by Brown wasted on time making an immediate impact as a Cleveland Brown. In just his ninth professional game he went for a career high 237 yards against the Los Angeles Rams. A team Cleveland fans knew well as they used to be the Cleveland Rams before leaving in 1945 after winning the AAFC Championship. The 237 yards set an NFL single-game record that went unsurpassed for 14 years. It was also a rookie record that stood until Adrian Peterson broke it in 2007 with a single game total of 296 yards against San Diego Chargers.
During his time with the Cleveland Brown’s, they won the NFL championship in 1964, and were runners-up in 1957 and 1965. In the 1964 championship game, Brown rushed 27 times for 114 yards and caught 3 passes for 37 in the win. A championship that stood as the cities last one until the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Championship in 2016 to end the 52-year draught.
Brown was in the prime of is career but many off the field issues and distractions caused much turmoil for the young man as well. Many teammates and fans blamed him for the firing of Paul Brown once Art Model bought the team, and this was right in the middle of the Civil Rights movement and Brown caused controversy and strife for Paul Brown who was fired from the team in 1963 that he helped create.
Once Brown started to taste his first bit of fame outside of the playing field, it was all over as he stepped away from the game forever. Jim Brown shockingly retired from professional football while on the set of, “The Dirty Dozen”. This new shook the world of sports and many fans and media members alike didn’t believe, figuring it was a power move for Brown. To his credit however, he held true to his word and never returned to play.
His sensational professional football career led to his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971. His football accomplishments at Syracuse garnered him a berth in the College Football Hall of Fame. Not only that, but because of what he did at Syracuse before turning pro, Brown also earned a spot in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
To this day in 2022, he currently holds NFL records for:
-most games with 24 or more points in a career (6)
- highest career touchdowns per game average (1.068)
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most career games with three or more touchdowns (14)
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most games with four or more touchdowns in a career (6)
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most seasons leading the league in rushing attempts (6)
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most seasons leading the league in rushing yards (8)
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highest career rushing yards-per-game average (104.3)
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most seasons leading the league in touchdowns (5)
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most seasons leading the league in yards from scrimmage (6)
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highest average yards from scrimmage per game in a career (125.52)
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most seasons leading the league in combined net yards (5).
Some of those records can be broken, most will never be touched! The amazing thing is as time grew longer, the legend of Jim Brown got even bigger because no one came close to matching what he did in the short time it took him to do it. In 2002, The Sporting News selected him as the greatest football player of all time. On November 4, 2010, Brown was chosen by NFL Network’s NFL Films production The Top 100: NFL’s Greatest Players as the second-greatest player in NFL history, behind only Jerry Rice. In November 2019, he was selected as one of the twelve running backs on the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. On January 13, 2020, Brown was named the greatest college football player of all time by ESPN, during a ceremony at the College Football Playoff National Championship Game celebrating the 150th anniversary of college football.
Once out of football, he continued to film movies and do everything he could to help grow his rising star in Hollywood even further. Some choices however, we quite controversial as questioned by many. One of which was his decision to pose nude for the September 1974 issue of Playgirl magazine, and is one of the rare celebrities to allow full-frontal nude pictures to be used.
When not posing for magazines, he did his best to try and stay around sports where he could, but the problem was he wasn’t very good. In 1965, Brown was the first black televised boxing announcer when he announced a televised boxing match in the United States, for the Terrell–Chuvalo fight. He didn’t get many boxing gigs after that. He would eventually try his hand at announcing MMA but it didn’t go much better as he was let go after UFC 6.
In 1983, 17 years after retiring from professional football, Brown teased wishful fans with the crazy notion of coming out of retirement to play for the Los Angeles Raiders when it appeared that Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris would break Brown’s all-time rushing record. Brown didn’t like Harris and said he was the style of a coward, running away from tacklers while Brown went right at them. Eventually, Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears broke the record on October 7, 1984, with Brown having ended thoughts of a comeback as it was no longer threatened by Franco Harris.
When a career in announcing and movies didn’t pan out, he tried various other junctures such as in 1988 when he founded the Amer-I-Can Program. He currently works with juveniles caught up in the gang scene in Los Angeles and Cleveland through this Amer-I-Can program. t is a life-management skills organization that operates in inner cities and prisons. He is also a part-owner of the New York Lizards of Major League Lacrosse, joining a group of investors in the purchase of the team in 2012.
In 2008 while Brown was serving as an executive advisor to the Browns, he assisted to build relationships with the team’s players and to further enhance the NFL’s wide range of sponsored programs through the team’s player programs department.
While all of this splendid, the problem remains that no matter what good Brown did on and off the field, it was some of his antic, and crime that fans can never allow themselves to forget. His ex wife Sunee Jones filed for divorce in 1968 and charged him with “gross neglect.” Together they had three children, twins Kim and Kevin , and a son, James Jr.
Shortly before splitting with his wife, In 1965, Brown was arrested in his hotel room for assault and battery against an 18-year-old named Brenda Ayres. A year later, he fought paternity allegations that he fathered Brenda Ayres’ child.
His issues with women didn’t stop there, as in 968, Brown was charged with assault with intent to commit murder after model Eva Bohn-Chin was found beneath the balcony of Brown’s second-floor apartment. Yes, that’s right, he dangled a woman from her feet from the second floor of the balcony. Brown was also ordered to pay a $300 fine for striking a deputy sheriff involved in the investigation during the incident. Later, Jim Brown would claim that it was all a big misunderstanding.
His issues with the law didn’t stop at just abusing women however, in 1970, Brown was found not guilty of assault and battery, the charges stemming from a road-rage incident that had occurred in 1969. He may been found “not guilty”, but clearly something happened. In 1975, Brown was convicted of misdemeanor battery for beating and choking his golfing partner, Frank Snow. He was sentenced to one day in jail, two years’ probation, and a fine of $500.
In 1985, Brown was charged with raping a 33-year-old woman. In 1986, Brown was arrested for assaulting his fiancée Debra Clark. In 1999, Brown was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats toward his wife. Later that year, he was found guilty of vandalism for smashing his wife’s car with a shovel. He was sentenced to three years’ probation, one year of domestic violence counseling, and 400 hours of community service or 40 hours on a work crew along with a $1,800 fine. Brown ignored the terms of his sentence and in 2000 was sentenced to six months in jail, which he began serving in 2002 after refusing the court-ordered counseling and community service.
He advised Ohio State standout tailback Maurice Claret to leave Ohio State after just one year and try to turn pro, bucking the entire NCAA and NFL system. Clarett never recovered from the horrible guidance Jim Brown gave him, and ended up being a complete washout and spent time in prison as his own life spun out of control.
How fans who saw him play, teammates who played with him and everyone who has studied the aura of Jim Brown choose to judge him, is this own decision to make. No matter what he did off the field, no one can ever change what he did on it. It truly was the stuff of legend and damn near folklore.
By the time was done with the Browns, the list of accolades was a mile and half long.
Here are just a few of the stats and accomplishments that jumped off the page the most to me when I started breaking down his dynamic on field football career.
In just 9 seasons of professional football, Brown ran for 12,312 career yards, for an average of 1,368 yards a season when they were only playing 12 games per year.
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