84 Facts About Jim Brown

James Nathaniel Brown was an American football fullback, civil rights activist, and actor.

Jim Brown played for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League from 1957 through 1965.

Jim Brown led the league in rushing yards in eight out of his nine seasons, and by the time he retired, he held most major rushing records.

Jim Brown earned unanimous All-America honors playing college football at Syracuse University, where he was an all-around player for the Syracuse Orangemen football team.

Jim Brown is widely considered one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time, and the Premier Lacrosse League MVP Award is named in his honor.

Jim Brown averaged 104.3 rushing yards per game, and is the only player in NFL history to average over 100 rushing yards per game for his career.

Jim Brown was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971.

Jim Brown was named to the NFL's 50th, 75th, and 100th Anniversary All-Time Teams, comprising the best players in NFL history.

Jim Brown was honored at the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship as the greatest college football player of all time.

Shortly before the end of his football career, Jim Brown became an actor.

Jim Brown retired at the peak of his football career to pursue an acting career.

Jim Brown obtained 53 acting credits and several leading roles throughout the 1970s.

Jim Brown has been described as Hollywood's first black action hero and his role in the 1969 film 100 Rifles made cinematic history for featuring interracial love scenes.

Jim Brown was one of the few athletes, and among the most prominent African Americans, to speak out on racial issues as the civil rights movement was growing in the 1950s.

Jim Brown participated in the Cleveland Summit after Muhammad Ali faced imprisonment for refusing to enter the draft for the Vietnam War, and he founded the Black Economic Union to help promote economic opportunities for minority-owned businesses.

Jim Brown later launched a foundation focused on diverting at-risk youth from violence through teaching them life skills, through which he facilitated the Watts truce between rival street gangs in Los Angeles.

Jim Brown was born in St Simons Island, Georgia, to Swinton Jim Brown, a professional boxer, and his wife, Theresa, a homemaker.

Jim Brown attended Manhasset Secondary School in Manhasset, New York.

Jim Brown earned 13 letters playing football, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, and running track.

Jim Brown averaged a then-Long Island record 38 points per game for his basketball team.

Jim Brown was treated differently from teammates: he was housed in a non-athlete dormitory, warned against dating Caucasian women, and the coaching staff attempted to put him at other positions, including punter, lineman, and wide receiver.

Jim Brown finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting and set school records for highest season rush average and most rushing touchdowns in a single game.

Jim Brown was so dominant in the game, that lacrosse rules were changed requiring a lacrosse player to keep their stick in constant motion when carrying the ball.

Jim Brown served for four years and was discharged with the rank of captain.

Jim Brown broke the single-season rushing record in 1958, gaining 1,527 yards in the 12-game season, shattering the previous NFL mark of 1,146 yards set by Steve Van Buren in 1949.

Jim Brown was the first player to reach the 100-rushing-touchdowns milestone, and only a few others have done so since, despite the league's expansion to a 16-game season in 1978.

Jim Brown holds the record for total seasons leading the NFL in all-purpose yards, and is the only rusher in NFL history to average over 100 yards per game for a career.

In every season he played, Jim Brown was voted into the Pro Bowl, and he left the league in style by scoring three touchdowns in his final Pro Bowl game.

Jim Brown's 1,863 rushing yards in the 1963 season remains a Cleveland franchise record.

Jim Brown led the league in rushing a record eight times.

Jim Brown was the first NFL player to rush for over 10,000 yards.

Jim Brown was very difficult to tackle, often requiring more than one defender to bring him down.

Jim Brown was in England for the shooting of the movie The Dirty Dozen.

Jim Brown had expected to return to the Browns afterwards, but retired when team owner Art Modell threatened him with fines for missing training camp.

Jim Brown held the NFL career rushing record of 12,312 yards until it was broken by Walter Payton on October 7,1984, during Payton's 10th NFL season.

Jim Brown appeared in many movies and was at times described as a black Superman or a black John Wayne.

Jim Brown began his acting career before the 1964 season, playing a buffalo soldier in a Western action film called Rio Conchos.

In early 1966, Jim Brown was shooting his second film in London.

Jim Brown, who had previously said that 1966 would be his last season, the final year of a three-year contract, announced his retirement, instead.

Jim Brown followed it with Riot, a prison film for MGM.

Biographer Mike Freeman credits Jim Brown with becoming "the first black action star", due to roles such as the Marine captain he portrayed in the hit 1968 film Ice Station Zebra.

Jim Brown went to 20th Century Fox for 100 Rifles.

Jim Brown was billed over co stars Raquel Welch and Burt Reynolds and had a love scene with Welch, one of the first interracial love scenes and the first in a major Hollywood movie.

Jim Brown appeared in some TV shows including Knight Rider in the season-three premiere episode "Knight of the Drones".

Jim Brown appeared alongside fellow former football player Joe Namath on The A-Team episode "Quarterback Sneak".

Jim Brown appeared on CHiPs, episodes one and two, in season three, as a pickpocket on roller skates.

Jim Brown appeared opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987's The Running Man, an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, as Fireball, and had a cameo in the spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.

Jim Brown was one of the few athletes to speak out on racial issues in the 1950s as the civil rights movement was growing.

Jim Brown was one of the most prominent African American athletes to engage in civil rights activism, and he called on other African American athletes to become involved in similar initiatives off the field.

In 1966, Jim Brown founded the Negro Industrial Economic Union, later known as the Black Economic Union, to help promote economic opportunities for minority owned businesses.

In 1988, Jim Brown founded the Amer-I-Can Foundation, an organization that sought to divert gang members and prisoners from violence by teaching them life skills.

Jim Brown posed in the nude for the September 1974 issue of Playgirl magazine, and was one of the rare celebrities to allow full-frontal nude pictures to be used.

Jim Brown worked as a color analyst on NFL telecasts for CBS in 1978, teaming with Vin Scully and George Allen.

In 1983,17 years after retiring from professional football, Jim Brown mused about coming out of retirement to play for the Los Angeles Raiders when it appeared that Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris would break Jim Brown's all-time rushing record.

Jim Brown disliked Harris' style of running, criticizing the Steelers' running back's tendency to run out of bounds, a marked contrast to Jim Brown's approach of fighting for every yard and taking on the approaching tackler.

Jim Brown's autobiography, published in 1989 by Zebra Books, was titled Out of Bounds and was co-written with Steve Delsohn.

Jim Brown was a subject of the book Jim: The Author's Self-Centered Memoir of the Great Jim Brown, by James Toback.

In 1993, Jim Brown was hired as a color commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a role he occupied for the first six pay-per-view events.

In 2008, Jim Brown initiated a lawsuit against Sony and EA Sports for using his likeness in the Madden NFL video game series.

Jim Brown claimed that he "never signed away any rights that would allow his likeness to be used".

Jim Brown became 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.

Jim Brown called him "accessible", and said that the president was not a racist.

Jim Brown was arrested at least seven times for assault, mainly against women.

Jim Brown was never found guilty of a major crime; in most of the cases, the women refused to press charges after calling the police.

In 1965, Jim Brown was arrested in his hotel room for assault and battery against an 18-year-old Brenda Ayres; he was later acquitted of those charges.

In 1968, Jim Brown was charged with assault with intent to commit murder after model Eva Bohn-Chin was found beneath the balcony of Jim Brown's second-floor apartment.

Jim Brown was ordered to pay a $300 fine for striking a deputy sheriff involved in the investigation during the incident.

In 1970, Jim Brown was found not guilty of assault and battery, the charges stemming from a road-rage incident that had occurred in 1969.

In 1975, Jim Brown was convicted of misdemeanor battery for beating and choking his golfing partner, Frank Snow.

Jim Brown was sentenced to one day in jail, two years' probation, and a fine of $500.

In 1985, Jim Brown was charged with raping a 33-year-old woman.

In 1999, Jim Brown was arrested and charged with making terroristic threats toward his wife Monique.

Jim Brown 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.

Jim 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.

Jim Brown married his first wife Sue Jim Brown in September 1959.

Jim Brown was ordered to pay $2,500 per month in alimony and $100 per week for child support.

In December 1973, Jim Brown proposed to 18-year-old Diane Stanley, a Clark College student he met in Acapulco, Mexico, in April of that year.

Jim Brown married his second wife, Monique, in 1997; they had two children.

Jim Brown died of natural causes, at the age of 87 on May 18,2023, at his home in Los Angeles.

Jim Brown was inducted in the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1983.

Jim Brown is the only NFL player to average 100 rushing yards per game for their career.

Jim Brown held the yards-per-carry record by a running back from his retirement in 1965 until Jamaal Charles broke the record in 2012.

On November 4,2010, Jim 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.

On January 13,2020, Jim 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.