Ask a few people what Feng Shui is and you'll get some interesting answers:
Is it the Chinese half-brother of former Tribe pitcher Paul Shui?
(That's Shuey, you idiot, and no.)

Is it that '80s band - you know, "Everybody have fun tonight, everybody Feng Shui tonight"?
(What?! Have you been sniffing your old high-tops again?)

Feng Shui? I ate it for lunch at that Thai place, and it's coming back more often than Michael Jordan.
No, no, no.

Feng Shui is the manipulation of energy through design so as to create health, harmony, prosperity and happiness.

Now who's sniffing the sneakers, buddy?

Feng Shui is pronounced "fung shway." The cynics remember it this way: "It sure is 'fung' to 'shway' people into spending a few G's on interior design."

But give it a chance. Some Browns rookies are. At Jamel White's Celebrity Happy Hour fund-raiser earlier this month, players stopped at Barbara Keplinger's Feng Shui table and asked plenty of questions.

"Most of them did not know anything about it," says Keplinger, a certified Feng Shui professional and owner of Feng Shui Design - Ohio. "If you're lifting weights, preparing for your career, keeping your body healthy and strong, you're expending and gently manipulating a certain kind of energy for a greater benefit. And it's the same thing with our environments. "When I explained that ... I got a lot of 'a-ha's' and a lot of phone numbers."

Using Feng Shui, Keplinger arranges objects, adjusts lighting and creates the perfect color scheme to transform negative energy into positive and bring an environment into perfect harmony.

To do this, she enlists the help of the Feng Shui mapping tool, called the Bagua. (That's pronounced bag- wah, like when a Dallas Cowboy player says: "The cops confiscated my bag. Wah!")

Keplinger says Feng Shui can be used to help us all to the ultimate goal.
World peace? No, a Browns championship.

Right now, Cleveland Browns Stadium is in need of some serious Fenging and Shui-ing.
"There is an overabundance of water element because it's right on Lake Erie," says Keplinger. "If you have a lot of water element, it can be draining and exhausting. From my perspective of watching this new team, they sort of lose a little bit of focus and some of their energy about that third quarter. They may start out with a really good lead and then just sort of fall apart."

Hmmm. All those lost leads were caused by too much of the water element. . . . And to think we all blamed it on a lack of the pass-rush element.

Also, orange and brown are "earth colors," says Keplinger. That combined with the actual earth of the field means the earth and water elements are taking up more space than even the Big Dawg element.

"It's all about balancing the elements," says Keplinger. "Pull down a couple of those Browns banners on the wall behind them and put up something with different colors. I would use green and red. Red is passion. That fires them up; that's fire. Green is wood and they need the support of the wood."

Keplinger's other insights:
The Browns should have a Power Feng Shui Day, and to help add more fire and wood elements, they could give away small, red wooden dog bones. "Hopefully they wouldn't end up all over the field," she says. "I thought about small wood pencils, Browns pencils, then I realized that kids might stab each other's eyes out." The kids . . . and the Steelers fans.

According to the Bagua, the Dawg Pound is in the perfect place, in the east end zone, "because it's in the creativity area of the Stadium." (Anyone who has seen Dawg Pounders sneak in booze - in hollowed-out binoculars, fake radios and underwear - can testify to that creativity.)

It's time to stop the Art Modell bashing. "We have to get beyond that," she says. "If we continue to pull from the memory of that negative energy, that's actually hindering our ability to turn it into positive energy." We'll think about that one.

Feng Shui can also be used to sabotage an opponent, Keplinger says (although she seems hesitant to abuse the power of the Bagua).

"If the visitors locker room were a pink color, that has scientifically been proven to reduce violence and muscle strength," Keplinger says a bit mischievously.

Hmmm . . . fans can see it now: The undefeated Browns charge on the field, foaming at the mouth. And here come Bill Cowher and the Steelers . . .

Skipping and holding hands.

That should be enough to schway, er, sway, anyone.

© 2003. Used with permission.