Jim Brown was an Amazing All-Around Athlete
By James Rodrigues
When you watched Jim Brown run with the football, you got
the feeling he was doing something easy. His feet never seemed
to leave the ground. His 6’2”, 230-pound frame was always
perfectly balanced. Potential tacklers would hit him and fall off.
When he’d break into the open field, although he didn’t “look
fast,” rarely did anyone catch him from behind.
His eight-year career with the Cleveland Browns ended with a surprise announcement that he was retiring from football to concentrate on acting. During his football days, Brown piled up 12,312 yards and averaged an eye-popping 5.2 yards every time he carried the ball.
But football was only a fraction of what Jim Brown could do or might have done. In Ralph Hickok’s book “Sports Champions” he writes, “As a teenager, Jim Brown turned down an offer to play baseball in the New York Yankee organization and after graduating from Syracuse University, he turned down $150,000 to become a professional fighter.
“While in high school he once jogged over from a pre-game lacrosse practice to win the high jump in a track meet. In his senior year in high school in Manhasset, New York, he averaged 38 points per game in basketball and 14.9 yard per carry as a football player. He was All-American in both lacrosse and football, and he also started at center in basketball for three years at Syracuse. In his last regular season football game he scored 43 points against Colgate.”
My memory of a 1960s magazine story about Jim Brown still haunts me. A writer went on assignment to visit with Brown and discover how good an all-around athlete the Cleveland Brown star really was. The writer had always been a strong basketball player and an excellent tennis player.
Brown and the writer decided to play some “one-on-one to ten baskets.” Brown lackadaisically allowed the writer to get an eight-hoop lead. Then the ex-Syracuse star stole the basketball and ran off ten straight baskets to win the game.
Brown’s victory in basketball came as no big surprise. In basketball Brown had big time “game,” but the challenge of playing tennis against the writer was another story. Brown had never played tennis and the writer was an expert at the complicated game. At first the writer’s expertise showed and he was able to defeat Brown. But after a few days of competition the ex-Cleveland fullback had begun to master a game that normally takes years to learn.
Soon the writer could “read the writing on the wall.” The world’s greatest athlete would soon do the impossible and with less than a week of experience beat him at a game he had played his entire life. Before that could happen the writer humbly packed up his things and went home to write his story.