Cleveland Browns Dawg Pound Bytes

If you follow the NFL you know what the revered Dawg Pound is. But for the half dozen or so people in the world who don't love professional football (American style), help has arrived. What follows is information that will make you pigskin-savvy enough to converse with a Cleveland Browns fan and not embarrass yourself. The Dawg Pound can be brutal to those who disrespect anything -- anything -- connected to the Cleveland Browns.

A quick note: "pigskin" is simply another name for a football. It makes no sense since footballs are made of premium cowhide but I'm pretty sure pigs were the original donors. Whatever. Let's get to the important stuff.

You absolutely must know something about:

-- The National Football League. The NFL is a professional sports organization that regulates 32 American football teams. One of those teams is the beloved Cleveland Browns. The Browns' arch rivals are the evil Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers are hated by Browns fans. Hated. H-a-t-e-d. The Steelers are a despicable bunch. They're despicable because they've won 6 Super Bowl championship titles while the Browns have won a grand total of none -- and that doesn't seem likely to change for a long time. Maybe never. (See "The Cleveland Curse") Don't worry about the other 30 teams. To crazed Cleveland Browns fans, football is really only about winning the Super Bowl someday (sigh) and beating the Pittsburgh Steelers. The despicable Steelers. The hated, despicable Pittsburgh Steelers...and their 6 despicable Super Bowl trophies. Despicable.

-- The Cleveland Curse. It's the worst, most all-encompassing city-wide curse in professional sports. It's too painful to discuss at length but the gut-wrenching records of Cleveland's professional sports teams tell the tale: the Cleveland Indians have not won a Major League Baseball World Series championship since 1948 (by default, the birth year of the curse); the Cleveland Cavaliers have never won a National Basketball Association championship -- ev-er; the late, not-so-great Cleveland Barons never won a National Hockey League Stanley Cup championship -- ev-er; and of course the Cleveland Browns have never won a National Football League Super Bowl championship -- nev-er. Ev-er.

In fact, the Browns have never even played in a Super Bowl game. Something bordering on paranormal always prevents them from getting there. The Drive, The Fumble, Red Right 88; all football horror stories stemming from the dreaded, all-powerful Cleveland Curse. Oh, how the Curse eats away at the hearts and souls of Cleveland sports fans. Fortunately, living in Cleveland and having to deal with endless Cleveland jokes and put-downs makes fans extraordinarily resilient. Of course they also harbor a little, teeny, tiny boatload of pessimism to help soften the next heartbreaking blow. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, that's a Cleveland sports fan's mantra. But no amount of preparation can reduce the agony of watching the Steelers win Super Bowl after Super Bowl. In case you've forgotten, the hated, despicable, rotten, evil Pittsburgh Steelers have won --... Ow, it hurts too much to type it.

-- Finally, there's the Dawg Pound. Complete with it's own special kind of boneyard, the Dawg Pound is the ultimate form of group therapy in a city starved for a sports championship. It's the home of the most rabid of all rabid Browns fans. It's wild, it's unpredictable, it's the last place a non-Browns fan -- God forbid a Steelers fan -- would ever want to be. It's the NFL's lunatic bin and Cleveland's most hallowed sports ground, conveniently located in the east-end bleachers of Cleveland Browns Stadium. Don't know your east from your west? Don't worry. Once you enter the stadium you won't need directions. You can't possibly miss the Pound.

If you're being deafened by non-stop barking -- yes, barking -- and you notice it's coming from the people around you, you're in the Dawg Pound. WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! Welcome to the Dawg Pound. WOOF! WOOF! WOOF! Better get used to it because it won't stop. You might see some fans waving their fists in a circular motion in front of them. Don't panic. They're just sort of adding exclamation points to the WOOFS. You're perfectly safe as long as you're not wearing any Steelers garb. Those damn, hated, despicable Stee-- . Anyway, you may not notice the fist circling because you're too busy staring at what all the crazies around you are wearing. Dawg masks, Dawg hats, Dawg noses, Dawg paws, Dawg shirts and every other imaginable Dawg thing there is. Some are home-made, some are store bought, but every Dawg-gone piece is a loving tribute and sign of obsessive, totally irrational dedication to the Cleveland Browns.

It's great.

In addition to the Dawg gear, you'll see assorted Dawg bones here and there. Big ones, little ones, white ones, orange and brown (team colors) ones, and possibly some real ones. (To be on the safe side I wouldn't ask about those.) Some fans make bones into hats. Or shoes. Some wave long bones as batons to encourage their fellow weirdos to crank up the volume of their WOOFS. Others use bunches of bones like pom-poms to cheer on the Browns. And unfortunately, sometimes bones have been used as projectiles.

For a while, tossing Milk-Bone dog (not Dawg) treats at opposing players was popular. And of course dangerous. The end zone and the area around it became the "Boneyard". There were Milk-Bones all over the place. It didn't take long before the NFL banned fans from bringing dog (not Dawg) food into the stadium. No surprise; good idea. It was then that the on-field Boneyard was laid to rest and Dawg (not dog) bone articles of clothing gained popularity.

Alright, now you know something about the Cleveland Browns Dawg Pound and Boneyard. You can bark, growl, howl or "speak" to a Browns fan without feeling Dawg-ignorant. Of course you may be wondering how the Dawg Pound got its name. Briefly, Dawgs was the name former Cleveland Browns cornerbacks Hanford Dixon and Frank Minnifield gave to the defense during team practices. The quarterback was the cat and the defensive linemen were the dogs chasing him. If they sacked him, they barked. The name stuck. Fans got wind of it and started barking right along with the defense during practices. The ritual soon moved from the practice field to the playing field and the loud, loyal, weird and wonderful Dawg Pound came into being. The idea caught on quickly and grew into a Cleveland Browns mainstay. Now it's a part of NFL history.

WOOOOOOOOF!