It was the spring of 2014, and newly hired Browns coach Mike Pettine was speaking at a coaching clinic in Ohio State’s indoor football facility, sharing stories of his rise from high school coach to NFL video coordinator to position coach and eventually to head coach.



Pettine’s speech was open to coaches and media observers but not to recorders or cameras, so I don’t have the exact quote. But the conversation had turned to the differences and similarities between trying to win a game on Friday night in eastern Pennsylvania and trying to do the same as a head coach in the NFL when Pettine said something about telling the Browns upon getting the job that he didn’t want any commercials or endorsements and didn’t want his face on any media guides or any promotional materials. His point, essentially, was that all that stuff should be for the players and the marketers and that he just wanted to coach football, just like he always had.



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