(Sportswriter Edward Hershey lives In Portland, Oregon. This article is adapted and expanded from a chapter in his memoir, The Scorekeeper, which was a finalist for the 2018 Oregon Book Award and is available on Amazon.)
A couple of weeks after I landed a spot in the vaunted Newsday sports section in 1968, sports editor Ed Comerford called me into his office to say he had a story for me. Two stories, actually. He was sending me to Ohio and Wisconsin to cover two of the hottest topics in the National Football League that summer: the return of Paul Brown as owner-coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, an expansion franchise in the American Football League; and Vince Lombardi's departure from the sidelines after coaching the Green Bay Packers to victory in the first two Super Bowls.