DOYLESTOWN, Pa. – Mike Pettine opened the door to the New Britain Inn late Saturday afternoon and walked into his past.

The wood-paneled establishment, where beer mugs hang from the ceiling over the horseshoe-shaped bar like championship banners, has been owned by one of his former high school coaches for 35 years. It's the gathering place before and after games for Central Bucks West, the prep program Pettine's father turned into a dynasty.

The new Browns coach recognized familiar faces, saw the old framed photos of CB West gridiron greats on the "wall of fame" and was struck by a rush of memories – some good, others cringe inducing. Pettine is grateful he came of age before the era of Citizen Journalism.

"On our ride over here from Cleveland a song came up that I had done in karaoke in the New Britain Inn," Pettine said. "It was Bachman-Turner Overdrive and I was thinking I was glad there were no iPhones back then. I'm sure that video would have gone viral at some point."

Dressed in a Foo Fighters T-shirt and a pair of camo shorts, Pettine enjoyed his respite from trying to turn around one of the NFL's perennial losers. He stood around a high-top table, watching the Belmont, sipping on a beer and accepting a few man hugs from locals who marvel at his transformation from high school coach to low-level NFL assistant to Browns head coach.

The wall of fame in the New Britain Inn features framed photos of former CB West High standouts. It includes one of Mike Pettine in a University of Virginia uniform.

What made the two-day trip special was the toggling between past and present. Pettine brought members of the Browns coaching staff on a limousine bus across the width of Pennsylvania to work an annual youth football clinic run by Browns defensive coordinator Jim O'Neil. Pettine, O'Neil and linebackers coach Chuck Driesbach all played at CB West in different decades under Mike Pettine Sr.

As these sons of Doylestown were squired from backyard barbeques to local hangouts, the weekend served as both community celebration and confirmation. While Pettine accrued plenty of football knowledge in his stops with the Baltimore Ravens, New York Jets and Buffalo Bills, it's here in this bucolic borough 25 miles north of Philadelphia where philosophies on coaching the Browns were shaped. Same holds true for O'Neil and Driesbach.

"It's a reminder you can never get back enough," said Pettine, 47. "This is where the foundation for our football was built."

Eclectic surroundings

Doylestown, population 8,380, defies all the stereotypes associated with tradition-laden national powers.

No skeletons of shuttered steel mills dot the county seat of Bucks County. It is not Canton or Massillon or Odessa, Texas. The borough is neither economically depressed or football obsessed. The flag-lined downtown teems with restaurants, boutiques and specialty shops like the Tubby Olive, featuring gourmet olive oils and vinegars on tap.

Doylestown is filled with restaurants, boutiques and specialty shops.

Doylestown boasts a thriving cultural scene. Many of its most famous citizens are writers, artists and entertainers. Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Michener was from here, and a museum bearing his name stands on the site of an old prison. It's also home to Alecia Hart, who evolved into the pop star Pink after getting kicked out of junior-high theatrical productions and CB West.

In 1965, as Mike Pettine Sr. and his wife, Joyce, arrived in rural Doylestown, football was one of many activities for teenagers. The program's current weight room replaced the school's old indoor rifle range. Yes, in more innocent times students were allowed to discharge weaponry on the grounds. The Browns coach laughed at the memory of his dad never permitting him to handle the guns.

A football team that for years shot itself in the foot started winning under Pettine Sr.

"He built it from the ground up," the Browns coach said of a program that compiled a 327-42-4 record and won four big-school state titles from 1967-99. "He put solid stones in the foundation. He paid attention to detail. I think he would have been successful in the middle of a desert or wherever that high school was."

As he remakes the Browns, the 47-year-old Pettine talks often about the importance of toughness and getting your nose bloodied to win in the AFC North. His old man's teams personified that vision. They succeeded on the strength of superior offensive and defensive line play. You get the feeling Pettine knows rookie guard Joel Bitonio could have played for the old CB West coaching staff.

Browns defensive coordinator Jim O'Neil inspects memorabilia being auctioned off at his youth football clinic.

New Britain proprietor Michael Carey, who played for and coached alongside side Pettine Sr., was on the cutting edge of weight and speed training for prep players. The program's rise accompanied the region's housing boom of the 1970s and 80s as professionals living in Philadelphia row houses yearned for back yards and open spaces.

Carey knew the education and drive some of these white-collar workers brought to the suburbs and said the coaching staff wanted to tap into those qualities with the offspring. As CB West began capturing state titles, it did wonders for the region's image.

"When I was growing up all the respect for high school football in the state of Pennsylvania was for Harrisburg and West," said NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock, who lived in nearby Haverford, Pa. "If you played football East of Harrisburg it was completely disrespectful. Then along came Mike Pettine and the CB West dynasty . . . and the whole thing changed."

Reaching their peak

O'Neil gave his fellow Browns assistants a tour of the New Britain Inn wall of fame Saturday night. They witnessed rows of former players, including Pettine at the University of Virginia, in college uniforms. What they didn't see were many alumni in their NFL Sunday best.

For all the accolades, few CB West players have thrived at the pro level.

"There was a comment made once or twice by recruiters who were wary of taking kids from here," said Pettine Sr. "They referred to them as 'program kids' – their peak had almost been reached."

"He called me up one day and said, 'My ePad is not working real well and I said, 'So, you're struggling to send iMail with it?'" the Browns coach recalled.

Joking aside, Pettine values his father's input.

"Sometimes in coaching you get to where you can't see the forest from the trees and he's a guy who understands the basics of it, the core it," Pettine said. "He can give you the bird's eye view when you are in the thick of it . . . Most of what he gives us is confirmation."

With the clinic winding down, father and son made plans for their next stop. Soon, the limousine bus would be shuttling the coaches back to Berea for mandatory minicamp, another door closing on the past.

Pettine, O'Neil and Driesbach don't get home as often as they'd like, but they carry a part of Doylestown with them whenever they're together. The thought of it brings a smile to the weathered face of the man who united them.

"Extremely proud," Mike Pettine Sr., said. "Every now and again I pinch myself . . . Junior has gone above and beyond anything I've ever dreamed of and parents worth their salt always want their kids to go further in life than they have. All of them are on a stage I never quite imagined."