Cleveland -- In the early 1960s, the Maryland State College football team had an offensive lineman with all kinds of promise. He was big, smart, strong and quick. You might even say he was born to run. And he was this close to blocking for the Cleveland Browns. Instead, Clarence Clemons became the "Big Man" with the sweet saxophone,...
Cleveland -- In the early 1960s, the Maryland State College football team had an offensive lineman with all kinds of promise. He was big, smart, strong and quick.
You might even say he was born to run.
And he was this close to blocking for the Cleveland Browns.
Instead, Clarence Clemons became the "Big Man" with the sweet saxophone, Bruce Springsteen's baritone sidekick in the E Street Band.
"I was looking toward a pro career," he said, "but God had another plan for me."
Clemons grew up in eastern Virginia, an equally skilled artist and athlete. His talents earned him a split scholarship in football and music to a college with a tradition for winning and sending players to the NFL.
Emerson Boozer, Johnny Sample, Earl Christy and Charlie Stukes all played at Maryland State and would go on to win Super Bowl rings with Joe Namath and the New York Jets in January 1969. There was also Roger Brown, one of the "Fearsome Foursome" of the Los Angeles Rams, future Hall of Famer Art Shell of the Raiders, and many more.
Clemons dreamed of adding his name to that list.
"I loved the sport, I loved the game," he said recently by phone from his home near West Palm Beach, Fla.
Clemons was a 6-2, 250-pound center on offense and a defensive end for the Maryland State College Hawks. He wore No. 50 and made quite an impression.
Boozer called him hard-nosed. Christy described him as an overachiever.
"I'll tell you one thing," Christy said, "he had a lot of desire. He had a desire second to none. When he brought it, he brought it every play."
Just winning a scholarship and making the team was an accomplishment. Clemons played football there from 1960 to 1964. Yearbook photos show him as one of the bigger guys on the team, but not the biggest.
Teammate Charlie Holmes, a fullback who ran behind Clemons, said his longtime friend was a bit undersized when he arrived on campus. But Clemons developed with weight training and a growth spurt after his sophomore year.
"When he got bigger and stronger," Holmes said, "then he became a force."
All along, Clemons, whose father bought him a saxophone at age 9, never went anywhere without his instrument. His musical group in college played halftimes at Hawks basketball games and in local clubs.
Still, football was his heart's desire.
In its day, the historically black college under legendary coach Vernon "Skip" McCain was a powerhouse well known by NFL scouts. But while teammates were drafted and signed by NFL teams, no one bit on Clemons.
A chance meeting altered fate.
Clemons was looking for work when he ran into his old friend Holmes, who was shopping in downtown Newark, N.J. Holmes had been drafted by the NFL and the old American Football League but was injured and cut. He told Clemons to apply at the prison where he worked. Clemons was hired as a corrections officer and later promoted to counselor.
Meanwhile, the two played semi-pro football together for two seasons with the New Jersey Generals, getting paid maybe $100 per game.
It was around 1964 to 1966, Clemons isn't too sure anymore. It was also right around the time the Browns had won their most recent NFL title and just missed another. Fullback Jim Brown was about to leave football for Hollywood.
During a semi-pro practice, Clemons apparently caught the eye of a Browns scout, who told the coach he wanted him to try out in Newark.
But the day before he was to show the Browns what he could do, Clemons slammed his blue Buick Riviera into a tree. He still remembers the out-of-body experience -- hovering over the accident scene as emergency crews pulled him from the car. He awoke in the hospital. The wreck had nearly torn off an ear.
"I was by myself, thank God," he said.
Clemons' injuries were so severe, his doctor told him to take a year off from football. He never played again.
"Yes," said Boozer, "he was good enough to play pro, there's no question about it."
The Browns' loss was rock 'n' roll's gain.
Clemons always carried his horn in his car to jam with anyone he could. Within a year of the accident, he met up with Springsteen on the Jersey Shore club scene. They both have described the first time they played together as magical.
As Springsteen says in the song "Tenth-Avenue Freeze-Out":
When the "Big Man" joined the band, from the coastline to the city, all the little pretties raised their hands.
By the mid-'70s, Bruce and the E Street Band were well on their way, with Clemons riding shotgun on stage instead of opening holes for Browns running back Leroy Kelly on Sunday afternoons.
"He could have been an excellent football player," said Stukes, a former college teammate who played eight NFL seasons. "But I think that's where his heart always was, in the music industry."
Had Clemons made the Browns, he may have been on an offensive line with Gene Hickerson, Dick Schafrath, Monte Clark and John Wooten.
And "The Boss," without him, may have been the Beaver Brown Band.
Maryland State College is now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. The university dropped football after 1979, although a group, Clemons included, is trying to raise money to revive the program.
"I really want to get football back at that school," he said, "because if not for football, I wouldn't be where I am today."
Clemons never got to wear a Browns uniform, never made the NFL. But he reached football's promised land anyway.
"I finally made it to the Super Bowl," he said, a reference to the band's halftime show on the biggest stage in 2009. "Maybe if I had made [the Browns], I might have taken them there, I don't know."
Instead, Cleveland fans are left with a hungry heart.
