By Andy Furman
NKyTribune reporter
Who Dey?
While the Cincinnati Bengals are preparing to face-off with the Los Angeles Rams in the 56th annual Super Bowl, Sunday, the Behringer-Crawford Museum will kick off the pre-game festivities a day earlier.
“We’re exhibiting a collection of Bengals memorabilia and autographs and they’ll be available to the public starting Saturday, Feb. 12th,” Jason French, Behringer-Crawford Museum Curator of Collections told the Northern Kentucky Tribune.
The memorabilia will be on loan from a Northern Kentucky collector, according to French, and the exhibit will be on display through April.
“This collector does business with us,” French said, “and he collects a broad spectrum of memorabilia. He tells an entire story from our prospective.”
French says over 200 Bengals’ autographs will be on display – both modern-day players and autographs from 1938-41.
The Cincinnati Bengals was a short-lived professional football team and unrelated to the current Bengals. Originated by Hal Pennington – he was the team’s first head coach and General Manager. The team was formed as a member of the second American Football League in the 1937 season.
The Bengals finished with a 2-3-2 record in their first year, but the league folded after the season.
Professional football returned to Cincinnati in 1967 – 26 years after the original Cincinnati Bengals folded.
In fact, Paul Brown, former coach of the Cleveland Browns, received authorization from the modern American Football League to create a team in Cincinnati. Brown chose the name Bengals to memorialize the teams of the same name that had represented Cincinnati in the past.
“We’ll have so many unique items, past and present,” French went on to say, “you wouldn’t even remember.”
French mentioned early team Christmas cards, “with team pictures on them, “From 1970 and ’71,” he said.
The display will also include several helmets, including former quarterback Ken Anderson’s autographed jersey, and an Anderson-signed football.
Multiple Paul Brown autographs highlight the collection and who can forget the RC Cola cans with Bengals’ photos on the side?
“We not only have the cans,” French said, “we have the flat-printed aluminum sheets before the cans were made – with photos on them.”
In the fall of 1926, after graduating high school, Paul Brown enrolled at The Ohio State University with the dream of suiting up for the Buckeyes football team.
However, the dream came to an abrupt end when an assistant coach told him he was too small and was not allowed to try out for the team.
Brown later coached the Buckeyes, Cleveland Browns and Bengals and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967.
The museum’s display will also include Paul Brown’s journey and formation of the Bengals, and a full-array of Super Bowl Bengals’ memorabilia.
Ben-Zoo, the Bengals’ first mascot – the Bengals’ tiger mascot from the Cincinnati Zoo – is part of the museum’s package.
“Ben-Zoo was the team mascot through 1990,” said French, “after 1990 no living mascot was permitted in the NFL.”
The Bengals are playing in their third Super Bowl, Sunday.
This display is a first for the Behringer-Crawford Museum.
Please check the Museum’s website for museum times.