Brad Cousino: The Difference-maker
Rejected and traumatically abused by his own parents (who were traumatically abused), Brad Cousino ’75 breaks a four generational curse of family, alcohol and substance abuse.
By Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96, Miamian editor
Rushing to get to school on time, 11-year-old Brad Cousino spilled some milk and Cheerios on the kitchen table as he finished breakfast. His mother’s reaction was swift and violent.
“She grabbed me by my neck and began choking me,” Brad wrote in his memoir, Unwanted, Unworthy, UNSHACKLED. “At the same time, she was slamming my head against the wall. Even though I was in pain and couldn’t breathe, I would not cry. I could see the pain in Mom’s eyes. With tears running down her cheeks, teeth clenched, she yelled out a guttural cry filled with agony, rage, and hatred as spit spewed from her mouth with every word directly into my face.”
“It’s your fault … you son of a b**ch … it’s your g*d d**n fault … you are to blame for all of this. If it wasn’t for you — you ba***rd — your dad would come home after work, and I wouldn’t be in this god-awful mess of a life.” This was just another typical day in the Cousino household.
Brad never remembers being cuddled, loved, or wanted by either of his parents. He believed his mom when she told him over and over that he’d messed up her life by being born. His mom became pregnant at age 15. Forced to marry and drop out of high school, the teenaged couple blamed him for ruining their dreams. He feels certain that if they’d been given a choice, they never would have had him.
‘You’ll get killed’
Brad needed to escape from the constant physical and emotional abuse going on inside this 750-square-foot bungalow in Toledo’s northernmost suburb of Point Place. A football scholarship seemed his best chance. An offensive fullback and defensive linebacker for Toledo’s Central Catholic High School, Brad Cousino (pronounced Cooz-eh-NO) made first-team All-League, All-City, All-District, and All-Regional on offense and defense. But because he was too short and too small, Brad was rejected by more than two dozen colleges, including Miami University.
Desperate, he picked up a pen and hand wrote a one-page letter begging for a football scholarship. He decided he would send out two dozen packets, some to the same schools that had rejected him, and include the handwritten letter and a copy of his football highlight film from his junior and senior years. He sat in the cold, dimly lit, unfinished attic and hand wrote 25 letters to college coaches within a 250-mile radius of Toledo.
Miami Assistant Coach Bob Reublin was the only football coach who called after reviewing the film.
“Brad, that was one bold move you made sending us your personalized, handwritten letter and highlight film, knowing we had already turned you down. Are you still interested in coming to Miami?”
Yes!
The coach promised him a chance to try out. But no scholarship was offered or promised. However, coach Reublin said that an alumnus might be able to get Brad a decent-paying job after he graduated high school cleaning out the sewer system below Toledo’s interstate highways. Brad received $4.50 an hour (minimum wage was $1.60 in 1971) to go deep underground into the “putrid, rancid, cesspit environment” eight to 10 hours a day. Somedays the sewage was 24-48 inches deep and backed up for miles.
“The image of me as a Miami student, on that beautiful campus, was what kept me going down in those sewers,” he said. When it was time to show up for football as a non-scholarship walk-on, he’d saved enough to stay on campus for nearly two quarters; after that he would have to drop out… or earn a scholarship.
Treated as a piece of “practice fodder,” most non-scholarship walk-ons quit within weeks if not days. Not Brad. He refused to believe that his short stature of 5’11” and weight of about 192 pounds would prevent him from playing. But most importantly, he vowed to never quit because he HAD to earn a scholarship.
Two weeks into their two-a-day summer practices, the highly recruited freshman middle guard did not show up for the afternoon practice. He quit! Brad saw his chance and bolted from the sidelines into the huddle.
“Cousino, get the hell out of there! You’re too small. You’ll get killed,” yelled the offensive line coach, Coach Reublin. He was going up against players averaging 6’4”, 250+ pounds.
“No, coach, I can do this,” he said, defiantly. Within 6 months, despite overwhelming odds, Brad was able to earn a full-ride football scholarship.
The golden years
The 1973 – 1975 years were glorious times for Brad as well as for Miami football. Head Coach Bill Mallory ’57 and Defensive coordinator, Dick Crum named Brad the team’s No. 1 middle guard as a sophomore, where he was the smallest defensive lineman in the entire Mid-American Conference and possibly in all of Division 1 football.
The Miami football team won the Tangerine Bowl in 1973 against the S.E.C. Florida Gators. Bill Clark, sports editor for the Orlando Sentinel, called it “one of the greatest upsets in U.S. Bowl history.” Fullback Chuck Varner ’75 was selected as the offensive MVP, and Brad was named defensive MVP of the game. The 1973 Miami team finished the season 11-0 and was ranked 15th in the country. Its defense, led by Brad, was ranked No. 1 in the country.
A year later, Miami was undefeated for the second year and won the 1974 Tangerine Bowl, this time against the mighty S.E.C. Georgia Bulldogs, 21 to 10. Brad was selected as co-defensive MVP, along with John Roudabush ’75. That team finished No. 10 in the country, the highest end-of-season ranking for any Miami team…ever.
Brad was named defensive Mid-American Conference (MAC) player of the year in 1973 and again in 1974 and earned All-American honors both years as well. Brad was a “difference-maker” and played like he was on fire. “I played angry — angry at the world, at my parents, at my childhood, and that rage became laser-focused onto the center and guards on the offensive team I was competing against,” he said.
The only Bathroom was off limits!
After a home game during the fall of his sophomore year, Brad was walking back to his room in Hepburn Hall when he saw her. The one. Tiny, petite, and professional model gorgeous, she was wearing a Shakerette uniform, which meant she was a dancer with the marching band.
Working behind the scenes with one of her sorority sisters, he eventually managed to set up a blind date with her, Tami Netzly. She was a junior from Orrville, Ohio, headquarters of Smucker’s. They liked each other and after months of dating, Tami asked Brad to visit her home and her family.
“I met a happy, loving family, like something out of Leave it to Beaver,” he said. “Except Tami’s family was even better — they were the real deal.”
He dreaded having to reciprocate. He knew Tami wanted to meet his parents, two brothers, and sister. He hadn’t told her about his “rage-a-holic mom,” his alcoholic dad, their lower-middle-class status, and the verbal and physical abuse he’s suffered as long as he could remember. He hadn’t told anyone. This wasn’t something a person talked about.
Tami, a grade ahead of Brad, graduated in May 1974. That summer, he worked with a construction company in Toledo and stayed with high school buddies studying at Bowling Green State University. He choose to not stay refused to live in the house he’d grown up in… too many horrific memories
Feeling like he couldn’t put her off any longer, he invited Tami to visit on a weekend when he knew his family would be away. He planned to show her the house and be gone before they returned. He knew it wasn’t what Tami expected or wanted, but he couldn’t let her meet his parents.
Arriving at the bungalow, they walked to the back door. As he looked around the backyard, he remembered the trauma and horror. He was revisiting some of his worst memories and tried to hide his repulsion (revulsion) as he opened the back door and let Tami walk in first.
“Well, this is just about everything. You can see almost every room in the house just from here,” he told her.
But she wanted to see it all. After the quick tour, she asked to use the bathroom to freshen up. He hesitated.
Why? It was one of Mom’s crazy rules. No one was ever allowed to use the bathroom sink or bathroom tub/shower except my mom. The rest of us had to use the makeshift shower in the unfinished basement and brush our teeth in the kitchen sink.”
Grabbing the best towel out of the hallway closet, he handed it to her and said, “Here is our one and only guest towel.” She thought he was kidding. He was not.
They soon left for lunch and a tour of the small border town. When they returned, his parents’ car was in the driveway. They came back a day early than expected. Tami had left her makeup and brush on the bathroom sink, intending to clean up when they returned.
He blanched. Tami wouldn’t be able to understand how this would trigger Brad’s mom. How could she? He tried his best to explain.
“One of Mom’s oddest habits for me to deal with was her eccentric cleaning habits,” he told Tami. “She took the phrase ‘neat freak’ to such an extent that it nearly drove us all mad. We were forced to sweep and handwash the kitchen and bathroom floors multiple times a day to make sure there wasn’t even the smallest speck of dust noticeable. Next, we cleaned the back door area and the steps leading into the basement by hand two or three times a day. As crazy as this seems, we weren’t allowed to sit on our one couch or chair in our small living room. We always had to sit on the floor.”
Brad and Tami got out of the car and walked to the back door where Brad’s mom was seething until she spotted Tami. She reverted to “perfect mom mode,” but Brad knew he had to get Tami away. He asked her to go wait in the car and assured her he would join her soon.
As Tami walked away, Brad’s mom exploded.
“How dare you use my bathroom, you SOB? You’re a worthless, no-good bum! You and your cute little girlfriend!”
As his mom reached out to slap him, he grabbed her wrists and told her calmly but with strong conviction, “You are never going to hit me again and there is nothing you can do about it.”
Betrayed again
As Brad’s senior football year ended in December 1974, he considered that the NFL was his next step. However, several sports agents told him that, despite being among the best players at the college level, he wasn’t big enough, tall enough, strong enough, or fast enough for the NFL.
He refused to believe them. He’d proved the experts wrong before. He’d do it again. After all, he was a first-team All-American, and All-Americans get drafted. But as the 17 rounds of drafts closed, Brad, who had been sitting by the wall-mounted phone in his dorm room, waiting for the call that didn’t come, felt rejected once again.
“My mom’s voice in my head seemed to mock me. … ‘I told you that you’d be a loser … a failure … a deadbeat.’ ”
The next day the ringing phone woke him.
“Hello?”
“Yes. Hi. Is this Brad Cousino?”
“Speaking.”
“Hello, Brad. This is Paul Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals.”
Paul Brown, a 1930 graduate of Miami, was the founder and first head coach of the Cleveland Browns as well as the founder and first head coach of the Bengals. He was head coach of the Bengals the morning he called Brad. Coach Brown, being an alumnus, followed Miami football and in particular Brad’s college career. He’d also talked extensively to Brad’s coaches, Bill Mallory and Dick Crum.
He was inviting Brad to try out with the Bengals as a free agent. Brad would be the first free agent coach Brown had considered in seven years.
Later that same day, Chuck Noll, head coach of the 1975 Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, called to ask Brad to try out for the Steelers. After considering his options, Brad felt he had a better chance of making the Bengals team. He survived the cuts and made the roster, the only undrafted free agent rookie that made an NFL roster in 1975. As pleased as he was to become a leader on the special teams, he felt he could help the team even more if he was also used as a middle linebacker (MLB), a message he conveyed to the Bengals newly named head coach, (Coach Brown retired) Tiger Johnson, during the spring of 1976.
“You are 4 inches too short, and you weigh about 40 pounds less than what we want our MLB to be,” Coach Johnson told him. “We are amazed at how well you do, but we still don’t think that you could play even half the season without getting hurt. Your primary spot on the team is to be our special teams’ leader and captain.”
He understood the new coach’s concern about his size, but he believed, based on his stats, that he deserved a fair chance to earn the No. 1 position. He pushed back.
“I was thinking of what was in my best interest instead of what was in the team’s best interest,” he states in his memoir, which he co-wrote with Mitch Neu. “This was a life lesson I would soon learn — the hard way!”
About two months later, while volunteering at a kids’ charity event co-sponsored by the Bengals, he was signing autographs and posing for pictures with the kids when one of the foster parents told him the Bengals had just announced that Brad was part of a three-person trade with the Chicago Bears.
“I was shocked,” Brad said. “I had no clue that there was a trade in the works. In my head, I considered the Bengals a surrogate family. Once again, I felt my family had betrayed me.”
In beast mode
The Bears traded for him because of his special team’s expertise. No problem. He loved special teams, but he also hoped to be given a fair shot to play middle linebacker.
After a few weeks in the Chicago Bear’s camp, in frustration, he asked for a meeting with new Head Coach Jack Pardee.
Coach Pardee explained, “Brad, you are a very good linebacker with great instincts. However, this is the Chicago Bears, home to the legendary Dick Butkus. That’s the prototype middle linebacker we want for our defensive scheme. And that’s not you. It’s amazing how well you perform. We can’t figure out how you do so well. However, you’re never going to be 6 foot 4 and 245 pounds. And because of that, you have little to no chance of being our starting MLB.”
“In my arrogance, immaturity, and ‘my way or the highway’ mentality, I calmly but firmly stated, ‘Coach Pardee, either play me … or trade me.’ ”
Brad had intended his comment to sound like a request. Instead, it came across as an ultimatum. Everything fell silent. With those words hanging in the air, Brad thanked the coach for his time and left his office.
The next morning, the Bears waived / cut him from the team.
“You’re a loser and no-good bum. You are an S.O.B. You ba***rd. You’re a poser, someone who will never amount to anything worthwhile.” Those words screamed in his head. After all these years, Mom was back with a vengeance. The voice wouldn’t stop.
Out of football for nearly seven weeks, Brad eventually received a call from the New York Giants. John McVay ’53, was named the new head coach of the giants in mid-season because they Giants hadn’t won a game (0-8) , Coach McVay had seen him play in college many times because John’s son, John Jr. ’75, was a Miami teammate of Brad’s and a good friend.
Coach McVay wanted Brad to be a key player on special teams and a backup MLB to their rookie MLB, future All-Pro Hall of Famer Harry Carson. Six days later, he was in the home dressing room of the Giants, sitting next to the legendary Larry Czonka, about to play in front of 75,000 fans in the new Meadowlands stadium.
“One of the first games I remembered playing as a New York Giant was against the Detroit Lions. I was pumped. Mentally, I was in full-out beast mode. At a crucial point in the game, I blocked a punt that I also recovered and ran to the 4-yard line. Two plays later, the winless Giants scored a touchdown and took the lead. Early in the fourth quarter, I recovered a fumble on a kickoff.”
“The Giants won their first game of the 1976 season, and I knew that I had achieved what Coach McVay wanted — for me to be a difference-maker. I knew I was instrumental in helping Coach McVay win his first game as an NFL head coach.”
Deafening silence
Prior to being traded to the Chicago Bears, Brad had been invited to give his “Against All Odds” keynote address at a major corporate event in Charlotte, North Carolina, in early January 1977. Accompanying him to Charlotte was Tami. They were to be married in less than 90 days. He gave his revamped keynote address to more than 4,500 people that afternoon, he gave a raw, unflinching, almost soul-baring version of his life story. At the end of his speech, more than 1,000 people came up to him afterward to sign autographs, he was shocked at how many people said his life story so resonated with them.
Over dinner that evening with the event’s leaders, he and Tami were invited to a non-denominational church service the next morning. He politely declined. What he didn’t tell them was that he had major trust issues with God, who allowed his parents to reject and physically and verbally abuse him for most of his life
As he and Tami returned to the hotel, he kept thinking about the church service. He was struggling to figure out the root cause of his lack of self-esteem, self-worth, and rejection issues. What if whatever he was searching for was revealed there?
He told Tami he was wrestling in his heart about whether to attend or not, despite not really wanting to attend, he decided that would attend after all. Tami was thrilled.
“That’s where one of the miracles, in my opinion, happened,” he said.
The service surprised him in several ways. Considering that most people stayed out late the night before, the religious service was well attended, with over 2,000 people. And they were smiling and laughing, even hugging. The guest speaker touched his soul, so much so that when the speaker gave the call to action, he and Tami joined 500 others who went forward. But, after the prayer, he felt only emptiness. He decided that he must have been so vile that even God wanted nothing to do with him – not only rejected by his parents, but actually rejected by God Himself.
Once back home in Cincinnati, he kept thinking about the service in Charlotte. He was despondent. He finally cried out to God for forgiveness. All he heard was deafening silence.
Ready for a new life
He didn’t give up. He read and studied and reached out to the chaplain Wendel for the Bengals, who he’d become friends during his rookie year. About a month before his wedding, he started noticing that he wasn’t yelling at people nor was he cussing & cursing. He didn’t really understand, but something strange was happening — being transformed from an angry beast.
That transformation continued as his family grew.
“When I was holding my 5 day old son Cortt, our oldest, for the very first time by myself, I was scared to death that my upbringing would come back to haunt me, and I would lash out as my parents lashed out at me. I prayed Lord, I don’t know how to be a good dad and I want to be a good dad for Cortt.”
By all accounts that prayer did not go unheard. He and Tami went on to have three more children – none of whom ever heard him curse or lash out in anger. They built a life together in Cincinnati that was dramatically different then the way he was raised; Tami turned out to be the perfect mom and was the “superglue” to their young family.
Brad rounded out his NFL career by joining the Steelers in 1977. He realized his dream of playing as a starting middle linebacker, albeit with the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts in 1978. At the end of the 1978 season, he had three choices — play with Toronto in 1979, sit out the 1979 season and join the Bengals in 1980, or officially retire from pro football. By then, Cortt was born, and he hated being away from Tami and his new son, a major influence in his decision to retire.
“I was always going to be on the ‘bubble’ of being one of the last players to make any NFL final roster, not because of my abilities, but because of my lack of size. I now was prepared to do the right thing for my family.” After Brad retired from the NFL, he had a successful career as an investor, developer and property manager of commercial real estate investments. He also has shared his life story “Unwanted, Unworthy, UNSHACKLED” to hundreds of audiences and many thousands of people since 1975.
Fast forward 4 decades, Brad just turned 70, enjoys robust good health, and plays competitive pickleball nearly every day. He and Tami have been married for 46+ years and still live in Cincinnati area and are the proud parents of four adult children, all who are Miami graduates, and have married wonderful spouses that we love as much as our kids, and together they have blessed us to be “Gami & Papa” to our 11 superstar grandkids.
“When I think back to my younger days, when I was being disciplined in forced isolation in our basement or garage, I would sit totally alone, often crying, and craving attention and love. I wondered if I would ever find happiness and real love. Today I am surrounded by so much love that it runs shivers up and down my spine.”
For more about Brad, his memoir, and his seminars, go to www.bradcousino.com
1973 Football Team Makes History Again
Miami University Athletics will make history when it inducts its first team — the 1973 football team — into its Hall of Fame Friday, Sept. 22. The 1973 football season is the opening chapter in a trilogy of seasons that helped Miami carve a unique niche in college football history. From 1973-1975, Miami amassed an amazing 32-1-1 record, capturing three Mid-American Conference Championships. In 1973 alone, under Head Coach Bill Mallory ’57, Miami went a perfect 11-0, including wins over Purdue, South Carolina, and Florida (in the Tangerine Bowl). In all, the football team outscored its opponents 223-76 in 1973, finishing the year ranked No. 15 in the final Associated Press poll.
Individuals who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame Class of 2023 include Lauren Collins (track & field), Rick Goins (men’s basketball), Ryan Jones (hockey), Kim Kinzler (swimming & diving), Jess Kodiak (soccer), and Pete Lindsay (swimming & diving).
