Jim Brown

1936–2023 · 87 years Tier II

Quit at 30 in top form and never played another down

Portrait of Jim Brown — Kahn's Weiners — 1961 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

His father was a professional boxer who did not stay. He was raised on St Simons Island by his grandmother, in a place he said later that racism never reached him directly, and at eight he followed his mother north to Manhasset on Long Island, where she worked as a domestic. He took 13 varsity letters in five sports there, led Nassau County in football scoring twice and in basketball scoring twice, and still holds the county record at 38.1 points a game. Syracuse admitted him only because a Manhasset lacrosse man and Syracuse alumnus named Kenneth Molloy pushed for it — the university, Molloy said, did not want Black athletes — and when the promised scholarship failed to materialize, Molloy paid for his first year himself.

Cleveland took him sixth overall in 1957, and for nine seasons he was the best thing on any field he stood on: 12,312 rushing yards, 106 rushing touchdowns, 5.2 yards a carry, and 104.3 yards a game, which nobody else has averaged across a career. He led the league in rushing eight times in nine years, won three most valuable player awards and the 1964 championship, made the Pro Bowl every season, and never missed a game. Then he stopped. He was in England shooting The Dirty Dozen in July 1966 when Art Modell threatened to fine him for missing camp, and he announced his retirement at 30 rather than come back. He founded the Black Economic Union that same year, went to the Cleveland Summit for Muhammad Ali in 1967, and started Amer-I-Can in 1988.

The other record is longer. In June 1965 he was arrested for assault and battery against an 18-year-old woman in a Cleveland motel room, and acquitted. In 1968 he was charged with assault with intent to commit murder after the model Eva Bohn-Chin was found below his second-floor balcony, and the charge was dropped when she declined to cooperate, though he paid 300 dollars for hitting a deputy. In 1975 he was convicted of misdemeanor battery for beating and choking a golf partner. A 1985 rape charge was dismissed, and a 1986 assault arrest went nowhere. In 1999 he was convicted of vandalism for taking a shovel to his wife's car, refused the terms, and served three months in 2002. He was never convicted of a major crime. In most cases the women stopped cooperating after calling the police.

He died at his Los Angeles home on May 18, 2023, at 87, of natural causes, with his wife Monique beside him. He is in the Pro Football, College Football and National Lacrosse halls of fame, ESPN named him the best college football player ever, Cleveland put a statue outside the stadium in 2016, and since 2022 the league's rushing leader has taken an award with his name on it. The 12,312 yards were passed long ago. The 104.3 a game have not been. In 2022 several women told the documentary series Secrets of Playboy that he had raped and assaulted them at the Playboy Mansion decades earlier, in years when men of his standing were rarely asked about it.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

Jim Brown's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

Negro Industrial and Economic Union company
Later the Black Economic Union, backed in part by the Ford Foundation 1966
The Dirty Dozen film
He retired from football rather than leave the set 1967
Ice Station Zebra film
A Marine captain, and one of the roles that made him an action lead 1968
100 Rifles film
Billed above Raquel Welch and Burt Reynolds, with the first interracial love scene in a major Hollywood film 1969
Amer-I-Can Foundation company
Life-skills work with gang members and prisoners, and the Watts truce 1988

Life in brief

with age at each point

1944 aged ~8 Leaves St Simons Island for Manhasset, New York, at eight His mother had gone ahead to work as a domestic.
1953 aged ~17 Averages 38.1 points a game, still the Nassau County basketball record
1956 aged ~20 Unanimous All-American at Syracuse and fifth in the Heisman voting As a freshman he had been housed apart from his teammates and moved off his natural position.
1957 aged ~21 Drafted sixth overall by Cleveland and named rookie of the year
December 27, 1964 aged 28 Runs for 114 yards in the NFL championship game
July 1966 aged 30 Retires at 30 rather than leave the set of The Dirty Dozen Art Modell had threatened 1,500 dollars a week in fines for missing camp.
1967 aged ~31 Joins the Cleveland Summit in support of Muhammad Ali's draft refusal Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Mayor Carl Stokes were in the room.
1999 aged ~63 Convicted of vandalizing his wife's car with a shovel He ignored the terms of his sentence and served three months in 2002.
May 18, 2023 aged 87 Dies at his home in Los Angeles at 87