Jim Brown, on and off the field, personified pure power

A young Johnny Holliday saw the power of Jim Brown up close.

Holliday, the longtime “voice of the Maryland Terrapins,” was a broadcaster in Cleveland early in his career and witnessed firsthand the power of the late NFL Hall of Famer in his prime.

“To watch guys try to tackle him was incredible,” Holliday said. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. You talk about intimidating.”

What was intimidating? The power. 

Brown was power personified, maybe the most-imposing manifestation of human power in our lifetime.

He could be almost as intimidating off the football field as on — sometimes with just a comment, Holliday remembered. 

“We played a charity basketball game,” Holliday said. “We had a team in Cleveland. The Browns had a team. I wound up with about 24, 25 points.

“After the game, he waves me over and says, ‘Hey little man, come here.’ He said, ‘You know I could have stuffed your ass on every one of those shots you took. But I didn’t do that because I know people came to see you play and I didn’t want to hurt you.’

That’s a nice story. But at its essence, it’s about the aura and the awe that followed Brown wherever he went. Brown wanted the young sportscaster to know that Holliday existed in that basketball game only because Jim Brown allowed him to.

Brown died last week at the age of 87, but his power lives on in the obituaries and stories that are told about his life.

Brown was one of the most dominant figures we’ve ever seen in sports, a man that fans believed could do anything he wanted to physically. Only Wilt Chamberlain was comparable, and he was a Goliath.

Brown was the greatest football player we’ve ever seen, and there are those who believe he was a better lacrosse player than football player.

He retired at the top of his game at the age of 30 after nine years in the league, leading the league in rushing in eight of them. He finished with 12,312 yards rushing — an average of 5.2 yards per carry for his career — and is the only player in NFL history to average over 100 yards rushing per game for his career.

In 1966, Browns owner Art Modell was going to fine him every day he was late because Brown was working on a film in England. He demonstrated his power then, telling the Browns and the NFL that he quit. He had been the league’s Most Valuable Player the year before for the third time.

In a letter to Modell announcing his retirement, Brown wrote, “I feel you must realize that both of us are men and that my manhood is just as important to me as yours is to you.”

The film he was working on? “The Dirty Dozen,” the most testosterone-filled cast in Hollywood history — Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, George Kennedy, Charles Bronson, Clint Walker, Telly Savalas, John Cassavetes, and Richard Jaeckel.

Who was portrayed as the toughest guy in that cast? Jim Brown.

The power Brown exhibited carrying the ball — the raw, imposing physical presence — carried over to the rest of his life. But after dominating on the field, he turned to flexing his muscles in other fields, including film, business and politics.

He had already formed the Negro Industrial Economic Union while playing and spoke out often about the need for Black economic power.

And he respected power, seemingly in all forms. He supported Richard Nixon in 1968 and expressed his support for Donald Trump several times. 

In 2018, he told Fox Sports Radio, “I should be criticizing Trump on every level because he does certain things that call for criticism,” he said. ”But when I look at television I see all these announcers become experts and they’re pointing the fingers and they’re not doing a doggone thing but pointing their fingers, I find myself really pulling for the president.”

Even Brown’s resume of violence against women — multiple domestic violence charges over his life — was driven by power. Domestic violence is about having power and control. When he was convicted of misdemeanor vandalism in 1999 in a case involving his wife, the judge gave Brown the option of a year of domestic violence counseling and community service penalties. He refused and served four months in jail instead.

Jim Brown decided his punishment. He had the power.

In his later years, Brown was known for his work with gangs. He founded the Amer-I-Can, a gang intervention program, and often would invite gang leaders to his Los Angeles home to work out peace agreements.

Why would these gang members listen to Jim Brown?

Power.

⦁ You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.