A neat story was published in Sunday’s Cincinnati Enquirer about UT football and track star Emerson Cole which includes a great shot from his time at UT.

Emerson Cole

Cole went on to become the first African-American drafted by the Cleveland Browns and the Enquirer talks to him about his football days and about the recent increasingly painful rivalry between the Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals.

Emerson Cole is a Cleveland Browns fan who has a special connection to both the Browns and Bengals.

Cole, 83, was a rookie fullback behind the great Marion Motley in 1950, when coach Paul Brown’s Cleveland team, which had been absorbed into the NFL, won the championship in its first year in the league.

“I don’t remember much about that (championship) game except that it was 5 degrees below zero in the air and even colder than that on the field,” recalled Cole, who lives in Toledo, where he starred in football and track at the University of Toledo.