

In his senior year in 1956, Brown was a consensus first-team All-American. As a junior, he rushed for 676 yards (5.2 per carry). College sports career Īs a sophomore at Syracuse University (1954), Brown was the second-leading rusher on the team. That record was later broken by future Boston Red Sox star Carl Yastrzemski of Bridgehampton. He averaged a then-Long Island record 38 points per game for his basketball team. The New York Times – film review, 2002. It was at Manhasset High School that he became a football star and athletic legend. At the age of eight, he moved to Manhasset, New York, on Long Island, where his mother worked as a domestic.

Brown credits his self-reliance to having grown up on Saint Simons Island, a community off the coast of Georgia where he was raised by his grandmother and where racism did not affect him directly. Īt Manhasset Secondary School, Brown earned 13 letters playing football, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, and running track.
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Simons Island, Georgia, to Swinton Brown, a professional boxer, and his wife, Theresa, a homemaker. Shortly before the end of his football career, Brown became an actor, and had several leading roles throughout the 1970s.īrown was born in St. His number 32 jersey is retired by the Browns. Brown was honored at the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship as the greatest college football player of all time. He was named to the NFL's 50th, 75th, and 100th Anniversary All-Time Teams, comprising the best players in NFL history.
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Brown was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971. His 5.2 yards per rush is third-best among running backs, behind Marion Motley and Jamaal Charles. He 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. In his professional career, Brown carried the ball 2,359 times for 12,312 rushing yards and 106 touchdowns, which were all records when he retired. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995. The football team later retired his number 44 jersey. He also excelled in basketball, track and field, and lacrosse. īrown earned unanimous All-America honors playing college football at Syracuse University, where he was an all-around player for the Syracuse Orangemen football team.

In 2002, he was named by The Sporting News as the greatest professional football player ever. He led the league in rushing yards in eight out of his nine seasons, and by the time he retired, he had shattered most major rushing records. Considered to be one of the greatest running backs of all time, as well as one of the greatest players in NFL history, Brown was a Pro Bowl invitee every season he was in the league, was recognized as the AP NFL Most Valuable Player three times, and won an NFL championship with the Browns in 1964. He played as a fullback for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 through 1965. James Nathaniel Brown (born February 17, 1936) is a former American football player, sports analyst and actor.
