Jim Brown dead at 87

[Chandler#81]

Considered the Greatest RB of all time

 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Chandler#81

[Rico]

Arguably the GOAT period.

 

RIP.

[Gregg]

RIP. 

[Just Jack]

Saw him at a Bills game years ago when they played the Browns.  I think I have a picture, I'll have to find it later tonight. 

 

[ChevyVanMiller]

Quite possibly the greatest athlete of all-time.

 

RIP

 

From his Wiki: Perhaps more impressive was his success as a multisport athlete. In addition to his football accomplishments, he excelled in basketball, track, and especially lacrosse. As a sophomore, he was the second-leading scorer for the basketball team (15 ppg), and earned a letter on the track team. In 1955, he finished in fifth place in the National Championship decathlon.[15] His junior year, he averaged 11.3 points in basketball, and was named a second-team All-American in lacrosse. His senior year, he was named a first-team All-American in lacrosse (43 goals in 10 games to rank second in scoring nationally). Brown was so dominant in the game, that lacrosse rules were changed requiring a lacrosse player to keep their stick in constant motion when carrying the ball (instead of holding it close to his body).[16][17] There is currently no rule in lacrosse that requires a player to keep his stick in motion. He is in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame.[18] The JMA Wireless Dome has an 800 square-foot tapestry depicting Brown in football and lacrosse uniforms with the words "Greatest Player Ever".[19]

Edited May 19, 2023 by ChevyVanMiller

[John from Riverside]

😕

[Chris from Rochester]

I never saw him play but my dad would tell me stories of him carrying defenders into the endzone. RIP

[Chandler#81]

3 minutes ago, Rico said:

Arguably the GOAT period.

 

RIP.

Agreed. Some people claim he was the greatest ever Lacrosse player. Sterling collegiate career in both sports at Syracuse.

 

[May Day 10]

 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

Ran through defenders.  You might dispute 'greatest' RB, I doubt you could dispute 'toughest' RB.

[Beast]

One powerful man.

 

RIP

[Tiberius]

From the Washington Post: 

 

Away from the playing field, however, Mr. Brown could be a complex, contradictory and troubled man. His career began at the dawn of the civil rights movement, and he was acutely aware of the double standards that prevailed in sports and society.

Even when he was named NFL rookie of the year in 1957, he wasn’t always allowed to stay at the same hotels or dine in the same restaurants as his White teammates. Mr. Brown became something of a symbolic figure early in his career, particularly when his team played Washington’s NFL franchise, whose owner, George Preston Marshall, stubbornly refused to put a Black player on the roster until 1962.

Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich mocked Marshall by noting that Mr. Brown and other African Americans were born “ineligible” to play for the Redskins. In 1960, Povich equated Mr. Brown’s exploits on the gridiron with advances in the civil rights movement, writing that the player “integrated the Redskins’ goal linewith more than deliberate speed, perhaps exceeding the famous Supreme Court decree. Brown fled 25 yards like a man in an uncommon hurry and the Redskins’ goal line, at least, became interracial.”

[Chandler#81]

Shocked the sports world by retiring immediately following his 9th season. The next year, he was in the limelight again as a member of The Dirty Dozen with Lee Marvin, running across roof tops, dropping grenades onto high ranking Nazis.🤣👍

[machine gun kelly]

I’m sorry to see him go, but hopefully he’s at peace.  He did live a long, full life.

[BillsPride12]

Wow I guess I didn't realize he was that old now...he was Beast Mode before there was Beast Mode.  The original badass RB

[Donuts and Doritos]

Great player. Incredible person. Absolute legend. RIP 🙏

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Donuts and Doritos

[K-9]

Never missed a game. RIP Jim Brown. 

[Tiberius]

Mr. Brown’s private life was tumultuous. In his 1989 memoir, “Out of Bounds,” he revealed that he often attended sex parties and had extramarital affairs. He was arrested at least seven times for assault, usually against women, including a 1968 incident in which he was accused of throwing a girlfriend off a second-story balcony.

 

His first marriage, to Sue James, ended in divorce in 1972. In 2002, he spent nearly four months in jail for using a shovel to shatter the windows of a car belonging to his second wife, Monique Gunthorp Brown, who was almost 40 years younger than Mr. Brown. They remained married after his release.

[Shaw66]

Oh, man, I could write a book about Jim Brown.  Wait.  People have.  And I've read some of them. 

 

I was a Jim Brown fan as a kid.   No Bills in the late 50s, the Browns were on TV every week.  His rookie year was the first pro football season I could remember - I was ten.  

 

He was a complicated man.  He was among the racial pioneers in pro sports.   He was just too good to ignore, like Mays and Robinson and Aaron, and Russell.  His talent was enormous.   He didn't back down on the field, or in his life.   He was outspoken and demanding when it came to race.   He was a product of a tough environment for a child, and he spent his life working to change the world black and poor kids faced.  He was his own man, even when it got him in trouble.  

 

One Night in Miami is a movie about Brown, Sam Cooke, Malcolm X, and Cassius Clay together the night Clay won the title for the first time.  Apparently, the four DID spend the night together, but what they said or did isn't very well known.  As I understand it, what happens in the movie is largely fiction, but simply the idea if great, that these four men, activists in their own right and at different stages in their respective careers, actually hung out together and talked about the world they faced.

 

Watch a few highlights as a final goodbye to a great one.  I just did.  The guy played 9 seasons, 12 or 14 games per season, and has more 5+++ highlights than anyone you've ever seen.  Power, balance, speed.   

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Shaw66

[DaBillsFanSince1973]

r.i.p., Sir