When I was 14, my dad rented The Dirty Dozen one weekend. It’s a great flick. The movie takes place in the months before D-Day. The US Army has a plan to destroy a holiday resort in France that on any given day has many high-ranking Nazi officers in residence. The mission is deemed too dangerous to risk the highly-trained and valuable special forces troops. Instead, the Army recruits and trains a group of prisoners to carry out the mission. Among those prisoners was a man named Jefferson, played by Jim Brown. This was the first time I had ever heard of him.
I’m not the biggest football fan. I’ll be the first to admit, my knowledge is scattered and varied. But oh boy, do I love movies and NFL films. When I saw The Dirty Dozen and saw Jim Brown sprint across a patio dropping grenades into a bunker filled with Nazis, I was awestruck. I’d never seen a man run like that, he was like a missile. God help anybody who might have been standing in front of him.
I got to know him as an actor first, in Ice Station Zebra, Mars Attacks and one of my favourite sports movies of all time, Any Given Sunday. Brown plays the Defensive Coordinator for the fictional football team the Miami Sharks. Brown stands out in an ensemble cast featuring Jamie Foxx, James Woods, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz and Al Pacino. Pulling from his own lived experience, Brown gives a great performance. He is a featured player in one of the most heartbreaking and honest scenes ever shot. Lawrence Taylor, plays Shark, an aged player who has a devastating neck injury that should end his career, but he still wants to play.
The line about the “punch drunk boxer” gets me every time. It's a scene for anybody who played a sport at a high level. When it's your life, nothing else matters, sometimes to a fault. Brown played at a time when most players still had full-time jobs to pay the bills, on top of that, helmets were not what they are today. Brown would have known plenty of guys who would have ruined themselves for the game. He and Lawrence Taylor make Any Given Sunday stand out as one of the greatest sports movies ever made.
As I said, I got to know him as an actor, I understood his greatness later on. Jim Brown first made his mark on the world as an All-American at Syracuse University. Brown also made All-American as a lacrosse player and distinguished himself in Track and basketball. In 1957 he was drafted in the first round , sixth selection of the NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns, from the outset of his first season Brown made a mark. I could go on about his ability as a player, but Burt Reynolds does a much better job.
Production of the Dirty Dozen was delayed due to heavy rains which destroyed many of the sets. As a result, Brown would miss several weeks of training camp. The team owner threatened to fine Brown. Having had his fill of football and achieving every possible milestone for a player at that time, Brown announced his retirement at age 30.
When we look at historical figures we often only remember the things they said and their accomplishments, we rarely remember public opinion of them at the time or their bravery in the face of society at large. A prime example of this is when Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted into the US Army during the Vietnam War. In 1967, Vietnam War was still largely popular with the American public, and Ali was reviled in the American press for his refusal to serve. He was also not well understood by his contemporaries. It was Brown who came up with the idea of the Cleveland Summit.
Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Bill Russell and other top African-American athletes held a meeting to suss out Ali’s motivations. After several hours of discussion, the group got behind Ali’s decision and held a press conference to show their support. Many historians point to that meeting as the turning point in the role of professional athletes in politics.
After football, Brown continued acting in movies and established himself as a leading man, he also continued his work as a civil rights activist. He founded several organizations aimed toward the advancement and prosperity of minority and marginalized communities, but his work did not stop at the organizational level. Brown was known to regularly host meetings at his Los Angeles residence between the Bloods and the Crips to quell the violence between the rival gangs. A notable highlight in his work is the Watts Truce. The Truce was later credited with the decline in the rate of violence in LA.
Brown continued his advocacy for the rest of his life, which led, unfortunately, to his sitting next to Kanye in the Oval Office during Ye's unhinged rant. For Brown, it was an opportunity to speak truth to power and he didn't pass it up. To his last days, he remained the man he always was. A warrior on the field and a warrior off the field.
Rest In Power Jim Brown.
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