In 1999 an Associated Press panel voted Jim Brown the greatest football player of the 20th century. But he was more than that. For example, he is also considered the greatest-ever lacrosse player. Further, he is a strong candidate for the title of America’s best-ever all-around athlete.
Brown attended Syracuse University (1953-57), where he was the most outstanding all-around athlete in its history. At Syracuse, he starred in four sports (basketball, football, lacrosse, and track).
First-year students did not play varsity sports in the 1950s when Brown was in college.
Consequently, he played sports in his sophomore, junior, and senior years. In basketball, where he was considered the team’s best athlete, he refused to play his senior year because he was not permitted to be a starter.
An unwritten rule at Syracuse prohibited the team from starting three Black players in basketball.
The two they started were Vinnie Cohen, the leading scorer, and Manny Breland, the first Black scholarship basketball player. Cohen would later say that had Jim Brown played, their team would have won the NCAA championship in 1957. Without Brown, they lost in the elite eight.
In a football game against Colgate in 1956, Brown ran for 196 yards, scored six touchdowns, and kicked seven extra points for 43 points, an NCAA record for over 40 years.
He was such a dominant lacrosse player that the sport’s rules had to be changed, making it more difficult for players to cradle the ball tightly to their bodies.
Through the years, Brown stayed connected to the sport. He was an advisor to the Premier Lacrosse League, which named its MVP Trophy after him.
When time and his schedule permitted, Brown participated in track.
He finished a highly credible fifth in the 1956 Olympic trials in the most demanding of track and field sports, the decathlon.
His decathlon result was remarkable for a 20-year-old man who did not specialize in track and field.
He once competed in two varsity sports on the same day.
One day in May 1957, he wore his tracksuit, won the high jump and javelin, placed second in the discus, and helped Syracuse beat Colgate in a dual meet. Then he put on his lacrosse uniform and led the way to an 8-6 win over Army, securing the undefeated season.
Brown grew up on Long Island, Manhasset, New York, where he started his phenomenal athletic career. He participated in five sports in high school (football, basketball, lacrosse, track, and baseball), setting a Long Island record of 38 points per game in basketball.
Brown was also a baseball star in high school, where he pitched two no-hitters and received a contract offer from the New York Yankees.
Brown was one of the NFL’s first superstars. Playing only nine seasons, Brown held every meaningful rushing record at the time of his retirement. He was named to the Pro Bowl all nine years he played in the NFL, and he never missed a play in football due to an injury. He was the NFL’s MVP four times and led the NFL in rushing in eight of the nine seasons he played.
Brown retired from football at 30 as the highest-paid, most-honored NFL player of his time and moved to Hollywood, where he starred in dozens of films.
For 20th Century Fox, Brown starred in 100 Rifles in 1969. He 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.
