Cleveland Browns Flashback Friday: When Bernie Kosar dunked Sam Wyche

Sadly, former Cleveland Browns arch-rival Sam Wyche passed away, evoking memories of his tiff with Cleveland fans, and how Bernie Kosar helped make amends.

Sadly, former Cleveland Browns arch-rival Sam Wyche passed away, evoking memories of coach Paul Brown’s return to football with the AFL expansion team Cincinnati Bengals in 1968. Wyche was a charter member of that team, and later became a coach and led them to a Super Bowl following the 1988 season. The team’s website says that Wyche’s passing was due to melanoma.

Sam is remembered well for an incident that happened in the 1989 season against the Seattle Seahawks in December. Some calls did not go Cincinnati’s way and the fans were irked and perhaps a little bored and so they started throwing snowballs onto the field.

Sam took the public address announcer’s microphone and gave the crowd the following pep talk, “Will the next person that sees anybody throw anything onto this field, point them out, and get them out of here. You don’t live in Cleveland, you live in Cincinnati!”  

The fans roared, of course. It’s debatable how much Sam’s rant was premeditated, given that it was an on-the-fly response to a significant problem, namely the threat of fines or even forfeit of the game due to poor fan behavior. Nevertheless, the Dawg Pound and the Browns were indignant when the rant showed up on TV or in print. After all, Browns fans had nothing to do with the officials and the Seattle Seahawks.

What you might not know is that Sam realized he had some fences that needed to be at least partially mended, and so with help from Browns star quarterback Bernie Kosar to raise money for the Cleveland area Salvation Army, they set up a dunking booth on a chilly March day.

For five bucks a pop, frustrated fans were allowed to throw a football or a big dawg bone at a target, which would trigger coach Wyche to fall into a tank of water. That was probably rather cold water, given it was held in March in the fair city of Cleveland.

Kosar was the first one up. According to the New York Times account, he addressed the crowd and media. ‘Today we’re here for a good cause, to hopefully dunk coach Wyche in the water!”

Kosar struggled at first, but on his fifth attempt connected with a football, and down went Wyche, much to the merriment of Cleveland fans. At $5 a throw, they raised some $8,000 for the Salvation Army, which means that there were a lot of folks throwing footballs. It was hard to stay angry at coach Wyche, who was a very friendly guy with a great sense of humor.

That sense of humor got him into trouble once December day in 1990. That incident has forever memorialized him as a symbol of the rivalry between Cleveland and Cincinnati.

Although the old coach had been ailing for quite some time, it does not seem possible that he is gone so soon. He will be missed.