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American football player (1936–2024)

Frank Beall Ryan (July 12, 1936 – January 1, 2024) was an American professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for the Los Angeles Rams (1958–1961), Cleveland Browns (1962–1968), and Washington Redskins (1969–1970). He played college football for the Rice Owls. A three time Pro Bowl selection with Cleveland, Ryan led the Browns to their most recent National Football League title in 1964. He was also a mathematician, serving as a faculty member at Case Western Reserve University from 1967 to 1974.

Ryan played football while attending R. L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth, Texas. He was recruited by college coaches from across the country, including Bear Bryant, and he was admitted to Yale University. Ryan declared a major in physics at Rice University, becoming the first in his family not to go to Yale. He was unable to establish himself during the course of his collegiate career, splitting time behind center with King Hill, who was receiving most of the snaps. Given his desire to obtain a Ph. D., Ryan originally decided not to play professional football after the Los Angeles Rams chose him in the fifth round of the 1958 NFL Draft. He changed his mind after he was able to enroll at both UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley in pursuit of an advanced degree. Ryan then transferred back to Rice, where he studied during the off season.

Ryan spent the first four years of his career primarily in a reserve capacity, making $12,000 per year.

In 1966, he bounced back with a superb season, leading the league with 29 touchdown passes and finishing second with 2,976 yards despite playing with intense pain. Ryan's output helped alleviate the absence of the legendary Jim Brown, who had retired prior to the start of training camp. His 29 touchdown passes in 14 games ranks second in Browns franchise history to Brian Sipe, who got 30 in a 16 game 1980 season.

On January 25, 1967, Ryan underwent an operation to repair the remaining effects of his injury. The surgery eliminated the pain, but also affected his throwing motion. In the 1967 season opener, Ryan's injury woes continued as he sprained both ankles in a 21–14 loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Battling through that malady, along with shoulder and knee troubles, Ryan led the team to a 9–5 record to reach the playoffs. The season would see Ryan suffering a concussion from a head to head collision with Dick Butkus. He was knocked out in the second quarter but came back to throw three touchdown passes in the third quarter to will his team to a 24–0 victory. Ryan later stated that it was this collision that necessitated the cervical disc replacement he underwent after retiring.

Ryan's tenure as the Browns' starting quarterback came to an abrupt end following a 1–2 start to the 1968 season. Browns' head coach Blanton Collier replaced Ryan with Bill Nelsen, who went on to lead the team to a division title. The official conclusion of Ryan's time with the Browns came on September 9, 1969, when he was released, but new Redskins' coach Vince Lombardi quickly signed Ryan as a backup.

Despite throwing only one pass during the 1969 season, Ryan returned for the last of his 13 years in the NFL in 1970 before officially announcing his retirement on April 13, 1971. With his accurate throwing arm, his 14.7 yards per completion still ranks as one of the all time leaders. He worked for seven postgraduate years under G. R. MacLane, a leading geometric function theorist, and produced the dissertation "Characterization of the Set of Asymptotic Values of a Function Holomorphic in the Unit Disc". Ryan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1965. Ryan started teaching at Rice during his career and, during his time with the Browns, he became an assistant professor at the Case Institute of Technology in February 1967. Ryan had a full teaching load, which includes undergraduate and graduate courses, and conducting research in complex analysis. While at training camp, Ryan taught math in the morning and went to football practice in the afternoon. Ryan taught his last course at Case Western Reserve in the spring of 1971. He was promoted to associate professor that summer. After taking a leave of absence for the next three years, he resigned his faculty position in 1974. Ryan learned computer programming and software through the Chi Corp., Case Western Reserve's then newly launched private computer company. He compiled advanced statistics to apply what he learned to football. The Browns were shown his results and liked the project but didn't offer the extra cash to move it forward. Ryan had an Erdős number of 3.

Soon after his retirement from the Redskins, Ryan remained in the nation's capital when he was named director of information services for the U. S. House of Representatives. While there, he helped advance the computer age in politics by playing an integral role in establishing the body's first electronic voting system. This enabled voting procedures that usually ran for 45 minutes to be shortened to around 15 minutes. By the time he left the post, the office had an annual budget of $8 million with a staff of 225. Ryan resigned that post to become athletic director and lecturer in mathematics at Yale University on March 7, 1977. Ryan served in that position for ten years before resigning to become the school's associate vice president for institutional planning. During the late 1970s a Yale employee informed Ryan that many thousands of nude photographs of young men in front, side and rear poses with metal pins sticking out from their spines had been discovered in a room in Payne Whitney Gymnasium. Ryan investigated, finding that they depicted decades of Yale freshmen whose posture had been documented as part of a questionable study on the long term effects of posture. Ryan then quickly called in a document disposal expert who shredded and then burned the photos. Ryan was a member of the Rice board of governors from 1972 to 1976 and was recognized as a distinguished alumnus in 1987. Ryan became vice president for external affairs at Rice in August 1990, increasing annual gifts to the university to a three year average of $32.8 million for the fiscal years 1992–94 from $21.4 million for the fiscal years 1988–90. In 1995, he resigned his post as vice president for external affairs at Rice, owing to differences with President Malcolm Gillis concerning the future course of external affairs. Ryan ended his institutional career as a professor of mathematics, and professor of computational and applied mathematics at Rice. Ryan was president and chief executive officer of Contex Electronics, which designed and manufactured cable and interconnect products for the computer and communications industries. Ryan also served as director for America West Airlines, Sequoia Voting Systems, and of Danielson Holding Corporation. He was an advisory director of United Medical Care Inc. In retirement, he ran a self designed program that helps micro analyze statistical behavior of the up and down pricing movement that underlies the pricing behavior of the futures market. He also worked on Oppermann's conjecture about the distribution of prime numbers. in Grafton, Vermont, with his wife, Joan, a retired sportswriter and nationally syndicated columnist for The Washington Post. and also wrote a book on women in sports. The two Texans met in college, fell in love with Vermont while Ryan was on staff at Yale, and had been married since their senior year at Rice.

Year Team Games Passing Rushing GP (Games played) GS (Games started) Record (Record as a starter) Cmp (Completed passes) Att (Pass attempts) Pct (Completion percentage) Yds (Passing yards) Avg (Yards per pass attempt) Lng (Longest pass completion) TD (Passing touchdowns) Int (Interceptions thrown) Rtg (Passer rating) Att (Rushing attempts) Yds (Rushing yards) Avg (Average yards per rush) Lng (Longest rushing attempt) TD (Rushing touchdowns) 1958 LAR 5 0 – 5 14 35.7 34 2.4 14 1 3 28.6 5 45 9.0 12 0 1959 LAR 10 3 0–3 42 89 47.2 709 8.0 67 2 4 63.4 19 57 3.0 13 1 1960 LAR 11 5 3–1–1 62 128 48.4 816 6.4 61 7 9 57.9 19 85 4.5 24 1 1961 LAR 14 3 2–1 72 142 50.7 1,115 7.9 96 5 7 68.3 38 139 3.7 28 0 1962 CLE 11 7 3–3–1 112 194 57.7 1,541 7.9 65 10 7 85.4 42 242 5.8 39 1 1963 CLE 13 13 10–3 135 256 52.7 2,026 7.9 83 25 13 90.4 62 224 3.6 25 2 1964 CLE 14 14 10–3–1 174 334 52.1 2,404 7.2 62 25 19 76.7 37 217 5.9 19 1 1965 CLE 12 12 10–2 119 243 49.0 1,751 7.2 80 18 13 75.3 19 72 3.8 18 0 1966 CLE14 14 9–5 200 382 52.4 2,974 7.8 54 29 14 88.2 36 156 4.3 17 0 1967 CLE 13 13 9–4 136 280 48.6 2,026 7.2 49 20 16 72.7 22 57 2.6 12 0 1968 CLE 7 3 1–2 31 66 47.0 639 9.7 57 7 6 79.0 11 64 5.8 19 0 1969 WAS 1 0 – 1 1 100.0 4 4.0 4 0 0 83.3 – – – – – 1970 WAS 1 0 – 1 4 25.0 3 3.0 3 0 0 39.6 – – – – – Career 126 87 57–27–3 1,090 2,133 51.1 16,042 7.5 96 149 111 77.6 310 1,358 4.4 39 6

Grossi, Tony (2004). Tales from the Browns Sideline. (Champaign, Ill.): Sports Publishing LLC. Stewart, Todd, ed. (2004) Cleveland Browns 2004 Media Guide. New York: National Communications Group