Monte Clark Memory

Football was serious business to Monte Clark, the starting right tackle for the Browns in their glory days of the 1960's. But besides his passion for the game he had depth and sensitivity and he was unfailingly courteous. He and I hit it off right away.

In the Browns jubilant locker room after a big 31-20 playoff victory over the Dallas Cowboys in 1968, Clark motioned me over. I was working the room, getting quotes for my sidebar story in The Plain Dealer.

"Did anyone tell you about Tommy McDonald's speech?" Clark wondered.

I was puzzled. "Nobody mentioned it," I said.

Clark said it had a lot to do with the victory. Maybe it didn't affect everybody the same way or maybe the other players felt pre-game pep talks were private and shouldn't leave the lockerroom. For Clark, it turned the switch and he wanted to tell me.

He said that McDonald, a little wide receiver who had been lured out of retirement in October because Gary Collins was hurt, stood up on a chair in the middle of the locker room before the game and talked about his pride in wearing a Browns uniform after ten years with the Eagles. McDonald was a last-string bench-warmer who caught only seven passes all season. He was an outsider, an unlikely hero. But he had a fresh perspective and he had something to say.

McDonald talked about the Browns' history and the embarrassing four straight to the Cowboys, an expansion team barely ten years old.

"If he didn't do anything else all year, that speech was enough," Monte told me.

Clark was constantly in pursuit of the mental edge. Hypnosis, for instance.

While drinking in Pat Joyce's Tavern one night, Dick Schafrath, the Browns' left tackle, told me about turning to hypnosis for game preparation. He said he would get hypnotized two or three times a season in order to intensify his concentration. He said he could lie in bed the night before games and mentally visualize every play for the entire game. He said Monte Clark did the same thing. They went to the same hypnotist.

I wanted to write the story.

"Wait till I retire, will you?" Schafrath said, explaining that Browns quarterback Bill Nelsen would ridicule them unmercifully.

Naturally, I sat on the story until Schafrath retired and it made an interesting piece.

But when I called Monte Clark, he asked me to leave him out of the story altogether because he aspired to be a head coach. He was already working as an assistant coach with the Miami Dolphins.

"Some owners and general managers wouldn't understand. They'd think I was some kind of nut," said Monte.

Monte made it. He coached the San Francisco 49ers for one year (1977) and the Detroit Lions for seven (1978-84). His overall record was only 51-67-1 but he got the Lions into the playoffs two years in a row.

Sadly, he died Wednesday. He was only 72.

So there it is. I've waited almost 40 years to write the rest of that story.