Jim Brown, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, has died at 87
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Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown, the unstoppable running back who retired at the peak of his brilliant career to become an actor as well as a prominent civil rights advocate during the 1960s, has died. He was 87. A spokeswoman for Brown’s family said he passed away peacefully in his Los Angeles home on Thursday night with his wife, Monique, by his side.
One of the greatest players in football history and one of the game’s first superstars, Brown was chosen the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1965 and shattered the league’s record books in a short career spanning 1957-65. Brown led the Cleveland Browns to their last NFL title in 1964 before retiring in his prime after the ’65 season to become an actor. He appeared in more than 30 films, including “Any Given Sunday” and “The Dirty Dozen.”
An unstoppable runner with power, speed and endurance, Brown’s arrival sparked the game’s burgeoning popularity on television. As Black Americans fought for equality, Brown used his platform and voice to advance their cause. In 1967, Brown organized a meeting in Cleveland of the nation’s top Black athletes, including Bill Russell and Lew Alcindor, who later became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to support boxer Muhammad Ali’s fight against the war in Vietnam.
In later years, he worked to curb gang violence in LA and founded Amer-I-Can, a program to help disadvantaged inner-city youth and ex-convicts. On the field, there was no one like Brown, who would blast through would-be tacklers, refusing to let one man take him down before sprinting away from linebackers and defensive backs. He was also famous for using a stiff arm to shed defenders in the open field or push them away like they were rag dolls.
https://apnews.com/article/nfl-jim-brown-03d88c7da08840a0921ae8d8dd0a6aaa
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Deadspin.com/July 26, 2016
Brown is an emblematic figure who’s presented the way he is because he stands, as much as anyone now living, at the intersection of the athletic and political. He is also a man who has been accused of and investigated for beating or raping women at least six times over several decades, a period of time spanning from the 1960s through 2000. Of those cases, three resulted in charges that were tried before juries; the three other cases were dropped when the women said they didn’t want to pursue charges or witnesses stopped cooperating. He admitted in his own memoir to slapping women, and in another case blamed violent outbursts on his wife having her period. He was found guilty once—of vandalism—and jailed when he refused to attend domestic violence counseling ordered by the judge in that case. Here is a history of that violence, done with the help of a CNN timeline on his life.
1965
Then-18-year-old Brenda Ayers says Brown assaulted her in a Cleveland Howard Johnson motel. Brown was charged with assault and battery. According to an Associated Press report at the time, Ayers said Brown “plied her with whiskey, slapped her face, hip and stomach and forced her to have sex relations with him on two occasions.” She broke down while testifying in court, saying Brown called her days before testifying asking, “Why was I doing this to him?” Brown denied having sex with her and assaulting her; his defense lawyer called it a shakedown plot for money. A Cleveland jury found him not guilty. Ayers later sued Brown for paternity and lost and sued for civil damages, the latter of which she asked to be dismissed.
1968
Neighbors of Brown’s in Hollywood hear an argument and call the police. When police arrived, they found Brown’s then-girlfriend, model Eva Bohn-Chin, 22, semi-conscious beneath the balcony of Brown’s second-floor apartment. Brown was charged with assault with intent to commit murder, felony battery on a peace officer, and obstructing justice. From Pete Dexter’s essential 1981 profile of Brown:
1971
Battery charges are dropped against Brown due to a “lack of witnesses,” according to a report from Jet magazine. A deputy city attorney told the magazine that Brown was accused of “beating and then throwing two women, Claudia Anne Lemary and Carol Virginia Williams, both 22, out of his apartment and down a flight of stairs, allegedly because they refused to perform a sex act together.”
Full story at the link: https://deadspin.com/jim-brown-did-great-things-he-also-beat-woman-1784269329
Brown also muscled his way into the Browns front office as "special advisor" in 2013. During the first 5 years of his tenure the teams' record was 12-57.
Yeah, he could run with a football. So could O.J. Simpson.
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