Jim Brown Piled Up Yards, however Never Wavered an Inch

Just a few days earlier than Super Bowl X in 1976, a number of the N.F.L.’s greatest stars mingled at a non-public celebration at a nightclub in Miami. Chuck Foreman, then a fearsome operating again with the Minnesota Vikings, remembered rubbing shoulders with a number of the greatest stars of the time on the place, together with Walter Payton and O.J. Simpson.

Then he sat down with Jim Brown, the best operating again of all of them, who had left the Cleveland Browns a decade earlier than. Foreman, who rolled over linebackers and cornerbacks for a dwelling, recalled that he was intimidated. He grew up idolizing Brown not only for his prowess on the sector, however for his willingness to combat for civil rights and to stroll away from the sport on the peak of his powers.

“When I was growing up, there was Jim Brown, Jim Brown and Jim Brown,” mentioned Foreman, now 72. “He was bigger than most linemen and faster than most wide receivers. But he also left on his own terms, especially back in those days, being an outspoken Black man.”

Foreman, like many others, known as him Mr. Brown. But as they talked, the youthful operating again’s fears dissolved. Brown complimented Foreman’s type of play and his success with the Vikings. Then he gave Foreman some recommendation that has caught ever since.

“‘Know when to go down,’” Foreman mentioned Brown informed him. “‘Don’t jeopardize your career over two inches.’”

Brown, Foreman mentioned, wasn’t simply telling him to run sensible, he was telling him to consider his future and never sacrifice his physique needlessly.

Though he didn’t say it, Brown, who died on Friday at 87, might have additionally been speaking about life outdoors of soccer. In a recreation with a 100% harm fee, few N.F.L. gamers go away as a result of they need to. Most wind up with accidents that by no means heal and are ushered out of the sport as soon as their utility to coaches is gone. Those who retire after they need to usually accomplish that as a result of groups aren’t anymore.

Brown was the alternative. He left the N.F.L. after the 1965 season, his ninth within the league and one among his greatest. He ran for 1,544 yards and 17 dashing touchdowns, and caught 34 passes, 4 of them for scores. He was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player for the primary time since his second season.

His dashing data — most notably his 12,312 yards on the bottom — have been ultimately damaged by Payton, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith and others. But Brown’s profession lasted simply 9 years and he performed principally 14-game seasons, quite than 16- or 17-game campaigns, at a time when chop blocks and different harmful tackles have been allowed. His 104.3 dashing yards per recreation common nonetheless stands as a league document.

Then he walked away, opting to pursue a Hollywood profession making motion pictures and extra money than in Cleveland. His breaking level got here when he was filming “The Dirty Dozen.” Brown informed Art Modell, the crew’s proprietor, that he can be late to coaching camp. Modell mentioned he would positive Brown for day-after-day he missed camp. Offended, Brown known as a news convention to announce that he was leaving the N.F.L.

By that time, Brown had achieved extra in soccer than many do in for much longer careers, together with profitable a league title in 1964, three M.V.P. awards, and proudly owning the N.F.L.’s profession dashing document. But solely a handful went out on prime. John Elway and Peyton Manning received Super Bowls of their final seasons, however each have been now not of their prime. Sanders retired from the Detroit Lions when he was simply 30, however received only one playoff recreation.

Brown, however, was a type of Mount Rushmore determine, a operating again of stature who helped redefine the facility an athlete might have on and off the sector by demanding that house owners and coaches deal with gamers — significantly Black gamers — with respect.

“You can make a case that Wilt Chamberlain was his own man in basketball, but Jim Brown would have been the first pro football player in the modern era to have that kind of presence and sway,” mentioned Michael MacCambridge, the writer of “America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation.” “It was clear that Jim Brown was a different generation of player with a different mind-set.”

Players who got here after him knew about that distinction.

“There isn’t a man who played running back in the NFL who didn’t see Jim Brown as an iconic legend on and off the field,” Tony Dorsett, one among 10 operating backs to surpass Brown’s complete dashing yards, wrote on Twitter.

“You can’t underestimate the impact #JimBrown had on the @NFL,” Sanders additionally wrote on Twitter.

As distinctive as he was on the sector, Brown was removed from an ideal human being. He was arrested greater than a half-dozen instances, together with for a number of accusations of violence in opposition to ladies. He was by no means convicted of a significant crime.

But when it got here to the game that made him well-known, Brown had few equals. Ernie Accorsi, the Browns common supervisor from 1985 to 1992, was in highschool when he noticed Brown play in particular person in opposition to the Baltimore Colts in 1959. Brown ran for 5 touchdowns and 178 yards to beat the defending champions and, to Accorsi, it felt like watching Babe Ruth in his prime.

Years later, Accorsi labored within the Colts’ entrance workplace alongside Dick Szymanski, who had been Baltimore’s center linebacker in that recreation in 1959. Szymanski informed Accorsi that Weeb Ewbank, the Colts’ head coach on the time, had suggested that Brown was tipping his performs: When Brown lined up along with his proper hand within the grime, he was operating proper, and vice versa.

Brown nonetheless ran throughout Szymanski, and within the locker room after the sport, Ewbank informed Szymanski that he hated to assume what Brown’s dashing totals would have been if he hadn’t given Szymanski the ideas.

“Coach, I knew exactly where he was going, but I couldn’t catch him or tackle him,” Szymanski replied.

In Brown’s illustrious profession, few might.