Bengals president Mike Brown, who turns 89 the day his team opens its preseason in an Aug. 10 game against Tampa Bay at Paycor Stadium, heads into his 74th training camp with an NFL club next week.
Just as much as when he turned 11 during the 1946 camp run by his father, Paul Brown, the first-year coach of the Cleveland Browns.
Bengals.com senior writer Geoff Hobson wanted to know why and Brown told him in their conversation.
After a spring in which he broke up his 8-5 day with vigorous walks in and around Paycor Stadium while also chairing personnel meetings and watching practice, Brown spent part of last week preparing for Monday’s training camp luncheon at Paycor Stadium that unofficially starts the NFL season in Cincinnati, as well as his annual remarks to the team.
He also sat for The Conversation:
GH: Another training camp. You’ve been doing this since the ’40s and you love it. Why?
MB: I grew up with training camps. From the time I was a small boy, I went to training camp. I thought that was a great spot to go. When I was a kid, I looked forward to it. It was a treat for me to be able to go watch the practices. Be around the locker room. Be out on the field. And I’ve never lost that liking for it.
It’s simple. You would stay in college dorms. They were unadorned. The food was always good. I’d get to watch and we would talk about the players in meetings. It was something I would do if I could take a vacation. And that was true when I was 12 years old and it’s true when I’m 88 or 89 years old today.
It’s a great thing in your life when you get to do what you like. For me, a lot of the fun went beyond watching practice. It was just being around the team and watching it come together, talking about it, and doing the things that had to be done off the field as well as the things that go on on the field.
GH: There are no more college dorms, but do you…
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