I want Lerner out as much as the next person, but this long article from 2003, does make you wonder how it all went so badly wrong for him and subsequently us. It was very much a rags to riches story for the Lerner family, who seemed like decent people and RL was highly regarded, well grounded and clearly into his NFL football. Still amazes me that someone can be so unlucky twice. We all have our opinions on why his investment has failed so spectacularly but much of it is with the benefit of hindsight. The article obviously predates AVFC but it gives a big insight into RL the man - personally I am non the wiser about why he made such a **** up of AVFC:
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2003/03/randy_lerners_first_steps_pers.html
Original Publication Date: March 2, 2003
Randy Lerner teed up the football on the 20-yard line, as he sometimes did after playing catch with the guys.
Lerner's buddy had just bet he couldn't kick it through the uprights.
A 30-yarder. That's nothing.
The 5-foot-10 former college soccer player ran up, planted his cleatless left foot and kicked.
The kick was good but Lerner collapsed. His left leg shot out from under him and twisted gruesomely as he tore the anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus cartilage in his knee. Despite surgery, his knee still isn't quite right two years later.
It was the same stupid thing that could happen to any 38-year-old guy.
The big difference between Randy and other weekend jocks: His football buddies were Cleveland Browns players. His disastrous misstep was in the middle of Browns Stadium.
Randy was the owner's son then, but he wasn't hot-dogging. He saw himself as one of the guys and he was just having fun. The Shaker Heights native, who had worshipped the Browns since before he could read, had no official role with the Browns. Didn't really want one.
Today, Randy Lerner hasn't completely accepted that he has a role now. It has been only four months since his father, Al, died after an 18-month battle with brain cancer. Randy is now the Browns' owner, the second-youngest in the NFL. He turned 41 a week ago.
Al Lerner's only son is reluctant to say much publicly about the Browns, even though, as the head of the family trust that owns the team, he is ultimately responsible for its future. Likewise, he's uncomfortable speaking about MBNA Corp., the 28,000-employee credit-card giant his father helped create, even though he's now its chairman.
He can't talk long about his new reality without his raspy voice cracking. It's not right for him to step into the spotlight yet, he says. He wishes he could just go back to being one of his father's closest business advisers and to high-fiving players before games.
But don't take Randy's desire to lay low as a sign that he's not confident or capable, those around him say. They see a gifted businessman and lawyer who grew up watching his father build from scratch a $4 billion fortune. And says Browns President Carmen Policy, "he knows more about football than I do."
At the same time, Randy is described as a guy-next-door father and husband who met his wife on a blind date. He loves to plow his 15-acre farm and watch "Toy Story" with his kids. He nearly knocks people over with big hugs after Browns victories. He calls his mom every day.
He may be the most normal, truly likable son of a billionaire you could ever meet.
The only criticism
No one, in fact, will say a bad word about Randy Lerner.
"I think the jury's still out on his business faults," one associate says. "It's been only a few months. He hasn't had time to show faults."
Randy Lerner
MBNA Chief Executive Charles Cawley says that if Randy has one weakness, it's that he's "supersensitive" to criticism about the Browns or MBNA. "He gets touchy about that."
Touchy about his family's business interests? That's the only criticism out there? It may be because few outside his close circle knew him until four months ago.
"Randy is a completely unknown figure, and he fought hard to be unknown," says Cleveland lawyer Robert Duvin, a close family friend for 40 years.
But it's not difficult to get to know him. Consider this:
You tell Randy's Delaware office you'd like to talk with him in the next couple of weeks. A week passes.
Randy's executive assistant calls one morning: Randy doesn't want to talk to the press but feels he owes you the courtesy of explaining why not. So Randy himself gets on the line.
He doesn't want to be interviewed. After being away from his New York Long Island home so much during his father's illness, he has barely had a chance to step back into his life.
But he'll talk to you for a few minutes.
You talk about Browns history. You talk knee surgeries, kids' math homework, Cancun vacations. An hour passes.
You talk about wedding anniversaries, how he was a closet Bears fan.
This is the personable, easy-to-talk-to guy everyone's been telling you about. After 2½ hours, you're the one who hangs up, only because he made you laugh so hard that you're coughing and you can't get words to come out.
Talking to Randy was the easiest part of this story. Everyone else is guarded, concerned about revealing too much information because the family is so private and so security-conscious, given its wealth.
All the family's homes are owned by trusts with peculiar names, making them hard to track down. Randy's home address isn't registered with the post office. Friends refuse to acknowledge relatives' names, even though they appeared in Al's obituary.
Sports and family
When Al Lerner died, he was the richest person in Ohio and the 36th-richest in the nation.
But he and his wife, Norma, weren't wealthy when Randy and sister Nancy were young. Al had started as a $75-a-week furniture salesman in the late 1950s, moving to Cleveland in 1960.
The children were like everyone else in public schools in Shaker Heights, Nancy says, except that everyone else owned their homes. The Lerners rented an apartment on Van Aken Boulevard and then a duplex on Southington Road.
Al and Norma also didn't have any relatives around Cleveland. It was a lonely time, Norma says.
Al, a huge sports fan, sort of dragged Norma to Browns games as something to do on cold Sundays. She knew nothing about football. When Randy and Nancy were young, the couple relied on baby sitters. They bought another pair of season tickets for the kids in 1968, about the time they could afford their first house. Randy was 6 and Nancy was 8.
The four bundled up for every home game and perched near the 30-yard line with their backs to the lake at the old Stadium. After the games, they'd go out to eat or, if they were too frozen and wet, go home to grab dinner. If the Cavaliers were in town, they'd venture back out to the old Arena in the evening.
Randy became a big Browns fan. Doug Dieken, former Browns star and current Browns radio commentator, says Randy's passion for the team makes it rough to be near him during and after games.
"When we win a game, he runs up and gives people a big hug. He's broken my glasses twice now," Dieken says. "LensCrafters and I, we know each other well, and it's getting kind of expensive."
But sports became more than just a pastime to Randy. It became a focal point for family. A time to bond, whether at the Stadium or watching away games on TV.
That's one reason he talks with reverence about what it means to be in charge of the Browns.
"You're getting into the fabric of families," Randy says. "These are people's memories. This is how they spend their Sundays. You've got to be careful with that."
Access to Al
The importance of family was a value the Lerners tried to teach their children, says Cleveland lawyer James Berick, Randy's godfather and Al's friend for 51 years.
"The four of them always had an extraordinary relationship," says Berick, a partner at Squire Sanders & Dempsey.
Berick, who was Al's attorney, remembers business meetings with Al. No matter how many people were in the room, if Randy or Nancy called to talk about elementary-school homework or a skinned knee or anything else, "Al would say, 'Hold on a minute. I've got to talk to my kids.'
"Access to their father was instant, forever."
Al and Norma insisted on having dinner together as a family every night. They attended every school function and every after-school game. Randy was a jock: a quarterback. Basketball, tennis and soccer. Nancy excelled in tennis.
Family and sports remained strong. Al was best man at Randy's wedding to Lara in 1993. And when Al contemplated buying the reborn Browns in 1998, says Policy, the Browns owner, it was Randy who helped his father crunch numbers to come up with the $530 million bid.
Norma says there was never a question that Randy would take over the team from his father. "Randy was concerned it wouldn't be done right," Berick says, "unless he went forward and kept it in the family."
Being 'real people'
As Al started building some wealth, first by investing in apartments, there was another value he and Norma tried to ingrain: Money is nice, but it doesn't make you any better than anyone else.
Nancy recalls that her parents became furious if others looked down on someone because of his job or lack of money. That's why, when Al's stature started rising, he refused to join clubs that didn't allow blacks or women, Nancy says.
The couple also insisted on keeping the children in public schools in Shaker, even though in their later years they could have afforded private schools.
The couple wanted their children to grow up to be "real people," Norma Lerner says.
Today, Nancy has her four oldest children in public schools in Greater Cleveland. Randy has his son, Max, 5, and daughter Chase, 7, in Long Island public schools.
The family's quest for normalcy played out in other ways: At 16, Nancy got a job at Shaker Auto Clinic. Randy did the same at 16, first as a groundskeeper at Euclid Richmond Gardens, then as laundry guy for the Cleveland Cobras soccer team.
But working wasn't about money. When Nancy and Randy wanted to go to the movies or buy something, it wasn't tied to how much they'd saved from their summer jobs. They just asked for cash, Nancy says.
Al and Norma were trying to keep their children from being motivated by money, Nancy says. They wanted them to have passion and purpose that were measured by more than just what it meant for their bank accounts.
Making his own way
By the time Randy graduated from Columbia University's School of Law in 1987, Al Lerner was doing well financially from bank investments. He had been chairman of Equitable Bank since 1981, then became chairman of MNC Financial after it bought Equitable.
Randy didn't want to just follow his father into business. He moved to New York. He quickly acknowledges it took him a few years to figure out what he wanted to do.
"I've never thought it was an accident that he moved to New York," says Duvin, the friend whose family often vacationed with the Lerners. "When your father is one of the high-achieving men in the world, if you allow too much closeness, you can suffocate."
Randy thought of becoming an antitrust lawyer. He worked for Progressive Corp., the Mayfield insurance company, in Manhattan. He worked for Bear Stearns. After four years, he entered finance and started an investment firm. It eventually became Securities Advisors Inc., a small money-management firm that did well.
Randy eventually would become one of his father's circle of eight or so close advisers.
In 1993, he joined the board of directors of Delaware-based MBNA. Al Lerner had spun the credit card operation off from MNC and it was on its way to becoming the second-largest credit card company in the nation.
"The fact that Randy went on the board was a sign of a succession plan," Berick says.
Cawley, Al's partner at MBNA who took over as chief executive last fall, sees it a little differently.
"You can't describe Al Lerner as grooming his son to take over anything," he says. "Al Lerner groomed his son to be a good man and a competent businessman. But I think he left what Randy did up to Randy. Al believed nature would take its course."
Interest in the Browns
When Al Lerner bought the Browns, Randy became a fixture behind the scenes. Besides helping Policy persuade Al Lerner to fire head coach Chris Palmer and hire Butch Davis, Randy frequently traveled from his Long Island home to summer camp and practices. He made all the games. He often hung out in the locker room. He got to know the players' families. Al Lerner was "Mr. Lerner" to everyone. Randy was just Randy.
"All of the guys feel so comfortable around him," says four-year quarterback Tim Couch. "He's a friend. He's so approachable, and the players really love him."
Others echo that. "He doesn't act like the typical owner," said cornerback Corey Fuller, who was just released last week to get the Browns under the league salary cap.
"He acts like one of the players. He meets us in the locker room and says, 'Everything will be all right.' Owners don't really come down to the locker room. It's just, 'Play, win, gotta go.' "
Davis says that during his two years as coach, the entire Lerner family attended every game but Randy was around more at other times "just because of his level of interest."
"He talks to players not just about football but about their wives and children," Davis says. "He asks how they're adjusting to Cleveland and if they're finding good schools. I think it helps to have that kind of interest in their lives."
Randy spent even more time around the players while recovering from his knee surgery. He endured months of physical therapy at the Browns facilities.
"The thing about Randy that's really impressed me," Dieken says, "is he has genuine respect for the ballplayers, for the pain and the things they go through.
"There are some owners who tolerate the players. He genuinely respects the players; they feel it when they talk to him. He isn't just the son of the owner, he's a guy they know cares."
Chairman of MBNA
Now, he's the guy in charge. And Randy's role with the Browns will be more significant than his role with MBNA.
He's not the chief executive of MBNA, as his father was. As chairman of the board, he'll guide overall finances and direction but not the day-to-day operations of the company that employs 2,500 in Northeast Ohio.
Franklin Morton, who helps manage $10 billion including 7 million shares of MBNA for Ariel Capital Management Inc. in Chicago, says, "I would expect the role he's going to play is limited. . . . Even Al Lerner wasn't active in MBNA on a daily basis. I would look for Randy Lerner's role to be primarily representing his family's interests."
The Lerners are MBNA's largest shareholder, owning about 12 percent of the stock, worth more than $2 billion.
The stake in the Browns is more personal. He talks about the game and the team like a fan. He talks about the good old days with Leroy Kelly and Bernie Kosar. He knows all too well that the Browns have never won a Super Bowl and haven't claimed major fame since winning the pre-Super Bowl championship in 1964.
"I was 2 years old then, and I've been irritated ever since," Randy says.
Randy's now learning about salary caps, marketing and draft strategies. When the family started facing the seriousness of Al's illness last spring, Policy began meeting with Randy regularly to teach him the business side.
"He senses this is the entertainment business. It's not the stock market," Policy says. "Being the second-youngest owner in the NFL could lead to some disastrous results, but he wants to learn the business and learn it the right way.
"He's said, 'Don't ever let my opinion on football matters change what you would do.' "
Still, Randy feels obligated to fans, though he quickly says he doesn't like the word "fan" to describe the Browns community.
"There must be a word more dignified than 'fan,' " Randy says. "Cleveland Browns people are more serious than just fans. They're part of the Browns. They are the Browns."
Policy and others say the Browns couldn't be in better hands. "Think of the number of evenings he sat at the dinner table with Al Lerner. Imagine what he learned," Policy says. "He's got his father's brain power plus he's able to absorb what moves people."
"Cleveland is very fortunate," Dieken says. "There's a real sincerity with Randy. He wants, much like his father, to give the city of Cleveland a winner. As a kid growing up, that's what he went to see.
"He is really driven to provide a winner. Not just a winning team, but the winner."
News researcher Cheryl Diamond contributed to this story.
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