Jim Brown

Jim Brown in 1959

James Nathaniel Brown (February 17, 1936 – May 18, 2023) was a retired American professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor and social activist. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. He is universally acclaimed as one of the best running backs of all time, and in 2002 was named by The Sporting News as the greatest professional football player ever. Sportswriter Bert Randolph Sugar named Brown #1 in his book The Greatest Athletes of All Time.

About

• He told me, 'Make sure when anyone tackles you, he remembers how much it hurts.' He lived by that philosophy and I always followed that advice.
  • John Mackey (football player) 1999. Cambridge Encyclopedia vol. 39

• Jimmy Brown made headlines recently for his off-the-wall talk of an NFL comeback at 47. That's a shame because people who never saw Jimmy Brown in his prime will think of him only as a dotty middle-aged man on a colossal ego trip.
  • Miami Herald November 25, 1983