Chuck Kyle turns to Browns as his legacy hovers over 50th anniversary of OHSAA football finals

Chuck Kyle − venerable, benevolent, wise − approached the end of his coaching run half seeming like Father Christmas.

Except, his voice lacks man of myth boom. Also, there was no way of delivering to his people, in perpetuity, the gift of an Ohio football championship.

There were "only" state 11 titles in Kyle's 40 seasons as head coach of the Cleveland St. Ignatius Wildcats, a .275 batting average, one might say; just below the .279 Jose Ramirez has compiled in a 10-year run with Cleveland's pro baseball team.

While Kyle's championships add up to 11 more than Cleveland's pro football team has produced in the last 58 years, he won humbly, understanding there is a whole big world out there.

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He appreciated that he had, with the Ignatius infrastructure, advantages foreign to so many coaches. He carried himself as if the humble fulfillment of a calling needed to sprint the opposite way from self-glorification.

In world too full of actors and bad surprises, Kyle authentically came across as trying to be servant of God, family man, English teacher, and sports guy needing to set an example.

He was a track coach, too, with a stopwatch in his hand and in his metaphors.

The moment came to push the button and turn in the time.

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Ignatius' 50-49 playoff win over Cleveland Heights on Nov. 4 was the last hurrah. A 28-7 loss to Lakewood St. Edward a week later was the last game. There is no storybook trip to Canton for the 2022 state finals.

He traveled far since his first game as Ignatius pilot, a 20-11 loss to Holy Name on Sept. 3, 1983.

His first game game against St. Ed was a 14-14 tie on Oct. 15, 1983. The next day, linebacker Tom Cousineau, a St. Ed's guy, helped the Browns shut down Franco Harris, but the Steelers made six interceptions against Brian Sipe, one by Jack Lambert, in a Pittsburgh win.

No one was more gratified than Kyle when Marty Schottenheimer's Browns had Pittsburgh's number later in the 1980s.

No one can know, after all these years, what life away from the sideline will be like for Kyle. Not even Chuck.

He is not just retiring from coaching Ignatius. This is his last school year in the school halls.

"I don't want to be the old guy wandering around the building," he said. "At the end of the year, I'll be cleaning out my locker.

"Looking ahead, maybe I'll come to some games and sit up in the corner and watch."

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Chuck Kyle enjoys his work with youth football through the Cleveland Browns

He will have more time to devote to the pro team.

"I am working. with the Cleveland Browns as a youth advisor," he said. "I feel a lot of energy toward it. I'm helping with youth leagues and clinics. Sometimes there's an equipment issue where I can help.

"I've been doing it for a few years, and I think with this extra time, maybe I'll get more into it."

The wayward Browns are an easy target. Kyle sees a warm side.

"Of all the pro teams − and I mean this sincerely − the Browns are the ones who have gone way out of their way to help the youth leagues be safer, to be better prepared, to help the volunteer coaches at some schools.

"I can maybe take another step in what I'm doing with it. Maybe this is a good venue for me to be in to help get the numbers up in youth football."

The rise of St. Ignatius football in the OHSAA state playoff era

Numbers are way up, one might say with tongue in cheek, in the playoffs.

Kyle's first year as an Ignatius coach - he was still a college student, at John Carroll, when the Wildcats summoned him as an assistant - was 1972. It happened to be the first year for the playoffs. A grand total of 12 teams made it, across three divisions based on school enrollment.

In Kyle's final year, this year, the playoff field expanded to 448 teams. Fourteen of them are still alive, awaiting championship games at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton.

There are seven divisions now, and seems, to many, like too many. The justification, to others, becomes evident in watching a championship game in, say, Division VII, and observing the excitement among community members who have traveled far to be in the stadium next to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

All of Kyle's 11 state titles were won in the division for the largest schools. Six of those title games were in Canton, three were in Massillon, and two were in Columbus.

A big swath of Ohio met him in the heat of the tournament.

In Division I state semifinal games, his teams beat Toledo Whitmer, Massillon, Massillon again, Austintown Fitch, Walsh Jesuit, McKinley, Boardman, McKinley again, Pickerington, Massillon again, North Canton Hoover, Whitmer again, and Olentangy Liberty.

Yes, Chuck picked on Stark County a bit. He was even harder on Cincinnati.

In championship games, his teams beat Cincinnati Princeton, Cincinnati Moeller, Centerville, Cincinnati Xavier, Moeller again, Westerville South, Brunswick, Huber Heights Wayne, Xavier again, Cincinnati Elder and Pickerington.In the 13 postseasons from 1975 through 1987, when Kyle was either an Ignatius assistant or the head coach, teams from Cincinnati and vicinity won nine state championships. Kyle took this as a challenge.

As he puts it, "Could we get to the level of the Cincinnati teams?"

""It didn't take long for people to realize Cleveland had some good teams," he said. "And often you had to get through Stark County to get to the Cincinnati teams."

St. Ignatius, Chuck Kyle got to know Stark County football quite well over the years

The county got a long look at the old coach on into his latter years.

In 2016, Ignatius won at GlenOak in the regular season and beat Jackson in the first round of the playoffs. In 2017, the Wildcats beat GlenOak in the regular season and defeated Perry in a playoff opener.

In 2020, Ignatius lost in the regular season at Massillon; thus, in his final game against a Stark County foe, he looked face to face, sort of, with Paul Brown, whose image frequents the video board at Paul Brown Tiger Stadium.

Three of the more memorable nights in McKinley history - all in state semifinals against Kyle's Wildcats - unfolded in consecutive years.

The Bulldogs saw themselves as state championship material in 1996 but fell 31-24 to Ignatius in the Rubber Bowl. In 1997 at the Rubber Bowl, McKinley needed a miracle rally to beat Ignatius 20-19.

In 1998, at Kent's Dix Stadium, a 31-24 Bulldog lead seemed about to go away on a last-second Ignatius touchdown bomb. Safety Mike Doss broke up the pass at the right pylon.

"It figured it would be Mike Doss," Kyle said. "What a competitor."

'Embrace it': Chuck Kyle shared with McKinley's Thom McDaniels how to deal with being No. 1 in the nation

By the mid-1990s, Kyle and McKinley head coach Thom McDaniels knew each other well. When McDaniels' Bulldogs learned in July of '97 that USA Today was going to rank McKinley No. 1 in the land, McDaniels contacted Kyle.

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"Thom and I established a very good friendship, and I still value that friendship to this day," Kyle said. "When he called me about the ranking, our team had gone through it a few years earlier.

"A football coach normally doesn't want to say, 'We're really that good.' You say, 'We're good, but there are a couple things we have to solve.'

"This was different. You know you're really good. You tell your players you think you should be ranked there, and you have to go 14-0 to achieve it at the end. Every opponent you have is going to mark your game, but you have to live with that.

"Thom and I had a good conversation."

McDaniels recalls Kyle's message, in a nutshell, as, "Embrace it."

McKinley went the distance at No. 1, beating Kyle's team twice and going 14-0.

McKinley-Ignatius games in '97, one in the regular season, drew packed houses to Fawcett Stadium and the Rubber bowl. Both generated surreal atmospheres reflecting why Ohio, as much as anyplace, is Football USA.

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The Games were Exhibit A as to why moving the Browns to Baltimore after the 1995 season was criminal. There were no Browns in 1997.

Kyle loved the Browns from boyhood. He made the memory of a lifetime on Thanksgiving Day, 1968, when Ignatius faced Cleveland JFK in an annual charity game that drew big crowds to Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

He was a spunky Chuck then, a 5-foot-7 Ignatius running back nicknamed Chico. On the same field where the Browns played in the 1968 NFL Championship Game, Kyle made an early 62-yard run. On a subsequent play, he fumbled into the end zone but recovered for the game's first touchdown.

"When it was announced in 1995 that the Browns were leaving, I really felt hurt," Kyle said. "I was one of the high school coaches asking himself, what is that going to do as young kids are coming up?

"With the history of the team, kids could go out in the backyard and pretend they were Frank Ryan or Jim Brown or Leroy Kelly or any of the really good Browns players who came along.

"Now there was no team. I remember thinking, 'How could the NFL do that? C'mon.'

"You couldn't blame Northeast Ohio for not supporting the Browns. You couldn't get more support."

Coach Chuck Kyle bows out gracefully, and well supported.

As the 50th anniversary of the Ohio high school football playoffs is marked by the 2022 title games in Canton, his contribution shines on.

As for the Browns, whatever their problems, having Mr. Kyle in the fold isn't one of them.

Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Chuck Kyle's impact on OHSAA football playoffs at 50th anniversary