Jim Brown is in the news a lot these days.
Some of it is good, and some of it is not so good because it makes us sad.
Whatever the case, pretty impressive for a guy who celebrated birthday No. 80 in February.
It made news earlier last week when it was announced that Browns head coach Hue Jackson is going to get Brown more involved with the team. The Pro Football Hall of Fame running back already works as a special adviser to the club.
Then on Saturday with the passing of Muhammad Ali, Brown was in the news again on this website when his 1967 meeting with the legend and other top African American athletes of the time was recalled – exactly 49 years to the day after it occurred.
With that in mind, then, it’s time for two good Jim Brown stories.
Ali was – and still is, actually – known as “The Greatest.” Respectfully so, Brown has the same moniker in Cleveland, especially within the media covering the team – as in the greatest running back of all-time and the greatest football player of all-time.
Bill Belichick, who admires excellence in football, also saw Brown as “The Greatest” when he was head coach of the Browns from 1991-95. He got Brown involved with the Browns again after years of estrangement from his former team, using him in the same kind of consulting and player relations role that he has now. As such, Belichick would privately contact Brown whenever he needed him and have him come to Cleveland unannounced.
It was interesting, to say the least, to watch it play out during that time.
One day during a 1994 practice in the indoor practice facility at Browns Headquarters in Berea, Brown suddenly strode in from the small side door leading to the outdoor practice fields.
We need to stop here and explain something. All coaches are locked in during practice, but Belichick and his defensive coordinator for the first four years of his tenure, Nick Saban, took locking in to a whole new level. There could have been a nuclear explosion just down the road and they wouldn’t have flinched – not one bit.
But their concentration relaxed just a bit – or perhaps a little more — whenever Brown showed up, and it was really apparent this time.
As Brown walked slowly along the east sideline, Belichick and Saban could be seen watching him out of the corner of their eyes. This went on for a couple of minutes. By the end, Belichick and Saban were hardly watching practice. They were almost totally focused on Brown.
They had grown up watching Brown play, so to have No. 32 walking toward them turned them into little 10-year-old boys who were totally awestruck. Belichick and Saban stopped just short of asking Brown for his autograph.
They likely would have had the same type of reaction if the great Muhammad Ali had walked through the door.
But they probably wouldn’t have admitted it.
