CLEVELAND — On Wednesday’s 3News Now with Stephanie Haney, the top headlines include plans for Kent State University’s 50th anniversary event commemorating the deadly protest from 1970, a conversation with Cleveland Browns new Chief of Staff Callie Brownson, whether Myles Garrett could be hit with a defamation lawsuit and how to send birthday card to recovering Norton High School teen Emma Pfouts.
Rock and Roll legends Joe Walsh and barnstorm and David Crosby will headline May 2 benefit concert at Kent State University,
The show will take place May 2 in support of scholarships named after the four students killed on campus during a protest by Ohio National Guard members on May 4, 1970.
Proceeds from the show will support the May 4 Legacy Scholarships created to provide financial aid to four students majoring in the university's Peace and Conflict Studies program. Each scholarship bears the name of one of the four people killed on campus May 4, 1970: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder.
Actor and activist Jane Fonda will also be there, and our Ohio Secretary of State and Army Veteran Frank Rose is not happy about that. He has an issue with Fonda being paid $83,000 to speak at the event.
LaRose said the event has the potential to serve as a moment of unity for a nation that is deeply divided, but paying Fonda $83,000 to speak at the event does the very opposite.
He later tweeted he’s all for free speech, but Fonda shouldn’t be paid to speak at the solemn event.
Fonda opposed the Vietnam War, and actually went to North Vietnam, where she was photographed in 1972 on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi, earning herself the nickname "Hanoi Jane." That's what La Rose takes issue with, saying she betrayed service members.
Since then, Fonda has said she does regret that photo and how she showed her opposition to the war.
Kent State University President Todd Diacon has said that those comments by Fonda speak to the university's goal of bringing people together.
In Berea, 3News' Jimmy Donovan talked with Cleveland Browns new Chief of Staff Callie Brownson, who is tirst woman ever to be hired as a full-time head coach for the Browns.
Her hiring comes after San Francisco 49ers offensive analyst Katie Sowers became the first female to coach in a Super Bowl, earlier this month.
Brownson shared how she's confident females will work to earn the opportunity to become head coaches in the NFL and other professional sports leagues across the country in the coming years.
“Yeah, that’s definitely in our future. Absolutely,” Brownson told 3News sports director Donovan, “The Voice of the Browns,” in an exclusive one-on-one interview on Tuesday.
“Hey, I’m not one to call my shot. I just hope that it’s somebody, and I know that it will happen. Whoever it is will be very qualified and ready to roll, and I think everybody should be ready for that.”
On seeing women in the NFL today, Brownson said:
"I'm going to come in contact with hundreds of people in my time here...I'm going to leave a good impression on them, and in a couple of years when they go to another organization, they're going to be able to say, 'We had a female as a part of our organization. It was a really good thing.' That's going to be this branch effect that happens."
She said she's encountered skepticism from coaching men, particularly when she coached high school boys, but she gets past it by showing what she can do.
Brownson said: "It's very easy to gain the trust of your fellow players and your fellow coaches if you're somebody who can help the team win...It's very easy to gain their respect."
Brownson's resume includes playing for the D.C. Divas of the Women's Football Alliance, interning with the New York Jets and the Buffalo Bills.
The Bills, by the way, are the team that hired the first full-time female coach in NFL history in 2016, Kathryn Smith.
Brownson's first major full-time coaching job was handling offensive quality control at Dartmouth.
With the Browns, Brownson plans to focus on the history of the franchise.
"The amount of tradition that is in this building is unbelievable, and it's one thing that we're really trying to shed the light on: The people who have walked this walk before our players have," she said.
In more Browns news, former Cleveland Browns general manager John Dorsey says Myles Garrett told the team that Mason Rudolph used a racial slur in the November brawl between the teams.
More than 30 players and both teams were fined following the November altercation where Garrett struck Rudolph in the head with his own helmet, while Garrett (indefinite), Pouncey (three games reduced to two) and Ogunjobi (one game) were suspended for their roles in the brawl.
This has come up again after Garrett was reinstated to the NFL last week, thanks to his a one-on-one interview with ESPN's Mina Kimes.
"He (Rudolph) called me the N-word," Garrett told Kimes during the interview. "He called me a 'stupid N-word.'"
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said he hadn’t heard that, in his many conversations with Browns personnel after the incident.
Along those same lines, an attorney for Rudolph posted on Twitter that Garret exposed himself to legal liability for saying Rudolph called him the N-word, which Rudolph has denied. The lawyer called it a defamatory statement.
The lawyer didn’t say Rudolph was going to sue Garrett, but if this does become a lawsuit, it won’t go anywhere.
For a regular person, legally speaking, defamation is a lie that hurts your reputation. For a public figure, that’s harder to prove, and as an athlete, Rudolph is a public figure.
To win a defamation lawsuit, Rudolph would have to prove that he didn’t call Garrett the N-word, and that Garrett knew he didn’t say it. Garrett doesn’t have to prove anything, because he’s not bringing a lawsuit. He’d be the defendant in such a case.
And finally, 3News has been following the story of the Norton teenager Emma Pfouts who recently woke up from a coma.
Emma, who spent weeks in a medically induced coma, remains in recovery at the hospital months after collapsing at the Norton High School homecoming dance last October.
Many sent her Valentine’s Day greetings, and she got around 400 cards delivered to her. Now with her 17th birthday this week, you can also send her birthday cards.
You can mail them to her at:
Akron Children’s Hospital
Transitional Care – Attn: Emma Pfouts
214 West Bowery Street
Akron, OH 44308
You can also send an eCard -- which will be printed and delivered to Emma at the hospital -- by clicking here.
