Jim Brown, Long Island and NFL legend, dies at age 87

Jim Brown was born in Georgia, became a household name for his athletic achievements at Syracuse and in Cleveland —  where he changed the game of football — found movie stardom in Hollywood as one of its first Black action stars, and lived a complicated life. He was at the forefront of prominent civil rights causes around the United States but also demonstrated a history of violence toward women.

But it was on the fields of Long Island where he first showed the attributes that would make him what he was best known as: one of the most dominant, unstoppable athletes of the 20th century, an all-time great in the sports of football and lacrosse, and among the most recognizable men on the planet.

Brown died on Thursday night. A spokeswoman for Brown’s family said he passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with his wife, Monique, by his side. He was 87.

“Jim Brown was a gifted athlete — one of the most dominant players to ever step on any athletic field — but also a cultural figure who helped promote change," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said on Friday. “During his nine-year NFL career, which coincided with the civil rights movement here at home, he became a forerunner and role model for athletes being involved in social initiatives outside their sport.”

Brown was raised by his grandmother on St. Simons Island off the southern coast of Georgia until he was 8. That’s when he moved to Long Island to live with his mother, who had moved here to find work shortly after his birth. They resided first in Great Neck and then in a Manhasset apartment.

At Manhasset High School, he averaged 14.9 yards per carry in football, 38 points per game in basketball and threw “a couple of no-hitters” for the baseball team, in his words. He always insisted he “wasn’t a good baseball player” and played the sport only in his senior year, but he was talented enough for Yankees manager Casey Stengel to write him a letter expressing interest. Brown won 13 varsity letters in football, lacrosse, basketball, baseball and track

His best sport, he and his high school coaches agreed, was lacrosse, and he played that in college better than just anyone else before or since, but he once confided in a coach that he intended to make football his career because he never had run into racial barriers in football.

SEE PHOTOSJim Brown photos through the years

Brown recalled how he experienced “no racism” as a child and was moved by the support the mostly white Manhasset community gave him. When Syracuse declined to offer a football scholarship until Brown proved himself worthy of playing at the varsity level — Brown was the only Black player on the school’s freshman team — Manhasset attorney Ken Molloy organized fund-raisers in the local community to pay for Brown’s first year of college.

At Syracuse, where he also lettered in basketball and track, his football records included scoring 43 points in a game against Colgate (Brown also was a placekicker). He is the only man to be a member of the pro football, college football and lacrosse halls of fame.

After earning All-American honors at Syracuse with a career that would land him in the College Football Hall of Fame, Brown brought his ferocious style to the NFL and the Cleveland Browns. After a relatively short career that lasted from 1957-65, Brown retired at age 29 as the league’s all-time leading rusher (12,312 yards) and the owner of the single-season rushing record (1,863 in a 14-game season in 1963). Both records have since been eclipsed, but Brown remains the benchmark for running back strength, toughness and durability. Despite his bruising style, he never missed a game because of injury in his career, playing in 118 straight.

Brown established himself as an immortal by leading the league in rushing eight times. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in 1971.

"Jim Brown is a true icon of not just the Cleveland Browns but the entire NFL," Jimmy and Dee Haslam, the current owners of the  franchise, said on Friday. "He was certainly the greatest to ever put on a Browns uniform and arguably one of the greatest players in NFL history. Jim was one of the reasons the Browns have such a tremendous fan base today. So many people grew up watching him just dominate every time he stepped onto the football field, but his countless accolades on the field only tell a small part of his story."

Indeed, Brown walked away from football to become something few Black men in the 1960s were: a movie star. He appeared in more than 30 films, including “Any Given Sunday,” “He Got Game,” “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” and “100 Rifles.” It was from the set of shooting “The Dirty Dozen” in England that he informed the Browns of his surprise retirement as a player.

“People ask me, ‘Why would you want to quit [football]?’ ” Brown later said. “I said, ‘I make more money [acting], have Raquel Welch as a leading lady, I don’t get hit, they call me Mr. Brown . . . ”

It was after football that Brown found his other calling. He referred to himself as a “born activist” and used his platform and voice to advance several causes. In June 1967, Brown organized “The Cleveland Summit,” a meeting 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 serving in Vietnam. In later years, he worked to curb gang violence in Los Angeles and in 1988 he founded Amer-I-Can, a program to help disadvantaged inner-city youth and ex-convicts.

“I hope every Black athlete takes the time to educate themselves about this incredible man and what he did to change all of our lives,” NBA star LeBron James said. “We all stand on your shoulders Jim Brown. If you grew up in Northeast Ohio and were Black, Jim Brown was a God.

"As a kid who loved football, I really just thought of him as the greatest Cleveland Brown to ever play. Then I started my own journey as a professional athlete and realized what he did socially was his true greatness. When I choose to speak out, I always think about Jim Brown. I can only speak because Jim broke down those walls for me.”

Brown’s personal relationships often were contentious. He was arrested six times, mostly on charges of hitting women. In June 1999, Brown’s wife called 911, saying Brown had smashed her car with a shovel and threatened to kill her. During the trial, Monique Brown recanted. Jim Brown was acquitted of a charge of domestic threats but convicted of misdemeanor vandalism. The Los Angeles judge sentenced Brown to six months in jail when he refused to attend domestic violence counseling.

“To the world, he was an activist, actor, and football star,” Monique Brown wrote in an Instagram post on Friday. “To our family, he was a loving husband, father, and grandfather. Our hearts are broken.”

Brown, a towering 6-2 and 230 pounds as a player, changed the way running backs were perceived in the NFL, using his relentless attitude in a ball-carrying style that often included dragging multiple defenders for extra yardage. He would push and stiff-arm would-be tacklers and deliver punishing blows as an aggressor.

“My arms were like my protectors and weapons,” Brown said during an interview with NFL Films.

“He told me: ‘Make sure when anyone tackles you he remembers how much it hurts,’ ” fellow Hall of Fame tight end John Mackey once said. “He lived by that philosophy and I always followed that advice.”

Despite playing his entire career in the era before the Super Bowl, Brown’s legacy still has him regarded among the best players of all time and a benchmark for modern-day backs in the sport.

“I’ve said many times, and I will always say, Jim Brown is the best,” Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers once said, “and he will still be the best long after all his records are broken.”

Packers great Paul Hornung agreed.

“Give me Jim Brown over anybody,” he once said. “At anything.”

With John Jeansonne and The Associated Press

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.