphasis on faith and family, and a love of reading, writing and the arts, are reflected in the lives of his five adult children.

Customer Reviews

A GREAT TRIP THRU BROWN'S HISTORY
AUTHOR CHUCK HEATON CREATES A LOT OF NOSTALGIA AND GREAT MEMORIES WITH THIS SHORT BUT SWEET BOOK FILLED WITH GREAT PHOTOS AND STORIES ABOUT MANY OF THE LEGENDARY CLEVELAND BROWNS. THE BOOK IS A COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND INSIGHTS WHILE CHUCK COVERED THE BROWNS WHILE WRITING FOR THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER. I FOUND SOME REALLY GOOD STORIES ABOUT PAUL BROWN, OTTO GRAHAM, JIM BROWN AND ART MODELL. AT THE END OF HIS BOOK, CHUCK LISTS HIS ALL TIME BROWNS TEAM BY POSITION. I WAS VERY SURPRISED AND SAD TO READ ABOUT THE RECENT DEATH OF CHUCK. IN THE EARLY 1970'S, CHUCK'S FIRST WIFE DIES FROM A BRAIN ANEURISM AND HE HAD TO GO ON AND RAISE 5 CHILDREN AMONG THEM WAS DAUGHTER PATTY. WHO WOULD BECOME ACTRESS PATRICIA HEATON WHO STARRED ON EVERYONE LOVES RAYMOND. I REALLY ENJOYED THIS BOOK AND HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT FOR ALL BROWNS FANS.

Great addition to the collection of any Browns Fan
My husband bought this book for his dad planning to either cut it up and make a collage of photos or scan it and do so, and after the book arrived he liked it too much in it's entirety to do so. He ended up reading through the book himself and just giving the book as a whole. It was like a dual gift, he enjoyed it himself and then gifted it like he had planned. Very informative and great photos.

No longer like it was . . .
The subtitle tells it all: A Fond Look Back at Five Decades of Football, from a Legendary Cleveland Sportswriter.

Shortly into the book, you'll find this line: 'It was different back then.' Indeed, it was. I'm probably not alone in thinking it was BETTER back then, as well.

Chuck Heaton joined the Cleveland Plain Dealer as a sportswriter in 1946. His first beat was baseball, and his timing was excellent. The Indians won it all in 1948 and challenged again in 1954. Just before the end of that season, he was switched over to football, and from then until another switch 24 years later, he was the main writer of and about the Browns. It was a few more years before he retired (almost) completely, giving him 51 years of writing about sports.

In the early days of football, before the NFL became the marketing-obsessed entity it is today, teams didn't have their own year-round training/office complexes like they do today-it was after all, only a part-time 'game'. Most teams trained at a local college or university, which had a field and dormitories for the players, coaches and media. Yes, indeed, you read that correctly! In those early days, reporters lived with the players. Can you imagine that happening these days? Of course, that was also in the days before the ever-present television/media obsession, too.

Fans of football (or any other sport, for that matter) as it used to be will particularly enjoy the piece on page 157, titled "The Year Sports Lost Its Innocence". It's enough to make a grown person cry!

Heaton observed the greats and the not-so-greats among players and coaches, many of whom became life-long friends. He attended (and wrote about) the big games and the forgettable ones, as well, including the first Monday Night Football, Superbowls and championship games before the era of Superbowls. And yes, there was once such a thing!

In the early 90s -before the great defection --he compiled a personal sort of history about the Browns, in a series that ran in the Plain Dealer, under the same title as this book. For the most part, the pieces fall easily into six categories: Places, On and Off the Field, Rivals, Big Moments, The Game and Hall of Famers. A postcript lists the All-Time Greatest Browns Team.

Some of the individual pieces here carry the date they were originally printed, which helps to place them in the proper context of one's memory. The date on which Paul Brown died or the day the team was moved to Baltimore merit this attention. There are also eight pages of photos.

It's entirely appropriate that one of those photos is of Mr. Heaton at the Pro Football Hall of Fame holding the Dick McCann Memorial Award he received in 1980. Who says nice guys can't finish first?

Any football fan in your life should love this book!