Lin Houston

Lin Houston

Houston while playing for the Cleveland Browns
No. 32
Position:	Guard
Personal information
Date of birth:	(1921-01-11)January 11, 1921
Place of birth:	Carbondale, Illinois
Date of death:	September 9, 1995(1995-09-09) (aged 74)
Place of death:	Canton, Ohio
Height:	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Weight:	213 lb (97 kg)
Career information
High school:	Massillon Washington High School
College:	Ohio State University
NFL Draft:	1944 / Round: 11 / Pick: 106
Career history
Cleveland Browns (1946–1953)
Career highlights and awards
NFL Champion (1950) 4× AAFC Champion (1946, 1947, 1948, 1949)
Career NFL statistics as of 1953
Games: 98 Player stats at NFL.com
Player stats at PFR

Lindell Lee Houston (January 11, 1921 – September 9, 1995) was an American football guard who played eight seasons in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and in the National Football League (NFL) with the Cleveland Browns. He was the older brother of Jim Houston.

Houston played with the Browns from their inception in 1946 through the 1953 season. Cleveland reached the league championship game in each of Houston eight seasons with the club, winning four times between 1946 and 1949 in the AAFC and once in the NFL in 1950. Houston played for coach Paul Brown during every phase of his football career: at Massillon (Ohio) High School, Ohio State and the Browns. He retired from football after the 1953 season and worked as an executive in the steel industry. He died in 1995.

Houston was born in Illinois, but his family moved to Ohio after a relative got a job at a steel mill in Massillon and convinced his father to move there. Houston had been a standout basketball player in Illinois, but Paul Brown, the head football coach at Massillon Washington High School, thought his combination of quickness and size would make him a good football player. He started as a middle guard on defense but was soon switched to an offensive guard, where he excelled. The Associated Press named him a first-team All-Ohio guard in 1938.

After graduating from high school, Houston attended Ohio State University. He played as a guard on the school's varsity football team starting as a sophomore in 1941 under Paul Brown, who had by then been hired as the school's head football coach. Houston sat out for two weeks with a knee injury but returned to finish the season, and in 1942 became a regular starter at right guard. Collier's named him an All-American that season, when the Ohio State Buckeyes football team won the school's first national championship.