PLAYER OF THE DAY
That’s an expression starting to spread through the Bengals defense as training camp begins to bark into the dog days.
It’s believed to have germinated from exultations of cornerbacks coach Charles Burks. It has then crept into the lexicon from the imitations of guys like safety Jordan Battle, who chirped, “That’s go-oood, Al!” when defensive coordinator Al Golden was handed the Frank Broyles Award Sunday before the defense broke into its position meetings after practice.
It was a rather remarkable moment at Paycor Stadium.
Golden, who coached the Bengals linebackers in the Super Bowl before heading the next day to Notre Dame, is back. He won The Broyles as the nation’s best assistant coach for last season’s work in leading the Fighting Irish to rule almost every defensive category ever thought up by Knute Rockne.
As he stood in front of his new defense Sunday, Golden dedicated the trophy to Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman and his national runners-up. After dismissing them, Golden asked rookie defensive tackle Howard Cross III, his stalwart from South Bend, to join the photo taken with the trophy and Broyles’ family.
That no doubt struck a chord with Betsy Broyles Arnold, who watched football with her dad when legendary Arkansas head coach Frank Broyles turned the dining room into a film room during her high school years. She knows her football coaches. She saw it first back in February in Hot Springs, Ark., at the event Golden was named the winner.
“He reminds me of my dad in some ways,” Arnold said. “He’s kind. Just the way he carries himself. His character. Overwhelmingly nice to anybody. Taking an interest in what you’re saying.”
On the 30th anniversary of the award, the Broyles Foundation found itself in the pros Sunday in order to track down Golden so he could heft the 70-pound trophy and start looking for a place to display it. David Bazzel, who created the award with the late Broyles’ go-ahead, gave it to Golden with the challenge of winning this season’s NFL Assistant Coach of the Year.
When Golden took the trophy, he wanted to thank anyone who has ever called him, “Coach.”
“Next to being called, ‘Dad,'” said Golden, it’s the best.
After winning a national title during his run at Arkansas, where he turned the Razorbacks into a Southwest Conference perennial power, Broyles joined ABC’s Keith Jackson to become the soundtrack of college football in the ’70 and ’80s.
Yet Broyles is best known not for his coaching tree, but for his sprawling forest of 25 assistants who became head men on a list that begins with Pro Football Hall-of-Famers Joe Gibbs and Jimmy Johnson.
When Broyles would get the praise for one of his seven SWC titles, or maybe even hear a raise was afoot, Molly Harrell, his granddaughter, recalls the stories where he would say, “Give it to my assistants.”
“Then he would say, “Give me three years and I’ll help you get your dream job.’ Some were career assistants and some wanted to move on, and so he really appreciated the value of all assistants.”
Golden has moved on, but The Broyles has not. It’s staying in Bengaldom.
“What makes the Broyles award so special is that the five finalists come into Hot Springs and we become such fans of theirs and their careers,” Harrell said. “They’re Bengals fans now. They’re going to be watching the Bengals defense, and that’s what is really great to us.”
Harrell is already married to a Bengals fan, an LSU guy. The year Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase led the Tigers to the national title, Joe Brady, their offensive coordinator. won the 2019 Broyles.
Arnold, ever the coach’s daughter, only watched Burrow throw at Sunday’s practice.
“We didn’t want to bother him,” she said.
Arnold and Harrell, with 40 years combined in the fields of multi-generational and Alzheimer’s caregiving, run the Broyles Foundation that pledges to make Broyles’ dream come true after he lost his wife to Alzheimer’s:
No caregiver support should ever become a financial burden.
When Broyles died of the same disease a dozen years later in 2017, mother and daughter doubled down. In her closing remarks to the team Sunday, Harrell mentioned the foundation briefly, and offered its help.
“The hardest thing we had to deal with,” she told them, “is just talking to someone. If you know someone who needs help, get them in touch with us.”
On the day The Broyles found another home, Golden asked the senior Bengal in the room to break it down and end the meeting.
“Family on three,” linebacker Logan Wilson said.