Personal Cleveland Memories of Great Pro Football-Actor Jim Brown

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Photo: John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com via Wikimedia Commons

Jim Brown in 2000

Jim Brown in 2000

Although a proud Milwaukee native, I’ve always considered Cleveland my second hometown. I lived there with my wife and family during much of the 1960s and ‘70s, working as a newspaper reporter and corporate public affairs manager. 

Thus, I was tremendously saddened to learn of the May 18 death, at 87, pro football star-turned movie actor, Jim Brown, at his home in Los Angeles. And I clearly recall his long, colorful life, which was filled with public ups and downs.

I first learned of Jim Brown in 1957’s Army ROTC summer camp at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Representing Marquette University, I was the only Black among Southern whites, and often overheard anti-Black conversations. Ironically, their talk about Brown was positive, recounting his exploits in Syracuse University’s 27-21 loss to Texas Christian University in the Jan. 1, 1957 Cotton Bowl game in Dallas. 

An all-around athlete who also excelled in track and field, basketball and lacrosse, Brown had astonished the sports world by scoring 21 of his team’s points, running for three touchdowns and kicking three extra points. As a result, he was voted Most Valuable Player in the game and many of the white ROTC guys called me “Jim.” In years to come, I closely followed Brown’s pro football career.

Owing mainly to my admiration for him, I moved to Cleveland in 1966 to join Ohio’s largest newspaper, The Plain Dealer, after a six-month stint with The Evening Dispatch in Columbus, where Ohio State’s college football ruled the roost. As a fervent fan of the Green Bay Packers, I was amused to learn that the name of the paper’s sports editor was Paul Hornung—the same as that of the Packers’ great running back.

King of Cleveland

But in Cleveland, Browns’ pro football was royalty and Jim Brown was undisputed king. During his nine years with the team—named for founder-owner-coach Paul Brown—6-3, 225 lb. Jim Brown was NFL Most Valuable Player in 1957, ‘58 and ’65, led the league in rushing eight of his nine seasons and went to nine straight Pro Bowls. His stellar career included NFL records at the time of 12,312 yards rushing and 126 touchdowns in 118 games. 

Almost everywhere I went after hitting town, I saw Jim Brown billboards—on the predominantly Black east side and nearly all white west side, at my fave Carnegie Deli and adorning walls inside the historic Cleveland Arena. And while my two young sons had marveled at his play in TV games, local billboards and their schoolmates helped them become rabid fans of the Cleveland Browns and Jim Brown.

So here I was—a Milwaukee native in Cleveland—characterized by some as “the mistake on the lake,” and admired by others as “the best location in the nation.” A huge sports fan in general and Jim Brown fan in particular, I admired the city’s passion for baseball and football. And I loved joining other reporters for our annual “Jim Brown Special” boat ride from Jim’s Steakhouse at Collision Bend on the Cuyahoga River to the huge, lakefront Municipal Stadium for a Browns’ game. 

Of course, all was not peaches and cream in my Cleveland, despite the influence of heroic Jim Brown. Winds from Lake Erie whipped downtown, deadly race riots raged in 1967—with army tanks on the streets—and the city was the butt of ridicule when the Cuyahoga River once famously caught fire.

Positive Memories

Yet, my positive Jim Brown-inspired Cleveland memories include the night Carl B. Stokes was elected America’s first black big-city mayor. As I Interviewed him in his east side home, he talked at length about Brown, and signed for me a copy of his book “Promises of Power.” Years later, Stokes was a telephone guest on my “Carter-McGee Report” WNOV-AM radio show in Milwaukee.

In 1964, Jim Brown’s autobiography—Off My Chest with Myron Cope—was published. His exploits were to earn him induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971, Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1983 and College Football Hall of Fame in 1995. In 2002, filmmaker Spike Lee produced a documentary Jim Brown: All-American, and in 2016, a statue of Brown was unveiled outside Cleveland’s FirstEnergy Stadium.

In 2020, ESPN named Brown “The greatest player in college football history,” while his pro football accolades include being named to the NFL’s 50th, 75th and 100th Anniversary All-Time teams.    

Yet, in 1966, owing to his prolonged absence from the Browns’ training camp to finish his flashy role in The Dirty Dozen in England, unmistakable signs of trouble became apparent. And after owner Art Modell publicly threatened to fine him $100 a day for every day missed, Brown unexpectedly retired in July at 29 at the peak of his football powers.

Social Activism

Always headstrong and self-confident, Brown’s pro-Black social activism – including working with inner-city gangs -- came to the fore in 1967, when he founded the Negro Industrial and Economic Union. He convened a historic “Summit Meeting” in Cleveland to support Muhammad Ali’s refusal to serve in the military and outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War when he famously said: “I ain’t got nothin’ against them Viet Congs …”  

I had my personal interaction with Brown in the wake of the meeting (memorialized in a famous photo) attended by Ali, Bill Russell, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), Mayor Stokes and other prominent black professional athletes. During a newspaper interview, he told me how he felt civil rights and his work with the Union—which he later subbed “Black” for “Negro” in its name—far exceeded playing pro football. 

When I asked him if he had any regrets about retiring at such a young age, he shrugged and hinted that he probably would have stayed with the Browns had Modell permitted him to join the team after finishing the movie, instead of talking of fining him for his absence from camp. “I quit with regret, but not sorrow,” he said,”

Macho Roles

Although I hated to see Brown abandon football with four or five more years left, I loved his macho roles in films such as Rio Conchos (1964); Dark of the Sun (1966); The Dirty Dozen (1967); The Split and Ice Station Zebra (1968); 100 Rifles and Kenner (1969); The Grasshopper and Tick, Tick, Tick (1970); Slaughter (1972); Three the Hard Way (1974), and He Got Game (1998). In all, Brown made 53 movies between 1964 and 2019. 

Yet, Jim Brown was no angel in his personal life. He had a dark side which included run-ins with the law for abuse of several women. How well I remember the night Raquel Welch—who co-starred with Brown and Burt Reynolds in 100 Rifles—appeared on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” to tout the film. She called Brown “quite a man,” eliciting a knowing, smirking, “Yes he is,” from Carson. 

Indeed, over the years, Brown was accused five times of violence toward women—wives and girlfriends—and once served four months of a six-month jail sentence. As he aged, he continued to maintain his “tough guy” stance, but occasionally expressed disappointment over his mistakes.   

Despite his personal problems, I loved Jim Brown. He was the best pro football running back of all time—followed, in my opinion, by Gayle Sayers and O.J. Simpson. And the image of his Cleveland Browns’ number 32 will live forever in my sports heart of hearts. May he rest in peace.