Sunday, August 20, 2000
Thank you, Mike Brown
As we stood on the sidelines at Georgetown training camp, watching superheroes in shorts and helmets grunt and struggle under a prickly August sun, the owner of the Bengals punched me in the shoulder.
“If you hit me once, I can bounce back up,” he said, “but If you keep pounding me and pounding me ...”
He illustrated with several more jabs to show me what it feels like to be Mike Brown in Cincinnati, taking a relentless beating from talk radio, letters to the editor and columnists like me. I got the point.
Some people want Mr.
Brown to get down on his knees and thank us for building the new Paul Brown Stadium. Forget it. He's not that kind of guy. Besides, it may come as a surprise, but maybe we should thank him.
Maybe Cincinnati should grow up and quit whining. This town is unwrapping the biggest gift we've ever opened — a new riverfront. And what do we hear?
Gripes about traffic and long lines to see the stadium — like complaining that the floor is a mess on Christmas morning.
And non-stop carping about a $450 million stadium “rip-off” by the Bengals.
Mr. Brown would like to remind everyone that the city and local business leaders — not the Bengals — moved the stadium west, to make room for the Underground Railroad Freedom Center and The Banks neighborhood.
He thinks both are great. But he says they added $60 million in land costs and $100 million for demolition and infrastructure. Mr. Brown says the actual price of the stadium is less than $300 million — less than Cleveland's $325 million and Denver's $350 million.
Every time he sees $450 million in the paper, it's another slug in the shoulder.
Stuart Dornette, the team's lawyer, says only half of the half-cent sales tax revenues are paid by Hamilton County individuals, and 30 percent of the tax income goes back to homeowners in property tax rebates.
So where's the beef? A half-cent sales tax is like oxygen for this city — invisible and painless.
I know I'm way out of line here, sticking up for someone Cincinnati loves to vilify. But Mr. Brown had a chance to sell the team, pocket hundreds of millions and retire to anonymity while our leaders huddled in double overtime and called another punt. Instead, he stayed. For that, we get a new riverfront. Mr. Brown gets a beautiful new stadium that brings in enough income to build a better team — and he gets a new reputation as the greedy Grinch Who Stole Football.
That's not what I saw. I met a man who deals daily with the raging egos of poor kids in giant bodies who suffer from sudden wealth syndrome, yet he can rattle off four book titles on the Italian Renaissance for a high school student's study project. Mike Brown is anti-flamboyant. Old school. His heroes ran for short yardage on the beaches of Normandy. And he's so Cincinnati. He looks like Joe Fan on the sidelines in his running shoes, faded shorts and plain white golf shirt. Buses his own dishes at lunch. Drives a Chevy. Still loves football, but he's gradually handing the car keys to his daughter, Katie Blackburn, to let her drive the Bengals in the NFL Grand Prix.
His favorite movie is Twelve O'Clock High, about B-17 squadrons in World War II. One commander wants to be liked so much he gets his men killed. His replacement knows real leaders are not popular. They have to be SOB's tough enough to do what's best for everyone.
Mike Brown wants desperately to win, to turn things around, unite our city and erase the bitterness. “We have to do better,” he said.
But here's a punch in the arm: If winning football games is what it takes to make Mike Brown a hero, we don't really know the score.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. If you have questions or comments, call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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BRONSON: Thank you, Mike Brown
