A legend that began in Manhasset

Jim Brown, one of the greatest football players, actor and civil rights activist, dies at 87

BY BRANDON DUFFY

Jim Brown, who began a career on the felds of Manhasset that would lead him to acclaim as one of the greatest football players and then go on to become a movie actor and civil rights activist, died Thursday in his Los Angeles home. He was 87.

His wife, Monique, announced Brown’s passing in an Instagram post on Friday afternoon.

“To the world, he was an activist, actor, and football star,” Monique said. “To our family, he was a loving and wonderful husband, father, and grandfather.”

Brown’s former NFL team, the Cleveland Browns, paid tribute to the former star on social media.

“It’s impossible to describe the profound love and gratitude we feel for having the opportunity to be a small piece of Jim’s incredible life and legacy,” the team said in a statement on Twitter. “We mourn his passing, but celebrate the indelible light he brought to the world.”

Brown moved to Great Neck with his teenage mother before moving to Manhasset where he played fve sports during the early 1950s, earning 13 varsity letters.

In 2013, Brown was honored in Manhasset as an Allstate “Hometown Hall of Famer” and as the namesake of the newly-reopened multi-purpose feld at Manhasset Valley Park.

The son of a domestic, Brown grew up on the Great Neck side of Lee Road before moving to

Manhasset, and his mother had to “use a little bit of trickery” to make sure her son could attend school in Manhasset, he said.

“Manhasset was a very rich community, a very afuent community, and at no time did we worry about racism and prejudice,” Brown said a decade ago when he was honored. “This was an example of how people should be treated.”

He was supported by the mostly white Manhasset community.

When Syracuse University declined to ofer him a scholarship, Manhasset attorney Ken Molloy organized fundraisers in the local community to pay for Brown’s frst year of college.

Brown became an all-American at Syracuse in football and lacrosse and also competed in basket- ball and baseball, and ran track.

In his fnal regular season game against Colgate, he scored six touchdowns, kicked seven extra points and rushed for 197 yards.

Brown was then drafted sixth by the Cleveland Browns.

For nine seasons from 1957-65 with the Cleveland Browns Brown did not miss a single game because of injury, retiring on his own terms after winning the NFL’s MVP award for the third time in his career.

He was named to nine Pro Bowls and led the league in rushing each year except 1962, in which he fnished 478 yards behind Green Bay’s Jim Taylor.

“All you can do is grab, hold, hang on and wait for help,”Sam Huf, the Hall of Fame middle linebacker for the Giants and the Washington team now known as the Commanders, once told Time magazine.

To celebrate the league’s 100th season, the NFL announced its “All-Time Team”, a roster of 100 players and 10 coaches named the greatest in their respective positions. Brown earned the highest honor among running backs.

Coming of an MVP season in 1965, Brown stunned the football by announcing his retirement to pursue an acting career.

He would go on to appear in more than 30 movies including “The Dirty Dozen,” Any Given Sunday,” and “He Got Game.”

Continued on Page 43