A look at Jim Brown’s life and legacy as a football great and activist

Amna Nawaz:

One of the greatest legends of the NFL has died.

Hall of Famer Jim Brown, running back for the Cleveland Browns from 1957 through the 1965 season, blazed an athletic path few have equaled. He left the game as its most famous and best player to pursue a life and acting and in activism, as the civil rights movement rolled through the 1960s.

Unstoppable as Brown was on the field, off the field, he led a complicated, at times brutal life. He was arrested half-a-dozen times, mostly for domestic abuse. He died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 87.

With me now to discuss his life and legacy is Kevin Blackistone, sportswriter and professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

As you well know, Kevin, Jim Brown was not only one of the best to ever play the game; he was really one of the NFL’s first superstars, right? How did he become one of the greats?

Kevin Blackistone, University of Maryland: Well, absolutely.

Any time you watch the old black-and-white, grainy video of Jim Brown or even that of him in color, you just see people trying to bring him down and being completely unsuccessful at that task. He ran over people. He ran through people. He ran around people.

He was considered the greatest running back in the history of the NFL, even to this day. Some of the records that he set still have yet to be broken. For example, he led the league in all-purpose yards, meaning catches and handoffs out of the backfield, for five years in a row.

And many of the records he set stood for decades. He was that much of a — he was that much of a power. And not only that. I mean, just talk about his athleticism in general. He was a four sports star in Syracuse, where he also starred in lacrosse, and he’s in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame, and money consider him to be the greatest lacrosse player of all time.

He probably played about 30 games, maybe a handful more. He scored 77 goals and had maybe 20, 30 assists. So, this is one of the greatest athletes that we have ever seen.