That Day Is Going To Come

Florida may longer be the first choice for Clevelanders looking to relocate to a warm-weather climate during these difficult economic times. And as many of those people know all too well, not since Bill Belichick was coaching AGAINST the New England Patriots on New Year's Day 1995 have the Browns won a playoff game.

That doesn't keep droves of transplanted Browns fans from ignoring the call of the beaches and golf courses to spend three-plus hours inside a bar or a restaurant with like-minded diehards who swear things have to get better -- or at least can't get any worse -- in the Eric Mangini/Brady Quinn era.

In one instance, this involves gathering within stumbling distance of a sports venue almost twice the size of Cleveland Browns Stadium and probably more famous around the world than even the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Daytona Beach Browns Backers have started spending their Sunday afternoons at the Hooters across from Daytona International Speedway on, appropriately enough, International Speedway Boulevard. The club is one of 31 such chapters registered in Florida -- easily the most in any state outside of Ohio, according to the team's web site.

For some club members who are not only long on memory but able to maintain season tickets, watching the Browns can be like watching a car in which the engine won't turn over.

"I still go because I remember," said Don Seeley, 60, who moved with his parents to the Cleveland area when he was 5 and came to Florida in 2000. "I'm dragging my kids, who are now in their 30s. And they're saying, 'What are you rooting for them for?' "

Todd Thanasiu, a masonry contractor who is in his 10th year as club president, admitted there have been turnouts of as few as "six to nine" Browns fans in past Decembers when the team has long since been eliminated from postseason contention. The chapter has 131 registered members, making it one of the larger ones in the state but not quite half the size of the one located in Lady Lake. (The largest by far anywhere, and there are chapters in all 50 states, is the Southwest Browns Backers in Phoenix with 1,422 members.)

Despite unemployment figures in the Daytona Beach area rivaling those in northeast Ohio and with people being more budget-conscious, close to 50 club members showed up each of the first two weeks of this season dressed in varying degrees of orange and brown and eager to purchase tickets for a halftime raffle.

"I don't know what it is," said Thanasiu, who moved to Florida in 1987 after graduating from Akron Garfield High School. "I don't know of any other team that has fans like the Browns. They feel like it's part of them."

As if to show how the appeal of the Browns stretches beyond even the boundaries of the United States, he came to Hooters for the game at Denver wearing a t-shirt from a club located in Mali West Africa. During part of last season, the chapter hosted a guest from Scotland.

In all, there are more than 90,000 Browns Backers members in 306 chapters worldwide. Close to 2,500 of those people make Florida their home.

The Cavaliers have had a much greater record of success of late since the arrival of Le Bron? James. The Indians made it to the World Series twice during the 1990s and trained in Florida until this year. Yet it's the Browns who embody the hopes and dreams of fans such as Maple Heights native Jeff Badovick, who came south in 1984 but still looks back for 16 weeks each fall.

"I never, ever have doubted my Browns," he said. "Have I been disappointed? Yeah. But never doubted. I am waiting for that day. And that day is going to come."

Ken Hornack is a native Clevelander who spent 25 years as an award-winning sports writer and columnist for the Daytona Beach News-Journal. He can be reached at knack227@yahoo.com.