NFL legend Jim Brown has reportedly passed away at his Los Angeles home on Thursday night at the age of 87.
His passing was confirmed by his family on Instagram on Friday. After receiving all-American accolades in football and lacrosse at Syracuse University, Brown played for the Browns from 1957 to 1965 and contributed to Cleveland winning the 1964 National Football League title.
Whenever he wasn’t rushing over defenders or slamming them with a stiff arm, he dragged them. When he wasn’t sweeping around ends and outrunning them, he avoided them with his footwork. Despite playing with a broken toe and a sprained wrist in consecutive seasons, he never missed a game and broke through defensive lines in 118 straight regular-season contests.
“All you can do is grab, hold, hang on and wait for help,” Sam Huff, the Hall of Fame middle linebacker for the Giants and the Washington team now known as the Commanders, once told Time magazine.
A six-person panel of football experts assembled by The Associated Press in 1999 selected Brown as the sport’s finest player of the 20th century.
He was ranked No. 2 all-time in a 2010 NFL Films panel of 85 experts, trailing only wide receiver Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers. He was admitted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Lacrosse Hall of Fame, and the College Football Hall of Fame, all of which happened between 1971 and 1995.
When Brown shocked the football world by retiring to pursue an acting career in the summer of 1966, he was still in excellent shape and barely 30 years old. He was scheduled to join the Browns training camp after taking part in the English filming of the World War II drama “The Dirty Dozen,” which was shot in the same year as his appearance in the 1964 western “Rio Conchos.”
But bad weather made it take longer to finish the filming. When he informed Browns owner Art Modell that he would be arriving late, Modell threatened to punish him for each day he skipped training camp. Faced with the danger, Brown arranged a press conference to declare his retirement from professional football.
Brown’s personal life was troubled. At a period when powerful men like athletes, entertainers, and politicians were typically not held accountable for alleged crimes against women, he was detained more than half a dozen times, most often after women accused him of acting violently. Brown was never found guilty of a serious offence.
His accusers declined to testify in some cases, while juries cleared him in others. In 1965, an 18-year-old woman testified that Brown had raped her at a Cleveland motel, leading to the first charge against him. In a jury trial, Brown vehemently rejected the charge and was found not guilty. The woman filed a civil paternity lawsuit a year later, alleging that Brown was the father of her infant daughter. The
