John Sawyer, a Bengals team vice president who has been with the franchise since its founding, died today at the age of 90.
Sawyer worked with Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown in the 1960s to get a pro football franchise for Cincinnati, and Brown’s son, Bengals owner Mike Brown, says that without Sawyer’s efforts the Bengals never would have been born.
“I think it’s fair to say it probably wouldn’t have come off,” Brown said. “He was instrumental in bringing an NFL franchise to Cincinnati. He was a key person who worked behind the scenes and was always very supportive of what we were doing.”
Sawyer had been a successful Cincinnati agricultural businessman and was the Bengals’ principal owner at the time of their founding in 1967. Sawyer later sold his stake in the Bengals to the Brown family, but he remained the team president until 1993 and took a vice president title after that. He always gave Paul Brown the credit for the success of the franchise, saying he never would have become involved in football if not for a chance meeting with Brown.
“This is the last business in the world I ever expected to be in,” Sawyer said in 1987. “I never gave football a thought until the morning our company veterinarian walked in and said he wanted to get me together with a guy named Paul Brown.”
A World War II veteran, Sawyer is survived by four daughters and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
