The Browns created the Bill Willis Coaching Fellowship earlier this year to provide opportunities to minority coaches and they announced the first recipient of that fellowship on Tuesday.
Ashton Grant will spend the 2020 season working with head coach Kevin Stefanski and the rest of the staff on game plans and talent evaluations. Grant, who was a quality control coach at the College of the Holy Cross, was previously a Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellow with the team in the offseason.
“I told Coach Stefanski when he called me that if he saw me in person right now, he probably wouldn’t stop laughing -- I was smiling from ear to ear,” Grant said, via the team’s website. “I’m just ready to go and excited to get out there. The opportunity is huge. I’m just thinking about how I can be of service to all the coaches and players I’ll be working with.”
Willis joined Browns teammate Marion Motley and Rams players Kenny Washington and Woody Strode in becoming the first black professional football players of the modern era when they made their debuts during the 1946 season. Willis would play defensive line for the Browns through 1953 and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.
