Athens native Scott Burson has teamed up with Joe Burrow's Athens youth football league coach Sam Smathers to provide insights into the Bengals quarterback in their new book, From Bulldog to Bengal: The Joe Burrow Story Through The Eyes Of His Hometown.
Burson, a 1980 Athens High School graduate who teaches at Indiana Wesleyan University, traces the No. 1 draft pick's NFL success back to Athens, where he ran a pro-style spread offense as a fifth-grader for the Athens Bulldogs. He'd do the same for the Athens High School Bulldogs as the two-time Ohio High School Gatorade Player of the Year leading them into the Ohio Division III state championship game in 2014.
From Bulldog to Bengal notes how the young quarterback's football IQ was developed by influential coaches along the way. Many have ties to Ohio University, where his father Jimmy Burrow was defensive coordinator under former Nebraska coach Frank Solich.
Watching his dad break down film, "I'm sure they had conversations about defenses that a typical eighth- or ninth-grader just wouldn't have. Joe had an advantage … He absorbed that information," said Troy Brolin, Athens football and basketball radio commentator.
Bengals fans will enjoy this trip through Burrow's formative years in Southeast Ohio; to Urban Meyer's Ohio State Buckeyes (mostly on the bench); to the national champion Louisiana State University Tigers (after nearly coming to Luke Fickell's University of Cincinnati Bearcats); and into Bengals stripes.
"I'm a lifelong Bengals fan since 1968," said Burson, a former sportswriter and sports marketing guy for Host Communications in Lexington, Ky., turned college philosophy professor. "LSU was going to win the national title. The Bengals were going to have the No. 1 pick. The planets really aligned for me."
As he notes in the book: "When Burrow's name was called as the first overall pick in the 2020 draft, he donned a Bengals' cap and hugged his beaming parents. Heisman Trophy. National title. First overall pick. Yeah, a pretty good four months for the Burrows."
Burson calls the book — released by Orange Frazer Press in Wilmington as NFL fans prepare for the draft Thursday, April 27 — "a celebration of Joe Burrow's first 25 years." (Bengals fans need to know that it's a deep dive into his childhood, with one-third of the book about his Athens days.)
From Bulldog to Bengal is packed with revealing anecdotes about Burrow, like how he could hit a Whiffle ball over his house when he was 3 or 4 years old.
Since Joe Burrow wears No. 9 for the Bengals, here are my nine favorite quotes from the book:
1. WIRED TO WIN: "By the time Joe Burrow was 5, he had already attended two Arena Bowls, an NCAA national championship game (Nebraska), and was hanging around Heismen Trophy- and Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks (Eric Crouch, Kurt Warner). It's hard to imagine an EA SPORTS Madden game developer designing a more perfect wired 5-year-old football brain," the authors write.
2. HATES TO LOSE: After the junior high school baseball season ended, Burrow and his buddies played on the Athens All-Stars traveling baseball team. They usually won, even when playing a Cincinnati team which drew kids from Hamilton, Butler and Clermont counties. When they finished runner-up in a tournament marred by several questionable calls that didn't go their way, Joe — who usually played center or pitched — went home and spent "two hours dismantling the second-place trophy, piece by piece. Then he threw it in the trash can."
3. HOOPS STAR: Burrow started on the Bulldogs varsity basketball team as a freshman and led the team, averaging 11 points a game.
"Great shooter, 6-foot-3, dunking as a freshman," said Athens radio commentator Troy Bolin. "I thought this kid could be the best basketball player we've ever had… No one was thinking about Joe as a football player when he was a freshman."
4. AMERICAN IDOLS: Young Burrow studied two favorite quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Drew Brees. Burrow was just 5 when he saw Brady make a move that left a lifelong impression in 2001: After sliding to protect himself from injury, Brady was hit by cornerback Nate Clements, who knocked off his helmet.
"I saw that, and I was like, 'I want to be like that. I'm going to do that,' " Burrow said years later.
Joe always wanted to show his teammates that he wasn't somebody special, according to Nathan White, Athens High School offensive coordinator and former quarterbacks coach. "He sees himself as a football player, just like the rest of the guys. He's going to work as hard. He's going to get hit. No big deal," White said.
5. BRIEFLY A BUCKYEYE: After Burrow's junior year in Athens, and winning his first Ohio Gatorade award, Burrow verbally committed to Ohio State in 2013 when Buckeyes had quarterbacks Braxton Miller, Cardale Jones and J.T. Barrett. He figured he'd sit a few years until Barrett left. He didn't figure on Dwayne Haskins, who had verbally committed to Maryland, enrolling at OSU, or on breaking his hand, which relegated Burrow behind Haskins on the depth chart. Burrow decided to transfer when Haskins got the starting job after the 2018 spring game. But he finished his degree before leaving OSU.
6. ALMOST A BEARCAT: Two days after announcing his intention to transfer, Burrow was in Cincinnati seeing Luke Fickell, the former OSU defensive coordinator coming off an 4-8 inaugural season with the Bearcats. After the visit, Burrow was leaning "60-70 percent toward UC," his dad said.
Just one thing: The family planned a weekend visit to LSU, where safeties coach Bill Busch worked at OSU during Joe's freshman year. Busch also had coached with Joe's older brother, Dan, at Nebraska. For his LSU visit, head coach Ed Orgeron assembled a highlight reel featuring some of Joe's OSU spring game plays along with some LSU and NFL plays.
"When we started talking about Joe's plays, his reads, what he was seeing, (and) attacking the coverages, that's when he really lit up," Orgeron said. "I have never heard another college player talk about football the way he did … That was when I knew he was the smartest guy in the room."
7. CALL WAITING: In his first season at LSU, Burrow was 12-0 and headed to the Southeastern Conference championship game against Georgia. But there was a problem. He wasn't taking his parents' phone calls.
"When they contacted an assistant coach to find out why, (parents) Robin and Jimmy discovered their son's phone had broken. They offered to buy him a new one, but Joe said, 'I don't need a phone. I've got a game to play this week.' Yeah, (he's not) your typical 22-year-old," the authors wrote.
8. BROTHERS IN ARMS: The final 60 pages blitz through Burrow's three seasons in Cincinnati, including leading the Bengals to Super Bowl LVI the year after his devastating rookie year knee injury. Burrow said his spirits were buoyed by his rival NFL quarterbacks while recovering from ACL/MCL surgery.
"It was very emotional to me … because I really felt the brotherhood in the NFL. Almost every single quarterback across the league reached out to me, told me they were thinking about me, and hoping my recovery goes well," Burrow said during training camp in July 2021.
9. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: The night Burrow was selected by the Bengals in the 2020 draft he told ESPN's Scott Van Pelt: "I'm ready to get to work. That's the way we're going to win a lot of football games. I'm going to get to practice and get to doing what I do best. And that's preparing the best way I can…. Everything has to be a step faster, a twitch better."
He told radio sports talk host Dan Patrick where he gets his confidence on the college football field: "I win the games on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I don't win them on Saturday."
Or as Athens youth football coach Smathers preached to Burrow and his grade-school buddies: "It's OK to be happy, but never be satisfied. If you're satisfied, you're saying there's no room for improvement."
