Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown, the unstoppable running back who retired at the height of his glittering career to become an actor as well as a prominent civil rights activist in the 1960s, has died. He was 87 years old.
A spokeswoman for Brown’s family said he passed away peacefully at his Los Angeles home on Thursday evening with his wife, Monique, by his side.
One of the greatest players in football history and one of the game’s first superstars, Brown was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1965 and broke the league’s record books in a short career from 1957 to 1965.
Brown led the Cleveland Browns to their last NFL title in 1964 before retiring in his prime after the 1965 season to pursue acting. He appeared in over 30 movies, including “Any Given Sunday” and “The Dirty Dozen.”
An unstoppable runner blessed with power, speed and stamina, Brown’s arrival sparked the game’s growing popularity on television.
As black Americans fought for equality, Brown used her platform and her voice to advance their cause.
In 1967, Brown organized a meeting in Cleveland of the nation’s top black athletes, including Bill Russell and Lew Alcindor, who later became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to support boxer Muhammad Ali’s fight against the war in Vietnam.
Later, he worked to combat gang violence in Los Angeles and founded Amer-I-Can, a program to help disadvantaged inner-city youth and ex-convicts.
On the field, there was no one like Brown, who would blast would-be tacklers, refusing to let a man put him down before sprinting away from linebackers and defensive backs. He was also famous for using a stiff arm to take out defenders in the open field or push them back like they were rag dolls.
“My arms were like my protectors and my weapons,” Brown said during an interview with NFL Films.
Indeed, Brown was unlike any back before him, and some believe there has never been anyone better than Cleveland’s incomparable No. 32. At 6ft 2in and 230lbs, he was dominant, relentless and ruthless, his flagship rolls featuring around and through opponents, fighting for every yard, dragging down multiple defenders or finding holes where none seemed to exist.
After Brown was tackled, he slowly got up and came back even more slowly towards the huddle – then dominated the defense when he received the ball again.
Off the court, Brown was a controversial figure.
While he had a soft spot for those in need and his generosity changed lives, he was also arrested half a dozen times, mostly for hitting women.
In June 1999, Brown’s wife, Monique, called 911, saying Brown had smashed her car with a shovel and threatened to kill her. During the trial, Monique Brown recanted. Jim Brown was acquitted of a domestic threatening charge but convicted of vandalism. The Los Angeles judge sentenced Brown to six months in prison for refusing to take domestic violence counseling.
He also feuded with Browns coach Paul Brown and later team management, despite playing his entire career in Cleveland.
When his playing days came to an end, Brown left for Hollywood and eventually settled there. Brown informed Cleveland coach Blanton Collier of his retirement while the team was in training camp and he was filming “The Dirty Dozen” in England.
Among his films were “100 Rifles”, “Mars Attacks!” Spike Lee’s “He Got Game”, Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday” and the satire “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka”, in which he parodied the blaxploitation genre. In 2002, Brown was the subject of Lee’s HBO documentary “Jim Brown: All-American.”
In recent years, Brown’s relationship with the Browns was inconsistent. He served as an advisor to owner Randy Lerner and was hired to advise the team’s younger players. However, in 2010, Brown parted ways with the team after having his role reduced by new team president Mike Holmgren. Brown felt offended by the perceived demotion – when the club unveiled a “Ring of Honor” inside their city center stadium, Brown did not attend the ceremony in protest.
Brown was an eight-time All-Pro and went to the Pro Bowl in each of his nine years in the league. When Brown left the game at age 30, he held league records for yards (12,312) and touchdowns (126).
And despite his murderous style, Browns never missed a game, playing 118 straight.
“He told me, ‘Make sure when someone attacks you, they remember how much it hurts,'” Hall of Fame tight end John Mackey said. philosophy and I have always followed this advice.”
A two-sport star at Syracuse – some say he’s the best lacrosse player in NCAA history – Brown endured countless racist taunts while playing in the virtually all-white school at the era. Still, he was an All-American in both sports, leading the nation in scoring and a literate in basketball.
Brown was the sixth overall pick in the 1957 draft, joining a team that regularly played for the title. He was the Offensive Rookie of the Year that season.
Running behind an offensive line with Hall of Fame tackles Lou Groza and Mike McCormack, Brown set a league mark with 1,527 yards and scored 17 touchdowns en route to the league’s Most Outstanding Player award – a precursor to MVP – in 1958. Over the next three seasons, he never ran for less than 1,257 yards before collecting just 996 in 1962.
He led the NFL in rushing eight times, gaining a career-best 1,863 yards in 1963. He averaged 104 yards per game, scored 106 rushing touchdowns, and averaged an astonishing 5.2 yards per carry. A dangerous receiver as well, Brown finished with 262 catches for 2,499 yards and 20 more touchdowns.
“I’ve said it many times, and I always will say, Jim Brown is the best,” Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers once said, “and he’ll still be the best long after all his records will have been defeated.”
Packers great Paul Hornung felt Brown was unstoppable.
“Give me Jim Brown on anybody – anything,” he said.
Brown’s number 32 was retired by the Browns in 1971, the same year he entered the Hall of Fame. But he rarely visited Cleveland in the 1970s and 1980s. He and Cleveland owner Art Modell were at odds over his sudden retirement; the two later corrected their differences and remained good friends.
Brown supported Modell’s decision to move the franchise from Cleveland to Baltimore in 1995. It was both a reflection of his loyalty to Modell and another sign of his fierce independence. Brown was one of the few former Browns players who wasn’t mad at Modell for moving the team.
Many modern players couldn’t appreciate Brown or his impact on American sports.
“They grew up in a different time,” former Browns coach Romeo Crennel said. “He’s one of the greatest players in NFL history and what he was able to accomplish in his time was great. I don’t know if anyone could do what he did, like he did it, in the circumstances that he had to operate and the things that he had to endure. And for him, that’s something not many guys are able to appreciate either.
Born February 17, 1936, in St. Simons, Georgia, Brown was a multi-sport star at Manhasset High School on Long Island. He averaged 14.9 yards per carry in football and once scored 55 points in a game.
Brown then took up golf, and while playing with Jack Nicklaus in the 1963 Cleveland Pro-Am, he shot a 79.
Brown is survived by his second wife, Monique, and their child. He divorced after 13 years of marriage from Sue Brown, with whom he had three children.