One adjective describes everything about Jim Brown, who died at the age of 87: Terrible. He was intimidating on the football field, in action movies, as a civil rights activist and proud supporter of economic self-sufficiency for African Americans, and less happily, in his violence against women.
He built his reputation on American football, in high school, then at Syracuse University and the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. He is arguably the greatest running back in the professional game. He led the league in eight of the nine seasons he played from 1957-65, averaging more than 100 yards per game, still an all-time record. His strength allows him to cut through tacklers, and his foot speed allows him to get around them. One legendary defenseman, Sam Huff, described trying to deal with Brown: “All you can do is grab, grab, hang on and wait for help.”
Comparable to Babe Ruth in baseball or Don Bradman in cricket, these two athletes were better than anyone of their generation. In a 2010 poll of 85 NFL personalities, Brown was named the second-best player ever, behind only Jerry Rice, an unrivaled pass-catcher (that came later). He was also a college star in lacrosse, basketball and track and field.
Brown, who gave up the sport at age 30, is still in his prime.he attended in london dirty dozen When filming going into the NFL preseason. Browns owner Art Modell, a football legend in his own right, threatened to fine his star for not showing up to practice every day. That was the last time Jim Brown was seen on the grill.
But not the movie public.The former football player, who was 100 rifles and ice station zebra, A career-changing start to the all-action films that continued to be popular in the 70s and 80s, witness. One reviewer pointedly noted that “Brown does not display a wider range of emotions on screen than a postbox,” but added that he didn’t demean himself by playing “a hilarious scapegoat.” Feminist writer Gloria Steinem thought he could be “Black John Wayne”. . . a little bit of Malcolm X”. He once told her: “I don’t want to play black characters. Just cool, tough modern men who are also black. And not always the nice guy. “
His relationship with boxer Muhammad Ali, another free-thinking black athlete, had already demonstrated this independence. They met in 1964, when heavyweight Malcolm X and singer Sam Cooke had replaced Sonny Liston as world champion. Three years later, Brown convened what became known as the Ali Summit in Cleveland, bringing together other prominent black athletes to advise Ali, who was stripped of his title for refusing to be drafted at the height of the Vietnam War.
Among them were basketball stars Bill Russell and Lu Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). They were successful in strengthening the boxer’s spine if it did need strengthening. Not only that, but they also openly supported Ali, thus encouraging other athletes to take a stand on issues of racial awareness regardless of color.
Brown established job creation mechanisms in his adopted home to help build economic strength in the black community. This reflects his belief that monetary self-sufficiency can achieve more than the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. (Brown said he admired King, but added: “I can’t believe that freedom can be won through love.”) He later established a foundation in Los Angeles to help gang members and prisoners survive in society.
But the athlete also had a dark side, notably his multiple arrests for assaulting women, including his second wife, Monique, which led to him spending four months in prison in 2002. His own memoirs don’t paint a pretty picture. Perhaps emulating basketball’s Wilt Chamberlain, who infamously claimed to have had sex with 20,000 women, Brown confessed at numerous sex parties and was known for bragging about his sexual prowess. Monique and five children were survived.
This life is a far cry from its humble origins, but perhaps it can be explained by it. He was born James Nathaniel Brown on February 17, 1936, on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia—now popular with tourists but once home to cotton plantations that used slave labor. His father, a boxer and gambler, abandoned the family shortly after, and he was raised by relatives before moving to New York to live with his mother at the age of 8. This is where his athletic career began—he felt that to be successful, he had to be intimidating.