A coach till the end
Bud Carson's office still filled with memories of the good times
By Marla Ridenour
Beacon Journal sports columnist
Published on Wednesday, Sep 22, 2010
SARASOTA, FLA.: Photos, playbooks, newspaper stories and game balls from his coaching days cover the walls, crowd the shelves, fill the drawers and spill over into the basement. There are so many footballs that friends used to take them home from parties, not realizing they had special meaning.
Memorabilia from Bud Carson's glory days as an NFL assistant dominates the collectibles in the office Linda Carson surprised him with on Christmas Eve, 2000. Candid to a fault, he took one look and said, ''Why'd you spend so much money?'' then muttered, ''I've got to get back to St. Louis.''
But if their waterside Sarasota home were burning down and Linda Carson could grab just one memento of her late husband's, there's no question what she would take. It would be the game ball from his debut as Browns coach, a 51-0 drubbing of the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sept. 10, 1989.
''That was against Chuck Noll, too, that was where he started,'' Linda Carson said. ''That was the highlight of his life.
''Boxes of footballs, articles and pictures . . . 13 moves, 13 houses. That was the one thing he always treasured.''
Linda hadn't been so confident about the Browns' chances in Three Rivers Stadium that afternoon, when the Browns held the Steelers to 53 yards, still a single-game low for them. The Browns also recorded seven sacks and forced eight turnovers in handing the Steelers franchise its worst loss.
''When Bud was at Georgia Tech, gamblers would call to hear the tone of his voice to see if he was going to win. I could never tell that,'' Linda said. ''That day I wasn't sure they weren't going to lose.''
On the other side of the room sits a snapshot of Carson, Browns owner Art Modell and kicker Matt Bahr in front of the London Bridge before the American Bowl in the summer of 1990, when the Browns were coming off their third appearance in the AFC Championship Game in four
years.
Three months later, Carson was fired by Modell after a 2-7 start, Modell giving the innovative former defensive coordinator just 27 games (including playoffs) at the helm. Their parting was so bitter that Modell would later freeze Carson's salary, accusing Carson of maligning him in print.
Near Carson's prized football sits a photo of Linda, Bud and daughter Cathi in Cancun, Mexico, where they flew immediately after the firing.
''Bud was absolutely crushed,'' Linda said. ''This picture was made the next day. You'd think we were having the time of our lives.''
While he grumbled over the initial expense, the office became Carson's sanctuary after he retired for good after the 2000 season with the St. Louis Rams. Linda said he sat at the black granite-covered desk diagramming plays the day before he died of emphysema in December 2005 at age 75. Not plays from the old days, but adjustments he would make to counter new offensive wrinkles he'd seen the previous Sunday.
''He spent all of his time in here,'' Linda said earlier this month. ''He would move the pictures around. He'd say, 'I never did like that guy,' so he'd take him off and move him around. Then he'd think of old plays that didn't go well, so he'd move that player and put him somewhere else.''
If Carson hadn't been stricken with a smoking-induced disease, which also claimed his parents and sister, Linda is convinced her husband of more than 32 years would still be coaching. He had been the architect of the Steelers' Steel Curtain defense and its Cover 2 scheme during their run to their first two Super Bowl triumphs. He also worked for the Los Angeles Rams, Baltimore Colts, Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets.
''He said to a writer when he went back to St. Louis, 'You can only fish for so long.' Bud never fished one time in his entire life,'' she said. ''Any fish he saw was already on the plate. He was terrible at golf, he'd always throw his clubs he'd get so mad.''
Linda Carson, 72, still works in television, just as she was when she met Bud when he was coach at Georgia Tech. She anchors the sunrise show and the noon news for Sarasota's WWSB (Channel 7), where she's spent the past 15 years. She was one of two reporters in the classroom with President George W. Bush when he learned of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and won an Associated Press award for a death row interview of serial killer Danny Rolling. Cathi is a consumer affairs reporter WAWS (Channel 47) in Jacksonville. Her one-month-old son Leon, whom she and her husband call Leo, was named after her father.
Linda conceded that she never realized the extent of Bud's lung disease, even when he was forced to carry oxygen with him. It didn't stop him from going to his favorite hangout, Patrick's Restaurant, where he watched the Steelers with his brothers, his son Cliff and his hospice caregiver on his final Sunday.
''He had this little canister, and he'd leave it on the bar,'' Linda said. ''He'd be playing craps in Las Vegas and he'd walk off and leave the oxygen.
''He had to go exercise at the hospital, a place for lung disease patients. A lady spoke at his funeral and said he was coaching up there, going from treadmill to treadmill saying, 'You're doing good there, but I bet you could get it up a little bit more.' ''
When she laid down beside him in his final hours, Linda recounted Bud's favorite football memories, including his decision to play running back Kevin Mack after he was released from jail on a cocaine charges in November 1989. She said her husband feared he had made a mistake in not benching Mack. Mack went on to score the winning touchdown with 39 seconds left in a Dec. 23 game against the Oilers in Houston that sent the Browns to the playoffs.
''I kept talking about ballgames and good things that happened, the ballgame when we met,'' she said. '' 'Remember that play they never thought you'd make.' When I'd get to a good one, he'd squeeze my hand. That 51-0 victory, those were some of the last plays I told him about.''
