BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Mike Brown, who has been known to a slip in a tape of the Ohio State fight song while he's driving, heard some more wonderful sounds pouring out of his radio Wednesday.
The news had the Buckeyes coming to Cincinnati to play the University of Cincinnati in 2002.
And there is no question he wants the game at the stadium named after his father, Paul Brown, the man who coached the Buckeyes to the 1942 national title.
Mike Brown, who would graduate from Dartmouth and Harvard, was seven years old that fall. There are some things you never forget.
"This a great thing for Ohio football," said Mike Brown, president and general manager of the Bengals' franchise he founded with Paul. "I go to Columbus once a year. There isn't a spectacle like it in football. Some of it's the crowd. Some of it's the band. Some of it's the stadium. And they always have such good teams."
The game in the new Paul Brown Stadium was such a perfect fit that Ohio State put it in its news release ("at Paul Brown Field") even though the club found out about the rejuvenation of the Ohio State-UC series with everyone else Wednesday.
But the Bengals love the idea and want to get more Ohio State and UC games.
"We're excited for the community and with UK on the rise, it'd be great if we could get (another) premium game like Kentucky-Florida," said Troy Blackburn, the Bengals director of stadium development. "You've got a great base of fans here for those teams."
The seat license agreements that Bengals fans bought to get their Bengals tickets don't apply for those same seats for other events, such as college football games, said Don Schumacher, outgoing director of the Greater Cincinnati Sports and Events Commission. "They don't get their Bengals seats," he said. "That's very clear (as spelled out in the contracts)."
Schumacher said he has already talked to the U.S. Soccer Federation, asking it to consider bringing the U.S. men's and women's national teams to Cincinnati to play a foreign national team at Paul Brown Stadium, beginning sometime after the 2000 season.
That wouldn't sell out 66,000 seats, but it would bring a good crowd and is typical of the events that could be attracted, Schumacher said.
John Erardi contributed to this report.
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