Preston Smith, Joe Kim

Master Joe Kim, a Cleveland native, spent a year with the Washington Redskins before returning to Cleveland this season.

(Luis M. Alvarez, Associated Press)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Joe Kim was like most other Browns fans in 1992. He knew the game from years of watching it -- the Kardiac Kids, the heartbreaks of the late '80s -- but working at the game's highest level certainly wasn't a reality.

Besides, Kim didn't need football. He was 23 years old back then -- an Olympic-level athlete, even though his chosen sport, Taekwondo, was not in the games yet. He was on the United States national team and had competed at the Pan Am Games, the World Cup and World Championships. He was a fourth degree black belt.

He didn't need football, but it turns out football needed him. It came calling one day when a red Mercedes pulled up outside of the school his father had founded in North Ridgeville. Two enormous men got out of the car, walked into the school and asked, "Hey, are you Joe Kim?"

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Almost 24 years later, Master Kim, a northeast Ohio native, was in football limbo. Sometime between that red Mercedes pulling up outside his school and spending the 2015 season as the Washington Redskins Assistant Strength and Conditioning/Skill Development coach, he had become a football lifer, or at least something close to it.

"I was still under contract (with the Redskins) and I didn't know what we were going to do," Kim said in a phone interview with cleveland.com, "if I was going to go back to the Redskins."

That's when he got a call from new Browns head coach Hue Jackson, whom he had only met previously in pregame chats when Jackson was in Oakland and Kim was working in Kansas City. The Browns were remaking their strength and conditioning program and Jackson wanted Kim to be a part of it.

Walking into his interview was a case of Deja vu for Kim.

"I was just shaking my head going, 'This is the third time I've walked in this same door over the last 20-some years, and sat in the same type area there in front of the security desk at the front there in Berea, waiting for somebody to come down and get me and I'm just like, 'Wow.'"

Kim was returning to where it all began.

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Bill Belichick was in his second season coaching the Browns in 1992 and wasn't nearly as revered for being a visionary then as he is now. It doesn't mean he wasn't a visionary, though, and an article he came across in the newspaper might be proof.

An article on Joe Kim that appeared in The Plain Dealer on August 15, 1990.

It was an article about Kim. Belichick read it and remembered Lawrence Taylor benefitting from working with a martial arts instructor.

So Belichick dispatched two of his defensive linemen -- Michael Dean Perry and Anthony Pleasant -- to Kim's school. That's when that red Mercedes pulled up, catching Kim's eye.

The next few weeks were spent with Pleasant, Perry and Kim all dispensing their superior knowledge of their crafts -- the two players teaching Kim what they needed in terms of football and Kim designing a plan for them using martial arts principles specifically for football.

At that point, Kim was invited to tour the Browns newly-opened training facility in Berea and met with Belichick, defensive coordinator Nick Saban and defensive line coach Jim Bates. Belichick, unswayed by Kim's lack of experience in football, came away from that meeting impressed enough to offer Kim a job.

"Coach basically said, 'Hey, listen, I would really like to have you part of this,'" Kim said, "because he said he believes in developing players and, back in the day he said, 'I think football's won with the one-on-one game so this type of thing is something that we need.'"

All that was really left was to create a position for Kim. Belichick jumped on the fact that Kim had interned in the weight room while living at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and named him an assistant strength coach.

From there, the real crash course in football began. Kim went into the office every day and learned the game from the likes of Saban, Bates, offensive line coach Hal Hunter Sr. -- the father of current Browns offensive line coach Hal Hunter -- and Steve Crosby.

"We'd watch these Betacam machines, forward and backward, forward and backward," Kim said. "I watched football in a whole different light than I had ever watched it before and I just started the process of learning how to figure out what these football players need from a martial arts background to win the combatives."

Kim compares his football knowledge now to then as the difference between a white belt and a black belt.

"I was just a young kid that was so eager to figure it out," he said, "whereas now I'm like that old bull on the top of the hill that's going to walk down to the pasture and not run down to the pasture."

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Part of the Browns new approach this season is an emphasis on player development and teaching. Kim is part of that push.

Browns defensive line coach Robert Nunn has worked with Kim for about 17 years and says one of the first discussions he had with Jackson after getting hired here was about Kim.

"Joe is a great teacher," Nunn said. "He can teach. He has great energy. When he's around guys, if he's teaching martial arts or football or how to drive that tractor over there, he can teach."

To hear Kim talk about connecting with his players is to hear a man thinking about teaching football on a different plane than most conventional strength coaches.

"My hands are actually on every single player," Kim said. "I do the fighting combatives with them. I feel their power. I feel their strengths. I understand their leverage. I understand their movement because I'm actually fighting with them."

A favorite phrase of Kim's throughout his conversation with cleveland.com was purpose-driven. Every drill has a reason behind it specific to each player's position.

"When we're drilling something, we're drilling it for a reason, for a purpose and you're going to see a result," he said. "Otherwise, I believe I'm just wasting your time. I'm not here to give workouts."

His strategy harkens back to Belichick stressing the importance of winning one-on-one matchups. He's able to work with players outside of any particular scheme.

"Anytime you have more eyes, more hands on a player, the better," outside linebackers coach Ryan Slowik said. "We only have limited access to them, obviously. Schematically, we're just a lot of times worried about getting them lined up, making sure they understand the call, understand their responsibilities.

"The fact that you can have somebody who's dedicated to that craft all the time, it's really helpful. You can just see their hands, their feet, their hips staying active in the rush. It's been great."

It all points, at least from Kim's perspective, to the Browns finally caring about doing everything it takes to make players better.

"For (Browns owner Jimmy) Haslam to invest in the high performance like he's investing tells me he cares about developing his players," Kim said. "That's the only reason. For him to invest in any department in the upstairs, it's an investment to Mr. Haslam. He's not just turning a blind eye. He's invested and it's showing. I see it on a daily basis."

He's not alone in that view.

"It just shows me how much the Browns are invested in players," rookie linebacker Joe Schobert said, "that they're willing to get a world-champion caliber black belt Taekwondo guy in here who knows his stuff and who works with us every day to cover just that small aspect of the game. That means a lot."

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Master Joe Kim

Even though this is Kim's third stint with the Browns, it doesn't change what it means for him to be home.

"I stand every day on the Browns football field and I can't believe that I'm back there," he said.

Kim was born in Lakewood in 1969 and grew up in Bay Village. He graduated from St. Edward High School. He grew up a Browns fan in a family of Browns fans and called himself a "huge Kardiac Kids fan." He talked about suffering through The Drive and his excitement over working with Earnest Byner, Kevin Mack and Bernie Kosar.

Following his first go-around with the Browns, which ended when the team left for Baltimore, Kim moved onto the Cowboys, followed by a second term in Cleveland after their return in 1999 that ended when Butch Davis cleaned house. From there, he has spent time with the Dolphins, Packers, Broncos, Bills, Chiefs, Bears and, most recently, the Redskins.

"I'd call my mom from wherever I was (working) at and I think she forgets that I'm working for another team and all she's got to talk about is the Cleveland Browns," he said.

All of that job insecurity could rattle someone not used to life in the NFL, but Kim called himself blessed looking back on it all.

"Worked with some great coaches, some great players and blessed to have my hand in developing some great pass rushers along the way," he said.

Kim has a martial arts school in Avon, which he moved from Avon Lake in 2001. He has a staff of people that run it who have been with him for 20 years and says he tries to go over to the school and teach when he's free.

"It's more of a hobby for me now," he said. "Every once in a while I'll come over and I still fight with some people over at the school, do some sparring and do some rolling around and just enjoying martial arts."

He's now a seventh degree black belt. There are nine degrees, the last two of which he says are more honorary and based on time.

Through it all, even during other NFL gigs, Kim never stopped following the Browns.

"On Sunday, during the game, in those TV timeouts when I'm standing there and I look up at the scoreboards in whatever stadium I'm in, I'm always searching for that Browns score," he said. "I'm always looking. When I was sitting on the bus after the game, getting ready to go to the airport or sitting in traffic trying to drive home from a game, what am I scanning? I'm scanning cleveland.com to see the Browns, to find out what happened with the Cleveland Browns."

In the weeks leading up to the Cavaliers breaking the city's 52-year championship drought, Kim became a popular go-to among those he knew from other organizations.

"They just know I'm Joe Cleveland."

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Football is a game of battles. Each play, offensive lineman engage with the defense. Running backs barrel into defenders. Receivers work to get off the line against defensive backs trying to prevent it. This is Kim's mission: win the battles.

He speaks of rookie linebacker Emmanuel Ogbah as a player that could become unstoppable if he develops the right tools. "He's just got to develop some of the skills where he can go pick the fight and not run around the fight.

"My whole principle is to go into the guy, get him to set and shoot. We want you to punch us. I know that we have the skills to defeat that."

"If the offensive linemen come at us certain types of ways, he's got counters already built in place for us," defensive lineman Desmond Bryant said.

"Right now when you try to do it on the field you think about it," said Schobert, "but when you get to that point where you can just start doing it, it's definitely going to be a huge help to anybody's game."

It goes beyond pass rushers, though. In recent stops, Kim has worked with all position groups, save for quarterbacks and specialists. Browns Director of High Performance Adam Beard told him he had the same thing in mind for him in Cleveland during his job interview.

"What happens," he said, "is I get all the accolades based on the performances of the pass rushers just because that stat is glorified. That's an actual stat. A sack is a stat. They quantify that by saying it's the handwork. It's this, it's the way we're doing the drills. ...

"... A lot of people don't see the combatives being used in those other position groups," Kim said, "but I've got a ton of video of it."

It means that, at some point during his week, he goes from working with the men chasing the quarterback to the men charged with protecting him. While he wants his pass rushers to get into the offensive line, he teaches ways to create space on the flip side of the ball.

"What I work on with the O-line is creating opportunities for them to create the distance and the separation," he said, "improve their overall hand speed and work on their punch placement."

Perhaps the groups Kim is most excited to see in training camp are the wide receivers and defensive backs. He said the rules barring contact and pressing in OTAs and minicamp haven't given him an opportunity to see their work pay off.

"This receiver group and this (defensive back) group have been so special to work with on these hand combatives," he said.

One wide receiver in particular has stood out to Kim in regards to his hands: Terrelle Pryor.

"I had a player that I was very fortunate to work with last year, although he got hurt, was (linebacker) Junior Galette in Washington," Kim said. "Junior was one of the most violent people I have ever done hand drills with. ... This Terrelle Pryor is right up there."

Kim said he can't wait to see defensive backs try to press the 6-foot-4, 233-pound quarterback-turned-receiver.

"He's got tools in the toolbox to use," Kim said. "It's not just going to be flailing. Now he's got a fight plan."

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Joe Kim poses with Tamba Hali, left, and Justin Houston, right.

There are success stories in Kim's wake, of course. There has to be if NFL strength staffs are willing to continue calling Kim and asking him to join up. Perhaps the most notable is Kansas City's Tamba Hali.

"He was always a guy that created pressure," Kim said, "but he did it on effort. He didn't develop his skill set and needed the craft."

"Ever since we started working together it's been like a brother-to-brother relationship," Hali told The Plain Dealer in a 2013 interview. "He's the type of teacher who can take your game to the next level."

"When we got together and we started working together for four years, that's where Tamba Hali took off," Kim said.

Hali went from good to elite working with Kim, registering 26.5 combined sacks in 2010 and 2011, both years in which Kim was on staff.

"Tamba Hali is probably the best hand fighter in the game," Joe Thomas told The Plain Dealer in 2013. "He looks like a Ninja the way he uses his hands. It's amazing how quick they are. All the guys in Kansas City have quick hands."

The Chiefs drafted Justin Houston while Kim was on staff in 2011 and he embraced his techniques as well.

"Justin's another one that saw the value that the combative system that we have developed and Justin took off," Kim said.

Houston collected 15.5 sacks in his first two seasons and has 56 sacks in his first five seasons.

Other players that Kim believes benefitted from his teaching include Chicago's Willie Young, whose best season came in 2014 when Kim was on staff and he had ten sacks, Elvis Dumervil and Jason Taylor, both of whom he worked with early in their careers, and Green Bay offensive lineman Aaron Kampman, whom Kim called a relentless worker. He also worked with Kyle Williams in Buffalo, helping him to better understand his movement and how to use his hands.

"We've worked with a lot of guys," Nunn said. "He's worked with me all the way back to Jason Taylor days and Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora, Jason Pierre-Paul, he's worked with all those guys with me, so I'm excited about having him here and our guys are too."

Kim says he looks forward to the next one.

"The next one's going to be here with the Browns."

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The NFL can be an insular community. There's liable to be some cynicism, even when it comes to a coach as accomplished as Kim.

"I have never had a black belt on a coaching staff before, that I'm aware of," Slowik said with a laugh, "and I'm not willing to find out, either."

"It's a shocker," outside linebacker Nate Orchard said. "You look at the guy like, 'Oh, he's got no moves.' Next thing you know he's whipping his hands around."

"He has so much knowledge in the space that I really am not familiar with," defensive lineman Desmond Bryant said, "so at first it's a little intimidating."

Kim confronts that cynicism or trepidation the only way he knows how.

"I attack them right away," he said. "I'm excited to meet them. I'm like, listen, here's what we're going to do and this is why we're going to do it and let's go. It's just been fantastic with that regard and that's just my personality, too. I'm a passion-filled, purpose-driven guy."

"I wasn't expecting (to work with a coach like Kim)," Schobert said. "It makes sense. A lot of guys go to UFC workouts in the offseason and stuff with the handfighting and leverage and all that stuff, so it makes sense."

Kim might cringe at the UFC comparison -- he made it clear that's not what he's teaching -- but his ability to reach athletes like Schobert so quickly is clearly one of his strengths.

"I just kind of embraced it," rookie linebacker Scooby Wright said. "I was taught similar stuff to what he kind of teaches but nothing as fine-tuned or precise as he does."

It's ultimately one commonality that drives players' acceptance of what Kim is doing.

"At the end of the day, every NFL player I've every worked with," he said, "they just want to improve."

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Kim's presence in the NFL goes beyond the physical side of the game. Browns quarterback Robert Griffin III knows that from experience.

When Griffin left the Redskins locker room for the final time following last season, he left a note hanging in his locker that became the subject of tweets and blog posts almost immediately. It was naturally a topic of conversation when Griffin came to Cleveland, and it's Kim that he credits with the note's contents.

"He would give me inspirational quotes, and that one just stuck the best with me. So I left it up there," Griffin said.

"It's just a real powerful statement to say you've got to persevere, you've got to be who are and don't let anything ever change that," Griffin said. "Learn from your mistakes, but don't ever let anything change who you are at the core of who you are."

Robert Griffin III didn't talk to reporters, but cleaned out locker, leaving only this... pic.twitter.com/gOD0gSvHic — Mike Jones (@ByMikeJones) January 11, 2016

While Kim doesn't physically work with the team's quarterbacks, he does work with them mentally and talks to them on a daily basis.

He also has a knack for sharing inspiration with his other position groups, as Wright pointed out.

"He used an analogy I thought was pretty cool," Wright said. "A bamboo tree doesn't grow for two years, but after that first year it starts growing 30 feet a month. That's the way he kind of looked at it. Start off slow, but once you get it, you're going to keep progressing and progressing."

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Danny Shelton, deep down, is a big kid. A very big kid.

"Every time I'm watching Kung fu movies or whatever I'm always the guy who's always practicing the moves on the siblings or, my girlfriend," Shelton said. "She gets tired of me trying to do karate moves and stuff."

Shelton has slimmed down this offseason -- relatively speaking -- shedding somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 pounds, already at his training camp goal weight of 335 pounds. Shelton's development as both a run stopper and a pass rusher is vital to the Browns' defensive success now and in the future. The 2015 first-round pick is the poster child for the organization-wide emphasis on player development under its new regime and is one of Kim's most important projects.

"He's really embraced it," Kim said. "He loves the martial arts principles."

"(Kim) brings a lot of energy for the whole team, really," Shelton said. "He works with all of us, but specifically with the D-line, he's a guy that's going to help us out with our pass rush."

"One thing I'll tell you, (Danny)'s super disciplined in what he does," Kim said. "He works at it every day. There hasn't been a day go by since we started this offseason program to the very end of mandatory minicamp, that he doesn't develop his skill on a daily basis."

"Working with Coach Kim this past offseason," Shelton said, "that's really helped me grow as a player, just adding to my pass rush ability and the technique, really focusing on technique, focusing on adding pressure to the quarterback."

A typical day for Shelton, his linemates and any other position group working with Kim starts early. Beard has a time set aside within the overall training program to work skills sets with Kim.

"We'll go through some basic hand combatives that are going to be position-specific for them," Kim said, "so Danny would do all of his defensive line hand combatives. We would do some hip mobility with the hurdles. We would do some footwork as a group, so we apply the hands and the feet together."

Following that, they would meet up with Strength and Conditioning Coordinator Evan Marcus and train with him.

The real thrill for Kim is seeing the pass rushers come out 15 minutes early for practice each day to meet with him.

"I don't even have to lead it anymore," he said. "They just kind of get together and they know that they're going to do this drill and this drill before practice. They're on their own. I'm supervising, I've got the mitts out and they spend about ten minutes pre-walkthrough and go and do that."

Kim will then meet up with Nunn and Assistant Defensive Line Coach Ken Delgado during practice.

"What's great about this team," Kim said, "when practice ends, they all come right back over to do some more finishing stuff that we want to work on."

It's no surprise, considering the passion that exudes from Kim, even over the phone. It's the same passion that a different iteration of the Browns discovered nearly two-and-a-half decades ago.

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Pleasant's best season as a member of the Browns came in 1993, the season after Belichick sent him to work with Kim. He had 11 sacks and 66 tackles, both career highs.

"He was just super stiff," Kim said of Pleasant when he first started with him. "He couldn't touch his toes. He couldn't even touch his knees from a standing position."

As for the other student Belichick sent Kim:

"Michael Dean's one of those guys that just needed a plan," Kim said. "'Give me a plan. What do I need to do? Give me a purpose. Why do I need to do this?' Explain to them their why."

Why Kim is back with his hometown team 24 years later is the same reason as the first time he walked through those doors in Berea: Give the Cleveland Browns a fighting chance.

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