Brunot put it on the line

KARL PEARSON
Star Beacon

December 03, 2008 01:15 am

— 12th of a Series...

NORTH KINGSVILLE — At various points in his life, Rick Brunot has had some kind of connection to some very prominent people in sports.
When he was in high school at Conneaut, he was one of the best wrestlers around for the Spartans, earning state runner-up honors as a heavyweight during his senior year in 1979-80. That came three seasons before his younger brother, Doug, became the third state champion from an Ashtabula County school, a number that has only reached four in the years since.
When he headed off to Youngstown State University, he became one of the Penguins’ best athletes, doubling up as an offensive lineman for coaches Bill Narduzzi and Bob Dove on the gridiron, then nearly reaching national championship status in wrestling in 1984. In 1994, he was inducted in the Youngstown State Hall of Fame for his exploits on the gridiron and on the wrestling mat, joining those coaching standouts.
He was good enough to make a run at making the team with the Denver Broncos of coach Dan Reeves and featuring a young quarterback named John Elway when that franchise reached the Super Bowl in 1984.
Among the last players cut by the Broncos, Brunot got a second chance in 1985 with the team he loved as a youngster, the Cleveland Browns. He got the opportunity to perform briefly for coach Marty Schottenheimer and play with another promising young quarterback named Bernie Kosar. But he was unable to make the grade there, either.
Even within his own family, the eldest child of Ron Brunot and Collette Shugarts is surrounded by people with fine athletic achievements on their resumes. Not only is his brother remembered as a state championship wrestler, but first sister Cindi Brunot was a standout athlete at Conneaut as well. The Brunots also have a second sister, Pam.
Now he has a distinction none of his family members and many of the other athletes with whom has been associated possess. For on Monday, he will enter the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame at the 39th annual Ashtabula County Touchdown Club Awards Banquet.
There he will be joined by former Youngstown State teammates Jim Dyke, a Grand Valley alumnus who was inducted last year, and Jefferson graduate Gary

Febel, who is also a part of this year’s class.
Brunot has already been inducted into Conneaut’s Hall of Fame, that coming in 2007, but he admitted he is still pleasantly surprised to have been chosen for this honor.
“I was pretty shocked and happy about it,” he said of his notice of his selection. “It’s wonderful to be selected.
“Having played with Jim Dyke and Gary Febel, I’m happy to be a connected with those guys again. It’s a great honor.”

Growing up
Like most boys, Brunot got his start playing out in the yard of the family home on Sandusky Street in Conneaut.
“I used to play with a lot of kids in the neighborhood,” he said. “I’ve loved football since I first started watching it.”
He eventually got into the Little Gridders program in the community in its first year.
“Even then, I played on the offensive and defensive lines,” Brunot said.
At Rowe Junior High, he played for Rob Eager, a longtime assistant at Conneaut High School, and Joe Zingaro. As a freshman, he played for Bill Parkomaki.
“Those were mediocre teams,” Brunot said. “We were maybe a little better than average.”

A Spartan existence
Being bigger than the average player at 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds, Brunot fit right into the lineup as a sophomore for the late Tony Nunes in 1977.
“I started from the time I was a sophomore,” he said. “Nunes was a good coach. He was hard to please. He was a perfectionist.
“He was a good coach to play under. I enjoyed learning from him. He taught me the basics, to work on my speed and strength. He pushed me to be pretty competitive.”
Conneaut was up against tough competition during Brunot’s career. It generally ran into some of the fine teams Hall of Famer Bob Herpy put together at Geneva, as well as competitive squads under Hall of Famers Paul Kopko at St. John and Mike Kaydo at Edgewood and tough teams at Riverside and Madison.
“It seemed like we were always battling with Geneva, Edgewood and St. John,” Brunot said.
The Spartans finished 3-7 in Brunot’s sophomore year, then reached the high-water mark of his career during his junior season of 1978 at 6-4. They were 4-6 in his final season in 1979.
Brunot still managed to stand out, even with a teammate like quarterback Mark Wheeler, who gave the Spartans a powerful passing wing before he headed off to the University of Wisconsin. He lined up with other players like running backs Scott Eighmy and Gary McLaughlin, tight end Jim Davin, fellow tackle Dino Julio and center Mark Droese.
During his career, there were several memorable moments for Brunot.
“The first time I played as a sophomore and we were playing against Hubbard,” Brunot said. “They had this big senior who seemed twice as big as me come down and hit me so hard. It was like, ‘Welcome to football.’ From then on, I made it my goal to be bigger than the next guy.”
His Spartans often ran into some pretty fine athletes for other teams.
“I remember a game we played against Geneva,” Brunot said. “We were up by two late in the game and they drove down and (Rich) Spangler (who went on to serve as placekicker at Ohio State for Earle Bruce) kicked a field goal as the clock ran out to win the game.”
His vow to himself to get as big and strong as he possibly could paid dividends as much in other sports as it did in football. His brother was his teammate in football and wrestling.
“I started wrestling when I was in the ninth grade and was varsity all four years,” Brunot said. “We had a pretty good team.”
In an era when Madison, Riverside and Edgewood ruled the mats in the NEC, Brunot helped the Spartans hold their own. He was the conference heavyweight champion in 1979 and 1980, which set the stage for his runner-up finish at the Class AAA state tournament his senior year.
“I was pretty proud of that,” he said.
Brunot also was a key contributor to the Conneaut track team. He was a solid performer for the Spartans while throwing the discus and the shot put.

A Penguin
His athletic skills in all three sports had to be a big selling point to Dove, the legendary line coach at Youngstown State who had been an All-American at Notre Dame and played for many years in the NFL, and Narduzzi. The fact he was a solid student helped sell YSU on him even more.
“I was above a 3.0 student,” he said. “Bob Dove was actually the one who recruited me. He was a great coach.
“I loved playing football at Youngstown State. That was one of the best times of my life. I was able to go from football in the fall to wrestling in the winter and then back to football in the spring.”
Dove and Narduzzi found all kinds of ways to utilize Brunot, who eventually grew to 6-5 and 270 pounds.
“My freshman year, they started me out at right tackle,” he said. “My sophomore and junior years, they moved me to left tackle. My senior year, they had me at left guard.”
But, despite his success lining up with Dyke and Febel, the Penguins turned in solid, but not spectacular records.
“It always seemed like we were 7-4,” Brunot said. “We were second in the (Ohio Valley Conference) my freshman year. I sat out most of my junior year with a knee injury.”
Among Brunot’s teammates with the Penguins were future St. Louis Cardinals tight end Johnny Goode and Philadelphia Eagles placekicker Paul McFadden.
Brunot was good enough in his own right to earn Division I-AA All-American honors and first-team All-OVC as a senior. He also was captain for the Penguins as a senior. For all of that, he was named winner of the Golden Helmet Award, presented by Gazette Publications, at the 1983 Ashtabula County Touchdown Club Awards Banquet as the county’s outstanding college player.
Two of his siblings followed Brunot to Youngstown State.
“Cindi went there. Doug did for a while, too,” he said.
He is grateful for his time at YSU.
“I probably wouldn’t have gone to college if it hadn’t been for athletics,” Brunot said.

Wrestling matters
Actually, more collegiate success came Brunot’s way in wrestling. There, he was a two-time All-American, finishing third in the nation in Division I wrestling as a senior.
“I was 54-1 that year,” he said. “I had my only loss in the quarterfinals.”
Brunot actually did some wrestling of a different sort while he was still a college student and sometime thereafter. In 1982, he participated in an event at Kent State University-Ashtabula Campus called Foodfest.
His opponent was Victor the Rasslin’ Bear that checked in at 650 pounds. The match drew 6,000 people. Brunot didn’t disappoint, taking Victor down once during their brief match. The bear’s trainer said it had been only the third or fourth time the bear had been taken down in 12 years of wrestling.
Brunot’s wife of 13 years, Patty Picard Brunot, who is an independent Medicaid provider nurse of 17 years, said her husband isn’t very talkative about the matter, but he does acknowledge it.
“Rick doesn’t like talking much about himself, but I think he’s proud of that,” she said.

The NFL
NFL teams were aware of Brunot’s skills on the gridiron.
“Coach Narduzzi thought I would get drafted, but it didn’t happen,” he said. “It had been my goal to be a professional football player as soon as I started playing.
“I had an offer from Cleveland, but Denver gave me the best free-agent offer of anybody. I went to draft minicamp, but I tore my hamstring. I hurt my knee, too. There were 12 guys they brought in, and almost all of them made the team.
“I got to know Elway a bit while I was out there,” Brunot said. “We’d sit around in the whirlpool and trade the newspapers back and forth. He was a great guy.”
He went back to Youngstown State to work on his degree in education and complete his wrestling career. He had redshirted in his freshman wrestling season, so he had one extra year of eligibility.
“I knew if I didn’t make it in football that I’d like to get into teaching and coaching,” Brunot said. “That was going to be my second career.”
He gave the NFL one last shot for the 1985 season.
“I talked to Denver a little about going back there, but I decided to go with Cleveland,” Brunot said. “I always liked the Browns because they were close to home.
“I knew I had to hope someone might get hurt. Once the veterans came into camp, I never had a chance. I think I made two cuts. It was pretty depressing. The opportunity just didn’t seem to be there.”
He had a chance to be reunited with Kosar.
“I’d actually first met him when I was at YSU because he was still in high school at Boardman and he used to come over to our facilities all the time,” Brunot said. “He came to a lot of our games, too. He’s a great guy, too, just a normal person.”

Moving on
Once his time was over with the Browns, Brunot contemplated finishing his education.
“I had an offer from (Jim) Tressel (the current Ohio State coach who had just replaced Narduzzi) to come in as a graduate assistant, but I didn’t have my degree, so I couldn’t do it,” the 47-year-old said. “One of my big regrets is that I didn’t get my degree. I probably would be teaching and coaching today.”
Instead, he went into the work force.
“I got a job at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant as a security guard,” Brunot said. “I worked there for four years.”
From there, he moved on to becoming a glazier, working out of a Pittsburgh local in the glass industry. He has done that for 22 years.
“We just finished up work at the Geneva hospital,” Brunot said. “Mostly, we do work in Erie and Crawford counties.”
Brunot is an avid hunter, usually spending a good deal of his days this time of year tramping the woods, then sitting down with his buddies to replay the events of the day.
He still keeps active. A much trimmer, but still impressive physical specimen, Brunot was a member of a number of fine slow-pitch softball teams in Conneaut for 25 years.
“That was a lot of fun,” he said.
Football still means a lot to Brunot.
“I’ve met a lot of good friends and had a lot of experience I never could have had without football,” he said. “On the job, I usually have to work with anywhere from 15-150 people, and I think I know how to work with them from sports.
“Sometimes, you get in situations where you can’t always be Mr. Nice Guy. But usually, I enjoy myself. Football helped make it that way.”

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