RIP Jim Brown | The Boneyard

RIP Jim Brown

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First in with something, something, lacrosse, blah, blah, blah.
 
So famous he had an undershirt named after him
 
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He went to Cuse, tho.
 
Jim Brown on returning to football at 48. Always plain spoken and direct to the point. RIP to a legend, one of the very few HoF players from another generation who could succeed in pro sports today.

 
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salvagedsam said:
Great player but a long way from being a great person.
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Football great, film, civil rights but his violent episodes with women are numerous, just read wiki. Too much to be a coincidence. So yes that part does tarnish his legacy.
 
Dove said:
He went to Cuse, tho.
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Obviously, a brilliant move on his part. The start of a diverse and gifted life. He was incredible. When I went SU in the mid to late 70's they used to show his old game films. He was an absolute terror for a defender.
 
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He came on the scene for me as sports mad preteen .
He had the size of a linebacker of the day with the acceleration of smaller man a lethal combination.
There were big runners before him and fast runners but the combination of both was rare .
I played daily against our first team All State fullback who was 180 lbs l I outweighed him by 30 lbs . Yet getting hit by a strong guy who is approaching you at full speed is jarring . Guys that had to tackle him who pretty much weighted the same needed recovery time .
 
salvagedsam said:
Great player but a long way from being a great person.
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When you judge others my friend, especially upon that person's death, you judge yourself. You wouldn't have dared to judge Jim Brown to his face.

We all make mistakes in our life. Jim Brown was very open about the mistakes he made and sincerely expressed his regrets. I admire what Jim Brown did in his life and how he tried to make the world a better place through his civil rights work and helping those in need. He was a commissioned Captain in the Army Reserves, yet stood in opposition to the Vietnam War and at the time and I disagreed with that position. But he was right and I was wrong. He spoke his mind and lived his life on his own terms.

As to football and LaCrosse, he was peerless.
 
Echo Hawk said:
When you judge others my friend, especially upon that person's death, you judge yourself. You wouldn't have dared to judge Jim Brown to his face.

We all make mistakes in our life. Jim Brown was very open about the mistakes he made and sincerely expressed his regrets. I admire what Jim Brown did in his life and how he tried to make the world a better place through his civil rights work and helping those in need. He was a commissioned Captain in the Army Reserves, yet stood in opposition to the Vietnam War and at the time and I disagreed with that position. But he was right and I was wrong. He spoke his mind and lived his life on his own terms.

As to football and LaCrosse, he was peerless.
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This is not about judgement, it’s just acknowledging what he did that was very bad. He was arrested 6 times for striking women, and he admitted to “anger problems”, so while I agree with what you wrote about him, that part is not insignificant. And violence against women was less condemned and publicized back then.
 
Wasn't Brown also basketball? Team Capt? Syracuse really did have it going in those years with Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, (Jim Nance?), Floyd Little, Larry Csonka, and probably others that slip my mind this morning. Jim Brown vs Sam Huff was something I looked forward to bigtime. Never purposely went out of bounds. Got up slow after every play as mentioned before, so opponents wouldn't know when he actually was dinged. 1960's players weren't the type of trained athletes we have today, but there were some real tough hombres, Jim Brown, Deacon Jones, Dick Butkus, ...I remember Cardinal safety Larry Wilson playing with 2 broken arms. The 1960's are now really passing into history, just like the old Hollywood stars.
 
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Remember that part of Sleepless in Seattle when they're talking about movies that make you cry. And for the guys it was Jim at the climax of The Dirty Dozen.

 
Like Bill Russell, the GOAT from a different era
 
I remember raking leaves with my father on Sunday afternoons with a transistor radio on the porch. That was the days of the old Browns Municipal Stadium which held over 100,000 seats and if the games weren't sold out they were blacked out on local television. We'd stop raking and listen to the announcer when Jim Brown was taking off on a huge gain. Some folks would drive to PA about 1.5 hours to rent a motel room to watch the games.
 
Two best football players to me were always Lawrence Taylor and Jim Brown. I only got to see one of them. They both were so dominant they completely changed how the sport was played.

I was obsessed with sports since I was a kid. The two book reports I remember doing were on two athletes. OJ and Jim Brown. Both had crazy childhoods that they rose from to conquer everything.

OJ was larger than life and the world was his oyster. OJ is a sociopath.

Jim Brown, insane childhood fraught with racism and what turned into black empowerment. He was so dominant in lacrosse they changed the rules of the sport because of him (Gary Gait was still the best IMO) Was so good in football he changed the way that sport was played before he conquered it and retired as a young man. Kicked butt in every single sport he ever played.

Acted his butt off in the Dirty Dozen and fought side by side with the Civil Rights leaders when it all mattered and he was the guy people listened to. When he was an older man, he brokered peace between the Bloods and the Crips. The guy was a giant. His track record with women, not good. Not 100% I can separate truth from fiction but at best it wasn't so good IMO.

Complicated giant and uniquely an American story. He's up there with Muhammad Ali in terms of legends and is right there for greatest athlete of all time.
 
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