Browns history: 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the Dawg Pound

Something that carried from the practice field to the stadium turned out to be a Cleveland mainstay

The Cleveland Browns. The Dawg Pound. How did a team named after its original head coach morph into a canine-themed franchise?

The “Brownie the Elf” logo was pretty simple. The original owner, Mickey McBride, wanted a logo to represent his team. But what represents “Browns” other than a chocolatey dessert filled with walnuts?

RELATED: ORIGINS OF BROWNIE THE ELF

Brownies were a Northern England invention of small creatures that only came out at night, and then helped do chores. The English invented Brownies to entice their own children and servants to complete their daily responsibilities. If they knew that small creatures were watching them during the day, and then offering to help, tasks were completed more often.

Head coach Paul Brown knew an artist in his hometown of Massillon, Ohio and “Brownie” was born, named after a root beer brand that is still sold today.

The only question that remains is why is he labeled “Brownie the Elf”? What makes sense is if “Brownie” is a brownie, shouldn’t he be “Brownie the Brownie”?

New and old Dawg Pound

Perhaps Browns refer to some sort of hunting dogs, like Bluetick Hounds?

Everyone on every NFL team knows that the “Dawg Pound” is at Cleveland Browns Stadium and previously at the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium. This spectacle was located in the east end zone stands of the old stadium which were bleachers that were the center field seats for Cleveland Indians baseball games and considered some of the worst spaces in the house.

But for Browns’ games, in order to fit a 120-yard long playing field, the edge of the east end zone butted up right against the center field wall which had a small incline towards the end to warn the center fielder that the wall was near.

So when they built the new stadium, the seats all had chair backs and armrests, but for the Dawg Pound, it is again bleachers – just 1999-style bleachers instead of 1930-style bleachers. And no PSL fees.

Essentially, the Dawg Pound was designed into the fabric of the new venue.

Origins of the Dawg Pound

How the Dawg Pound began has two components: training camp and the bleacher section at the stadium.

The Browns held their training camp at Lakeland Community College in Kirkland, Ohio from 1982 to 1991 under head coach Marty Schottenheimer.

In 1985, the defensive backfield featured Hanford Dixon, Al Gross, Frank Minnifield, and Felix Wright, plus a stellar linebacker crew of Tom Cousineau, Eddie Johnson, and Chip Banks. The defensive front had Bob Golic, Carl Hairston, and Reggie Camp.

During practices, the entire defensive front seven was having a problem getting into the backfield to disrupt the passing game. The starting offensive line consisted of Dan Fike, George Lilja, Mike Baab, Cody Risien, Paul Farren, and backups Rickey Bolden, Robert Jackson, and Bill Contz.

RELATED: DAN FIKE INTERVIEW

The quarterbacks were Gary Danielson, Paul McDonald, and a rookie by the name of Bernie Kosar. Every signal caller used was picking the defense apart each day of training camp with very little pressure from the defense.

Minnifield and Dixon came up with a game to challenge play during those training camp practices in an attempt to encourage the defense to get to McDonald and Kosar and stop the deluge of pass completions and then having to read about it in the next day’s paper.

RELATED: PAUL McDONALD INTERVIEW

The defensive backfield was another story entirely. It featured numerous quality players who were – or became – Pro Bowlers and All-Pro status.

Dixon was taken with the 22^nd pick in the first round by the Browns in the 1981 NFL draft out of the University of Southern Mississippi. He would later be selected to three Pro Bowls and was named First Team All-Pro twice. Minnifield was a standout cornerback in the United States Football League with the Arizona Wranglers and joined Cleveland in 1984. He subsequently went to four Pro Bowls, was First Team All-Pro, and was later named to the NFL 1980s All-Decade Team and enshrined in the Cleveland Browns Legends.

Felix Wright, Don Rogers, Al Gross, Chris Rockins, Larry Braziel, and rookie D.D. Hoggard rounded out this group.

RELATED: FELIX WRIGHT INTERVIEW

To get more pressure on the quarterback, Minnifield and Dixon assessed that every player on the defense were dogs and that the quarterback was the cat.

During these practices, whenever any defender would get a sack, a quarterback hurry, or an interception, Minnifield and Dixon would bark like dogs right there on the field. This encouraged the other defensive players to do the same. On occasion, as a play ended up near the stands, the defensive player would bark at the crowd in attendance.

After a while, the spectators in attendance picked up on this, and when the players would bark, most of them would likewise. This placed the defense as fan favorites as the two entities melded together during training camp.

In preseason games and into the regular season of 1985, there could be heard some dog bark sounds, but it wasn’t very much and was an occasional occurrence.

What changed was a season ticket holder named John Big Dawg Thompson.

Thompson had a single seat behind home plate for Indians games. He wanted a second seat because he had just gotten married, but none were available next to him. So, on “seat day” he showed up and gave up his single seat and then bought a pair on the front row in the bleacher section where the fans at the time were referred to as “Bleacher Creatures.” His new seats were $9 each as he had been paying $17.50 for one seat at the other end.

On a Saturday early in 1985, Thompson and some friends went to a sports bar to catch the opening Ohio State game. Where they parked was five stores away from the bar in front of a new costume shop which had a flashing sign out front that said “Grand Opening.” After the game, the friends all went inside to look around. Thompson saw a hound dog mask hanging up and bought it.

In the first preseason game of 1985, he carried the mask inside but did not initially wear it. When he did put it on, he started barking at opposing players who ventured into the end zone just yards away. At some point, the TV crew saw him in his front-row seats and displayed his image on the game telecast.

The bleacher section already had a bad reputation because it was the cheaper seats. The other sections of the stadium had individual seats with chair backs and armrests. This section was all bleachers without an overhang above to keep the sun and rain off the spectators. These were folks who were used to the outside elements. This part of the stadium also had a drinking problem.

Being the cheap seats kept out the attorneys, doctors, engineers, educators, executives, or judges who could afford the better armchairs or seating under overhangs.

As games fell off the calendar, more and more patrons in the bleacher seats followed Thompson’s lead and began to show up with dog masks and costumes. They brought Milk Bones to hurl at opposing players that ventured into that section’s end zone which was just steps away from the stands. Those east end zone stands were some of the same fans that had barked during training camp.

You meld all of these situations together and you get a different classification of fans who don’t drive a Mercedes. The five sections of blue seats at this end of the stadium through Gate “E” were viewed as the bad neighborhood within the stadium. After downing numerous cheap beers or drinking smuggled liquor the ability to be right there close to the field was a good part of the reason. Okay, okay – it was the primary influence.

One thing that was not permitted in the Dawg Pound was smoking. But back in those days, fans were permitted to bring in a number of items from the outside such as their own soft drinks – or Pepsi bottles full of dark beer and 7-Up two-liters replaced with Gin or Vodka.

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Unscripted, Thompson had brought Dixon and Minnifield’s playful orchestration from the practice field to the playing field. And it caught on.

As this section began to get more and more dog-related costumes following Thompson’s lead, Dixon and Minnifield took the lead and did something that completely set this section apart. The two-star defensive backs designed, drew and painted the very first “Dawg Pound” sign, and then hung it up on the chain link fence outside the east end zone section before a game.

It read: “Dawg Country. No Cats Allowed.” Also on the sign was a drawing of the State of Ohio with a human football player whose face was that of a junkyard dog wearing Dixon’s jersey number 29, signaling number one with one hand and choking a cat with the other.

Signs usually referred to the section as “dogs” or “The Pound” whereas the inventors of the invention added a new and amended wrinkle: d-a-w-g-s.

The east end zone had now been officially christened “The Dawg Pound.”

These fans accepted the designation with the usual vigor, and not only would bark for the defense’s successes during the game, but would show up in dog attire, masks, bone-shaped hats, and other costumes that blended with the atmosphere. It was a rite of passage to have season tickets in the Dawg Pound and come dressed up for the part.

From there, it simply spread.

Fazio’s Grocery Stores sold posters that depicted the four defensive backs holding leashes to a Rottweiler, pit bull, German Shepard, and a Doberman with the caption “The Last Dogs of Defense.”

That is the awesome part of this story – it was completely unplanned. Dixon and Minnifield did not design for a portion of the stadium to become the Dawg Pound, nor was the term “Dawg Pound” even in their thought process when they conceived the cat and dog mantra. The two defensive backs didn’t even bring the dog show into the stadium until it was already going and infested with dog-related activities and costumes.

Thompson did not envision the Dawg Pound when he bought the hound dog mask even though he had seats already in that section that just happened to be positioned on the front row in full view of attention-grabbing television cameras.

The Dawg Pound was not designed into the fabric of the stadium nor conceived in a boardroom full of idea-flinging executives and interns.

It just happened. But it did not happen until Thompson put on his mask and began barking. It then evolved with lots of moving parts.

Now, the Dawg Pound is almost a living, breathing entity. It has its own Facebook page. Since the year 2000, there have been four songs written about it.

A Life of its own

The Browns have been issued a trademark for the name as a reference to this section of fans and is the only officially-branded logo in the NFL for a team’s fan base. The Seattle Seahawks use “The 12^th Man” as a label for its fan base, but they rent that from Texas A&M University.

The universal chant that almost every sports team in America uses goes something like, “Here we go (insert team name), here we go!” But in the Dawg Pound, the chant is slanted to “Here we go Brownies, here we go! Woof! Woof!”

In every tunnel underneath the stadium seats, any Browns’ sports bar, or in downtown Cleveland, if someone yells out, “Here we go Brownies, here we go!” it will be completed with “Woof! Woof!”

The Browns have had several costumed mascots of dawgs such as “Chomps” plus numerous live animals. Last year, the franchise sponsored a dawg logo contest and now has an official canine emblem.

All of this from a team that sported a cartoon of a pixie with pointed hats and shoes, to two players and a spectator who brought the pooch energy to life with a sports team.

Generally speaking, the defense is the fantasy playing arm of the Dawg Pound itself if they were able to suit up for a game. This unit also represents every fan who sits in the east end zone: hard-working, everyday folks, passionate, non-quitters, loyal, and basically the rock of the ballclub.

Consider this: Dixon and Minnifield did not transfer the cat and dog bit to the stadium. It began and stayed in training camp. Even when the duo drew and hung their sign, they still had the dog and cat theme going.

Thompson took that playfulness from training camp and bought a dog mask. He wore it to games. He had seats in the bleacher section and the television cameras showed him constantly. If Thompson never bought the mask, it is probable that nobody else would dress up as a dog. If Thompson’s seats were in another section of the stadium like the cheap seats out of the view of TV cameras, it is probable that those bleacher seats wouldn’t be labeled the Dawg Pound.

Everyone has a dog voice. It is fun to bark like a dog. It is no wonder this spread. And the feline portion of this saga is pretty much forgotten.

Dixon and Minnifield began the dog theme in practices. John Big Dawg Thompson brought it into the stadium and invented the Dawg Pound.