[3/27/04]Tucked away in the basement of the Warren County Courthouse is the election commissioner’s office.

It has no fancy name on the door, no special designs or decorations. Books and papers from a recent election are scattered haphazardly across shelves, desks and chairs.

Yet behind the desk of this obscure room sits one of the greatest football players in Mississippi’s history, and he’s finally getting his credit.

Johnny Brewer, 67, will be inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame on April 2, following a stellar career at Ole Miss and the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and New Orleans Saints.

“It’s a well-deserved honor, one that’s probably past due,” said MSHOF member Ralph “Catfish” Smith, a former teammate of Brewer’s at both Ole Miss and Cleveland. “But from my own experience, he’ll probably enjoy it more at this age than at 35.”

Brewer took part in two national championship teams at Ole Miss in 1959 and 1960, and won an NFL championship with Cleveland in 1964 the same year he married his wife Anita.

“I don’t know where it came from because I was the first one in the history of my family to go past the fifth grade,” Brewer said. “There wasn’t any background or any history.

“I guess it was just born into me some kind of way.”