A few days before Super Bowl X in 1976, several of the NFL’s biggest stars gathered for a private party at a Miami nightclub. Chuck Foreman, then a formidable running back for the Minnesota Vikings, remembers rubbing shoulders with big stars like Walter Payton and O.J.
He then spoke with their greatest running back, Jim Brown, who left the Cleveland Browns a decade ago. Foreman, who made his living rolling linebackers and cornerbacks, recalled he was intimidated. He grew up admiring Brown not only for his on-field prowess, but also for his willingness to fight for civil rights and stay out of the game at his peak.
“When I was a kid, there was Jim Brown, Jim Brown, and Jim Brown,” said Foreman, now 72. “He was bigger than most linemen and faster than most wide receivers. But he also retired of his own accord, especially as an outspoken black man at the time.”
Like many others, Foreman called him Mr. Brown. But as we talked, the young running back’s fears faded. Brown praised Foreman’s style of play and his success with the Vikings. He then gave Foreman advice that stuck with him ever since.
“‘Know when to get off,'” Foreman reportedly told Brown. “‘Don’t put your career in jeopardy more than two inches’.”
According to Foreman, Brown wasn’t just telling him to run smarter, he was telling him to think about his future and not sacrifice his body unnecessarily.
Although he didn’t say it himself, Brown, who died Friday at the age of 87, may have been talking about life outside of football. In a game where his injury rate is 100 percent, he’s rarely left the NFL voluntarily. Most of them suffer injuries that never heal and are forced out of the game when they no longer serve as coaches. People who retire when they want to retire often do so because the team isn’t interested in them anymore.
Brown was the opposite. He left the NFL after the 1965 season, his ninth time in the league and one of his best results. He ran for 1,544 yards, scored 17 rushing touchdowns, and caught 34 passes, four of which were scored. He was named the league’s Most Valuable Player for the first time since his second season.
His rushing record, notably 12,312 yards on the ground, was eventually broken by Peyton, Barry Sanders and Emmitt Smith. But Brown’s career lasted only nine years, and at a time when chop blocks and other dangerous tackles were allowed, he played mostly 14-game seasons, not 16- or 17-game seasons.his 104.3 rushing yards per game The average is still a league record.
He then left the scene, choosing to pursue a career making movies in Hollywood and making more money than Cleveland. His breaking point came while filming The Dirty Dozen. Brown told team owner Art Modell that he would be late for training camp. Model told Brown that he would fine him for each day he missed camp. Angered by this, Brown held a press conference to announce his retirement from the NFL.
By that point, Brown had accomplished more in football than many players in a long career, winning the league in 1964, winning three MVP awards, and owning an NFL career rush record. However, only a handful of them managed to make it to the top. John Elway and Peyton Manning won Super Bowls in their final seasons, but neither were in their prime. Sanders retired from the Detroit Lions at age 30 with just one playoff win.
Brown, on the other hand, is a sort of Mount Rushmore who helped redefine the power of athletes on and off the field by demanding that owners and coaches treat their players, especially black players, with respect. He was a tall running back.
“It could be argued that Wilt Chamberlain was a force of his own in basketball, but Jim Brown would have been the first professional football player to have such a presence and influence in modern times,” said America. says Michael McCambridge, author of The Game: An epic story of how professional football captivated the nation. “It was clear that Jim Brown was a player from a different generation with a different mindset.”
Players after him knew the difference.
“There’s no man who’s played a running back in the NFL who didn’t think of Jim Brown as an iconic legend on and off the field,” said one of the 10 running backs who surpassed Brown’s total rushing yards. One, Tony Dorsett, said: wrote on twitter.
‘You can’t underestimate the impact #JimBrown has had on @NFL,’ says Sanders also wrote on twitter.
Although exceptional on the field, Brown was far from perfect. He has been arrested more than six times, including on multiple charges of violence against women. He was never convicted of any serious crime.
But few could match Brown when it came to the sport that made him famous. Ernie Accorsi, the Browns’ general manager from 1985 to 1992, was in high school when he saw Brown play live against the Baltimore Colts in 1959. 5 touchdowns, 178 yards Beating the defending champion felt like watching Babe Ruth in his prime for Accorsi.
A few years later, Accorsi worked in the Colts’ front office alongside Dick Szymanski, who was Baltimore’s middle linebacker in that 1959 game. Szymanski told Accorsi that then-Colts head coach Weeb Eubank had advised him that Brown was betraying his ideas. Play: When Brown aligned with his right hand in the dirt, he was running right and vice versa.
Brown continued to attack Szymanski, and Eubank told Szymanski in the post-game locker room that he didn’t like thinking about what Brown’s rushing total would have been if he hadn’t tipped him.
“Coach, I knew exactly where he was going, but I couldn’t catch him or tackle him,” Szymanski replied.
Few in Brown’s illustrious career could do that.
