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An NFL career that has included success on the field and as a coach, Ray Horton brings his own style to his new job as the Browns' defensive coordinator.

(Photo by Chuck Crow, The Plain Dealer)

BEREA, Ohio -- Ray Horton brings to Cleveland a unique view of the football world, one perhaps best enjoyed from the cockpit of a single-engine plane cruising 3,000 feet above the ground.

Two years ago, as many assistant coaches spent part of the NFL lockout honing their golf games, the Browns' new defensive coordinator fulfilled a long-time goal of pursuing a pilot’s license. For a 52-year-old coach who’s built a reputation on applying pressure, he has an uncommon way of relieving it.

“It’s not like in a car where you are on the ground,” Horton said. “It’s just you, you’re in the air and defying the laws of gravity. It’s the most calming thing I’ve ever done and it’s probably my biggest accomplishment.”

What the Browns are getting in Horton is more than a coordinator who will blitz the quarterback and transform them into a 3-4 defense. He is an eclectic NFL lifer – one with 31 years of experience as a player and coach – who’s not afraid to embrace change and step outside of ordinary.

He flies Cessnas -- and sometimes in the face of conformity. He dabbles with the saxophone. He once gave away a Mercedes to a Pittsburgh Steelers cafeteria worker. The assistant coach with the long braids makes former defensive coordinator Rob Ryan look as button-downed as Jim Tressel.

“Nothing that Coach Ray does surprises me in terms of self expansion,” Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau said. “He likes to live life and he likes intellectual challenges and he likes to grow from his personal experiences.”

Horton is known as a coach who relates to players through his knowledge of the game and ability to communicate it. He can be blunt yet understanding, the product of 10 seasons as a defensive back with the Bengals and Cowboys. He knows the joy of winning Super Bowls, the agony of falling seconds short and the humility of having to start over as a member of a 1-15 team.

Nobody in Cleveland needs to tell Horton the pain associated with losing to John Elway – he experienced it at the University of Washington – or being on the wrong side of a last-minute, 90-yard touchdown drive – see Super Bowl XXIII highlights.

At his introductory news conference last month, he memorably reassured reporters the roster possesses enough “big men that can run and little men that will hit” to play his style of defense. Striking a more serious tone, Horton acknowledged he would need to gain the players’ confidence.

“I have to establish something, which is trust and that’s all I want them to do,” Horton said. “I want them to trust I have ... the Cleveland Browns’ best interest in mind. I'm sure they have some apprehension about, ‘Who is this guy? What’s he going to do? What’s that mean to me?’”

Perhaps Horton can explain it to several players at a time as they take off from Burke Lakefront Airport and circle FirstEnergy Stadium.

Super Sundays

"The rules of the game are pro offense," Horton says. "The only thing we have to counteract that is to hit people, starting with the quarterback."

Growing up in Tacoma, Wash., Horton compiled a ‘bucket list,’ decades before there was a term for such catalogs. He wanted to be a pilot. He wanted to be a fireman. He wanted to travel the world. He wanted to win a national championship and a Super Bowl.

“I went back home several years ago looking for the list but I couldn’t find it,” Horton said. “Sports were something I was good at, but as a kid I had a lot of interests.”

Horton, who earned his degree in sociology at Washington, became an All Pac-10 standout for the Huskies in 1982 after nearly leaving the program prior to his junior season. Horton had passed a Seattle firefighters exam and thought of applying for a job until a former high school teacher threatened “to beat me up and down the street if I quit.”

The Bengals drafted Horton in the second round of the 1983 draft in part due to a strong recommendation from LeBeau, then Cincinnati’s defensive backs coach. LeBeau has served as a position coach, defensive coordinator, mentor, confidante and friend to Horton over the past three decades. The Pro Football Hall of Famer knows him as well as anyone in the profession.

“He was an excellent player,” LeBeau said of Horton, who started 99 of his 147 career NFL games. “He could play outside (corner) and inside. At the end of his career he played safety and played it very well. I think playing all the positions has contributed to his ability to coordinate a defense.

“You get a feel for guys in this business. You know when you’re coaching them that ‘this guy would be a heckuva coach.’ I always felt that way about Ray. He just had an eye for the whole picture. Not just necessarily what he had to do, but what everyone had to do around him.”

LeBeau and Horton won two Super Bowls together on the Steelers’ staff and lost a heartbreaker in 1989 as Joe Montana drove the 49ers 92 yards in the final three minutes of a 20-16 victory over the Bengals.

Horton was on the field for the last drive, making several tackles, but he couldn’t prevent Montana from hitting John Taylor for a 10-yard touchdown with 34 seconds remaining. On the play, Taylor lined up as a tight end while Jerry Rice came in motion to the left side. It was a formation the Niners had rarely used and Horton opted to help double-team Rice, who had 11 catches for 215 yards.

As the famous play unfurled, Horton broke toward Taylor, but arrived a second too late.

“They had run that play one time all season and as soon as the play started happening I was like, ‘Oh shoot, oh shoot,’” Horton recalled. “Yeah, I wish I would have called time out. Would it have made a difference in the game? I don’t know.

“I’ve used that play (in coaching), telling players that there are going to be mistakes made. It’s the biggest game of the year and it did look like it was ‘your’ fault and you live with that forever. I remember walking down the street in Seattle and walking by someone who recognized me and he (told someone) ‘he cost his team the Super Bowl.’ You live with that. It’s your first Super Bowl and you never know if you’re going to get back.”

LeBeau absolved Horton of blame for the touchdown and concluded it was simply “Montana being Montana.”

Horton joined the Cowboys the next season, enduring a 1-15 record but recognizing the promise in playmakers Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin. Three years later, Horton would finish his playing career with a title as the Cowboys crushed the Buffalo Bills to win a Super Bowl.

“I’ve been fortunate to be a part of five Super Bowls,” Horton said. “I have been blessed. I’ve never thought about the ones I’ve won, but the ones you lose you go back and say, ‘If I had ... if I had ... if I had ...’ It’s one of those burdens you bear the rest of your career.”

Consistent approach

Horton has spent the past two decades teaching players and raising kids. The responsibilities of an NFL assistant make it difficult on family members who must learn quickly there’s nothing permanent about the lifestyle. Homes, mailing addresses and best friends change frequently.

His son, Jerran, 21, and daughter Taylor, 24, said their father made more youth games and piano recitals than he missed during coaching stints with Washington, Cincinnati, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Arizona. Horton taught them to be independent thinkers and to speak their minds. Taylor, shares Horton’s love of photography and travel. She also apparently inherited his bluntness.

About six years ago, Horton began to braid his hair, a look that did nothing for his then-teenage daughter.

“I told him, ‘Dad, you are too old for braids,” said Taylor, a professional photographer. “But that’s who he is. He does some things differently. He’s very comfortable with himself and he’s also very respectful with others’ opinions.”

Horton interviewed for head coaching vacancies in Arizona, Buffalo and Cleveland this off-season and asked his suitors if his braids would be an issue. His affinity for the saxophone was not a topic of conversation.

“Let’s just say I’m a better pilot than I am a saxophone player,’ said Horton, whose younger brother, Brian, is an Air Force veteran and pilot for Alaskan Airlines.

Those closest to Horton say he’s full of surprises. Two years ago, as he departed Pittsburgh to accept the Cardinals' defensive coordinator’s job, he stunned a Steelers’ cook who had long admired his 1999 Mercedes Benz SL 500 convertible roadster. While saying goodbye to the cafeteria staff, he told Maurice “Mo” Matthews he had lost his wallet and wondered if he could borrow money. The cook gave Horton $20. Horton handed the cook the keys to the Mercedes – and later the title to the car.

“My philosophy is you take care of people who take care of you,” Horton said. “(Matthews) was a guy who would travel to (Steelers) road games on his own. ... He was the kind of employee that you’d want representing your team, whether it was the President, the CEO or the owner. And he happened to be one of our cooks. It was just something I thought would mean so much more to him than it would if I traded the car in to get a new one or something like that.”

Horton was well regarded in his two years with the Cardinals. The defense ranked 29th before his arrival and 12th last season while also ranking first in passer rating (71.2) and second in interceptions (22) and third-down efficiency (32.9 percent).

Linebacker Paris Lenon said players appreciate Horton’s candor and consistency.

“His approach is impressive,” Lenon said. “He has a very cool demeanor and has the answers. Nothing catches him off guard or flusters him ...

“You know what you are going to get out of him. I’ve had coaches who weren’t that way. One minute they are cool, calm and collected and the next day they are yelling at everybody.”

There are many questions surrounding schemes and personnel fit as Horton converts the Browns' 4-3 front played under Dick Jauron. One thing seems certain: They will come after the quarterback, a philosophy favored by LeBeau. Only the Houston Texans blitzed more than the Cardinals last season.

“The rules of the game are pro offense,” Horton said. “People want to see scoring, they don’t want to see a 7-3 game, that’s not exciting. ... The only thing we have to counteract that is to hit people, starting with the quarterback.”

LeBeau believes his pupil is head coach material – another one of Horton’s bucket-list goals. In the meantime, he will revamp the Browns’ defense, teaching new schemes and terminology.

The defensive overhaul likely won’t be pretty or smooth. That’s OK. In football as in flying, Horton finds comfort in the turbulence.