Richard and Stephen Peterson and the book ‘The Turnpike Rivalry: The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns’

One half of the namesake of Matt Lynn Digital is Lynn, my beautiful wife. A gift from Lynn‘s father, Ace, towards the end of last year was the book The Turnpike Rivalry: The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns. Written by Richard Peterson and Stephen Peterson, this 2020 release looks into the first 70 years of the football rivalry of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns.

(From left, quarterback Otto Graham and head coach Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns).

For the first five decades of the rivalry, that being from the 1950s through the 1990s, the book is structured to look at the seasons of the two teams on a season by season basis. This timeframe includes the moving of the Browns from the AAFC with head coach Paul Brown and quarterback Otto Graham into the NFL in 1950, wherein the football rivalry between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Ohio began. Walking through the success of the Browns in those opening two decades of the rivalry with the success of Brown and Graham plus that of running back Jim Brown gave rise to the notion of the “Same Old Steelers“. The success of the Steelers in the 1970s with head coach Chuck Noll, quarterback Terry Bradshaw and running back Franco Harris, with the backslide of the Browns to a more middling franchise, provided an interesting change of fortunes.

(From left, head coach Chuck Noll and quarterback Terry Bradshaw of the Pittsburgh Steelers).

The 1980s saw the Steelers dynasty in the 1970s come back to earth, with success for the Browns in the second half of the decade. Remembering the move of the Browns after the 1995 season, wherein the birth of the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore, Maryland for the 1996 suspended the rivalry for three seasons. The rebirth of the Cleveland Browns in 1999 as an expansion team retaining the history of the team that became the Ravens ends the fiftieth year, dating back to 1950, since the football rivalry began.

(From left, running back Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers and running back Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns).

The years 2000 through 2019 in part matched the first fifty regarding when the teams were competitive at the same time. The Steelers would win Super Bowls following the 2005/2006 and 2008/2009 seasons while the Browns struggled to field competitive teams with a carousel of starting quarterbacks, head coaches and general managers. The 2019 season, the last addressed in the book, notes that the rivalry between players, and by extensions fanbases, remains as strong as ever with a note on the on-field quarrel between Browns defensive end Myles Garrett and Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph.

(From left, quarterback Mason Rudolph of the Pittsburgh Steelers and defensive end Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns).

Reading through The Turnpike Rivalry: The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns offered nostalgia for the good and not-so-good times for a person with family in both cities. I grant The Turnpike Rivalry: The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns by Richard Peterson and Stephen Peterson 3.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron and the movie ‘The Blind Side’

Remarkable acts of compassion can make all the difference. If that isn’t an overriding message of the movie The Blind Side (2009), then I was watching a different movie with the same name. John Lee Hancock and Michael Lewis take movie writing credit for the film, which in being based on the Lewis’ book The Blind Side. The sport of football is a language of this movie, with compassion being the message.

(From left, Tim McGraw as Sean Tuohy, Ray McKinnon as Coach Cotton, and Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy in the movie The Blind Side).

The primary compassion of the movie began with Leigh Anne Tuohy, as portrayed by Sandra Bullock, who saw Michael Oher as a teenager walking down the street with nowhere to stay. Touhy convinced her husband, Sean Tuohy as played by Tim McGraw, to bring the young man into their home for a meal and a night of sleep. Oher would become a member of the family, go to school and college, and become a legitimate part of the Tuohy family.

(From left, Kathy Bates as Miss Sue and Quinton Aaron as Michael Oher in the movie The Blind Side).

Roy McKinnon as Coach Cotton needed some convincing to allow Oher, as played by Quinton Aaron, to join the high school football team. Having had a difficult beginning wherein his mother was exposed to crime and his father wasn’t in the picture, Oher could have easily fallen through the cracks of a system that could not provide the safety net that the child and man Oher was and would become could flourish. Kathy Bates as Miss Sue became a tutor. Collins Tuohy as portrayed by Lily Collins and S.J. Tuohy as portrayed by Jae Head became a sister and brother to Michael Oher in real senses of the term over time and through the course of the movie. The friction of acceptance, belief in decency, and an affirmative choice of compassion in the face of stereotypical fear were all forthrightly addressed with an affirmative outlook.

(From left, Lily Collins as Collins Tuohy and Jae Head as S.J. Tuohy in the movie The Blind Side).

Michael Oher grew to become the 23rd pick in the 2009 NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens. The movie offered a dramatic and comedic look into the journey of Oher, the Tuohy family, and the journey from homeless teen to more fuller, whole person. I rate The Blind Side at 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Saturday, July 18, 2020