Frank Ryan passed for 149 touchdowns during his 13-year NFL career, made three Pro Bowl appearances, and led the inaugural Cleveland Browns to the 1964 NFL Championship, in which he threw three second-half touchdowns.
It was the last time a major professional championship was held in Cleveland for 52 years, until June 2016, when the Cavaliers defeated the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA title. Browns fans are still waiting for a Super Bowl victory.
But when Ryan passed away on Monday at the age of 87, his legacy was remembered beyond the field of football.
Six months after the Browns’ 27-0 championship victory over the Baltimore Colts, Ryan was awarded a doctorate in mathematics from Rice University in Houston as a second-team quarterback.
While he played for the Browns, he was a professor of mathematics at Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University) in Cleveland, and later taught mathematics at Yale University and Rice University. He introduced the world of computers to the tradition-bound U.S. House of Representatives, building the chamber’s electronic voting system and leading a staff of more than 200 as Director of Information Systems for much of the 1970s. He was the director of athletics at Yale University. For 10 years, he later became a senior program manager there and was responsible for Rice’s fundraising efforts.
Sportswriters were intrigued by Ryan’s various missions.
Describing him as a thinker’s quarterback, they couldn’t help but quote the title of his doctoral dissertation. “Characterization of the set of asymptotic values of holomorphic functions in unit disks”.
Ryan said he can’t explain what it means to someone who doesn’t understand advanced mathematics, but he’s a genius and his intelligence helped him find weaknesses in the alignment of football Sunday defenses. I ignored the suggestion that it was helpful.
“An analytical mind certainly helps a quarterback,” he told Roger Kahn of the Saturday Evening Post in 1965. What I do in college has absolutely nothing to do with what I do on the field. ”
Ryan died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at a medical facility in Waterford, Conn., said his son, Frank B. Ryan Jr., known as Pancho.
Francis Beal Ryan was born on July 12, 1936 in Fort Worth. While a high school quarterback, he developed an interest in physics and engineering.
He played for Rice in the Southwest Conference in 1956 and 1957, primarily backing up King Hill, who was selected No. 1 in the 1958 NFL Draft by the Chicago Cardinals. When Hill stumbled early in Rice’s 1958 Cotton Bowl game against Navy, Ryan filled in and threw a touchdown pass in the Owls’ 20-7 loss.
Ryan earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and was drafted in the fifth round by the Los Angeles Rams. He played sporadically for the Rams during his first four NFL seasons while pursuing a master’s degree in mathematics.
His football career blossomed after he was traded to the Browns in 1962 and became a regular when starting quarterback Jim Ninoworski was injured.
But Ryan wasn’t allowed to think or improvise much during his first season in Cleveland. That’s because the team’s founder and coach, Paul Brown, had adopted a “messenger” system in which he would change the guard and convey his desired play to the quarterback without allowing any deviation.
“I didn’t turn off math during the season, but I dialed it down,” Ryan told Sports Illustrated. “I remember Brown saying to me once, ‘Ryan, you should sharpen your pencils in football.’
Blanton Collier, who succeeded Brown as coach in 1963, gave Ryan significant game-planning contributions, and Ryan led the Browns to the playoffs four times in seven seasons and was the NFL’s most accurate passer. He stood out as one of the players, and was also able to pull off long shots. I’ll throw it.
In the 1964 championship game, fullback Jim Brown ran for 114 yards to complement Ryan’s three touchdown passes to receiver Gary Collins, and Ryan led the Browns to the title game for the second straight year. However, they lost to coach Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay. Packers.
At 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighing 200 pounds, Ryan had the ideal frame for a pro quarterback at the time, but his hair was graying prematurely, perhaps giving him the aura of a future respected scholar. I guess he was there. He not only studied game film avidly, but also integrated into the camaraderie of his teammates, but his life off the field was decidedly strange for a professional football player.
Ryan was released by the Browns after the 1968 season and later joined the Washington Redskins (now the Washington Commanders), who hired Lombardi as their coach and general manager. Ryan spent two seasons as a backup to Sonny Jurgensen, his first year under coach Lombardi, and his second year under coach Bill Austin after Lombardi died of cancer in September 1970. He was only active for a short period of time.
Ryan retired with 16,042 passing yards and a 51.1 percent completion rate. He was voted to the Pro Bowl each season from his 1964 to his 1966. And in 1964 he led the NFL in touchdown passes with 25 and in 1966 he had 29.
In addition to his son, Frank, he is survived by his wife of 65 years, Joan Ryan; Joanne Ryan is a former sports columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Washington Post. He is survived by three other sons, Michael, Stuart and Heberden; sister Patricia Ryan; 11 grandchildren. He also has one great-grandchild and another “on the way,” said his son, Frank. His brother, Robert W. Ryan Jr. preceded him in death.
Ryan lived in Grafton, Vermont for many years before moving to a medical facility in Connecticut.
Ryan donated his brain to the Boston University CTE Center. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is an Alzheimer’s disease-like brain disorder caused by repeated head trauma and associated with football and other contact sports. The family said in a statement that they suspect CTE “may have played a role” in Ryan’s condition.
Ryan told Peter Richmond on the website Sport on Earth in 2013: “There’s a lot of exploitation in football and a lot of misdirection about the true value of living and doing.” He looked back on his dual career and the world of the big leagues. College football time. “I’m not saying football and its glory should go away, but players should focus on more than just running 4.5 forties.”
bernard mocam Contributed to the report.