A full three decades before Donald Trump positioned himself for one of the all-time great one-on-one battles at the polls. Trump and his USFL colleagues took on the NFL in a court of law. During the process, Trump had plenty of praise for a man who was recognized by the Hall of Fame on Saturday with its Ralph Hay Pioneer Award.
Via Bob Glauber of Newsday comes this excerpt from Trump’s The Art Of The Deal, in which Trump praised Joe Browne for his mastery of public relations.
“I’ve got to give this to [NFL Commissioner Pete] Rozelle: he’s always been great at promoting his league,” Trump wrote at the time. “His chief spokesman is a guy named Joe Brown, and Rozelle deserves credit for using him well. After each day’s testimony, Brown would go to the halls and lobby the press masterfully, telling them what a great day it had been for the NFL. It drove me crazy. I’d say to Harry Usher, our commissioner: ‘Why aren’t you out lobbying the press?’ And he’d say, ‘It isn’t important. It’s the jury we’ve got to convince.’ Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works.”
Trump omitted the “e” from Browne’s last name, a slight for which Browne vowed not to seek revenge.
“After the book came out, I told my mother, ‘Mom, when I write my book, I’ll make sure to spell Donald’s name correctly,” Browne told Glauber. (Then again, maybe Browne intends in his not-yet-written book to spell it correctly, technically: Drumpf.)
Browne also told Glauber that the league’s long-time P.R. chief stood in the back of the courtroom as the jury read its verdict in USFL v. NFL. Once it became clear that the USFL had managed only a $1 award in damages, Trump made his move.
“When she said that [dollar figure], boom, Trump was out of there,” Browne said.
Glauber’s story has plenty of other great stuff about Browne, whose work occurred largely out of the public eye but who is one of the men most responsible for the rise of the NFL into the sport that dominates America and that has begun a once-unlikely effort to become one of the most popular sports in the world.
