" #
  • Welcome to Cleveland Landmarks Press
  • Welcome to Cleveland Landmarks Press
  • Bernie Kosar - Learning to Scramble
  • All Access Cleveland - New Book
  • The Psychology of Collecting - New Book
  • Geauga Lake - New Book
  • Cleveland's Short Vincent
  • Cleveland Landmarks Press Speaker Series
  • Euclid Avenue - Cleveland's Sophisticated Lady
  • Across Many Fields
  • Vintage Cleveland II: More Photographs of Yesteryear
  • The Peter Witt Streetcars of Cleveland
CLP Speaker Series
Cleveland Landmarks Press authors can be reserved to speak on a variety of topics related to Cleveland history, and how that history impacts our future. Click here to view a list of topics from our Speaker Series. To submit a request, click here.
Mailing List
* indicates required

Our Books

Bernie Kosar

Learning to Scramble

By Bernie Kosar with Craig Stout

We are backed up in our own endzone during the Jets double overtime game in 1986. In this photo, I am talking to Ozzie about a corner route which I threw to him about 25 seconds after this shot was taken.
Jimmy Johnson and I leaving Tampa Stadium after a miraculous win over the Florida Gators in which I connected with Eddie Brown on a 12-yard touchdown with seven seconds left. 'Canes' love to beat the Gators.
My high school quarterback coach, Jack Hay, is still a close friend. He was one of the first guys to really help me with my accuracy through the use of his net drill.

Any football fan knows that scrambling is the way a quarterback can gain more time and more opportunity. But anyone familiar with Bernie Kosar’s football career knows he didn’t beat you with his physical prowess. Possessing slow feet, an awkward throwing motion and unorthodox mechanics, the kid from tough, blue-collar Youngstown, Ohio did not look like a prototype NFL quarterback. How he beat you – and he beat a lot of people over the course of his college and NFL career – was with a savant-like level of football intelligence and an indomitable will to win.

Chronicling his rise from the hard-up steel town of his birth, to prominence as the leader of the University of Miami’s first national championship team, and then to glory in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns, the ride was not smooth and seldom came without a high cost. Kosar’s well-documented struggles came largely after his playing career ended, and the combination of physical, marital, familial, and financial issues transcended his uncanny ability to break down “Xs and Os” and ultimately cost him heavily.

Exploring his personal battles, “Learning to Scramble” is an unvarnished and completely authentic account of an extremely talented man’s ability to not only learn from his mistakes, but to evolve and develop new ways of approaching life. It’s a distillation of what can be done with just a little more time and a little more opportunity – all you can accomplish when you learn to scramble.


Book Details
Title:  Bernie Kosar Learning to Scramble
Author:  Bernie Kosar with Craig Stout
Price:  $19.95
ISBN:  978-0-936760-00-1
Number of Pages:  172
Number of Photos:  39 photos
Cover Type:  Soft
Order Book
  • Game Day! Today in Cleveland Sports History
  • Resisting Segregation
  • Bernie Kosar: Learning to Scramble
  • All Access Cleveland: The Rock And Roll Photography of Janet Macoska
  • The PSYCHOLOGY of COLLECTING: Everybody Collects Something, YES You Do
  • Geauga Lake: Sunrise to Sunset
  • Acrosss Many Fields
  • Cleveland's Short Vincent
  • East Fourth Street
  • Surviving the Drought
  • Vintage Cleveland
  • Citizen Soldiers:107th Cavalry Regiment, Ohio National Guard
  • A Cleveland Original: 50 Years Behind the Lens
  • Cleveland Stadium: The Last Chapter
  • Horse Trails to Regional Rails: The Story of Public Transit in Greater Cleveland
  • Cleveland's Towering Treasure: A Landmark Turns 75
  • Euclid Avenue: Cleveland's Sophisticated Lady
  • The Heart of Cleveland: the Story of Public Square in the 20th Century
  • Founded in Faith: Cleveland's Lost Catholic Legacy
  • Euclid Beach Park Album
  • Vintage Cleveland II: More Photographs of Yesteryear
  • Pop Goes Cleveland - The Impact of Cleveland & Northeast Ohio on Pop Culture
  • A Shaker Rapid Album
  • Cleveland's Dynamic Transit Heritage
  • Cleveland's Transit Vehicles
  • The Peter Witt Streetcars of Cleveland