January 26, 2022 • 48 mins
Host Andrea Kremer takes us back to 1999 when NFL Films Steve Sabol interviewed Hall of Famer Jim Brown. Jim looks back at his days of playing in the NFL and the relationships he built with those around him. Steve explores why Jim almost quit football and all of the job offers he received before playing in the NFL. Jim explains his belief of not going out of bounds and why QB's shouldn't slide to avoid being hit. Jim also never drank water during games and tells Steve why he thought it affected his conditioning and mindset while playing. Jim remembers being an advocate for his teammates and reveals what he hoped those teammates would say about Jim's playing days. Join us for Part 2 next week when we look at Jim's life after the NFL as an actor and a political advocate.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to NFL Films Tales from the Vault. I'm your host,
Andrea Kramer. For nearly fifty years, Hall of Famer Steve
Sable was the voice and visionary of NFL Films. In
that time, Steve conducted hundreds of interviews with the greatest
figures in NFL history. On this podcast, you'll get to
(00:25):
hear them raw, unedited in their entirety for the first time.
My role, well since Steve launched my Hall of Fame
career when he hired me as NFL films first female producer, director, writer, editor.
I'm here to help guide you, providing context, insights, and
the occasional anecdote from my time covering these quote men
(00:47):
who made the game, as Steve like to call them. Today,
we have part one of Steve's epic interview with the
legendary Jim Brown. Yeah, Jim Brown was sixty three years old.
(01:16):
He'd been retired from football and living in Los Angeles
for over thirty years. Brown has long been considered the
greatest running back of all time and is usually in
the conversation about being the greatest player of all time
as well. He retired after nine of the most dominant
seasons in NFL history, and he started every game of
every one of those seasons. He's the only back to
(01:38):
average over a hundred yards per game for his entire career.
He never sustained a major injury and walked away from
the game of his own volition at age thirty. That
alone tells you how unique and complex, and in many
ways as well learn polarizing Jim Brown really is. Among
his non football accomplishments are a tote of fifty three
(02:01):
acting credits, including being one of the stars of, or
maybe I should say members of the nineteen sixty seven
World War Two classic The Dirty Dozen. Brown has also
long been a political activist, dating back to the Civil
rights movement of the nineteen sixties. He carried that activism
into his work with gangs in Los Angeles and Cleveland
(02:21):
in the nineteen seventies and eighties. In the interview you're
about to hear Stephen, Jim sat on the deck of
his house in Los Angeles and talked for so long,
and we think with so much compelling material that we
had to split it up into two parts. Plus I
know what your attention span is. In part one, Brown's
(02:42):
reflections about his time in the NFL are both honest,
enlightening and a reminder of how different the game was
when he played. He talks not just about the sport,
but the men he encountered along the way and the
relationships he forged. Jim Brown is never short of opinions.
But if you're listening, I want you to really take
(03:02):
notice of the fact that everything Jim Brown does he
does with a purpose. But also this conversation highlights Steve
sables interviewing and listening skills. He approaches the interview in
a chronological manner. He knows that to understand where someone
came from is to understand how they turned out to be,
(03:23):
and Jim Brown is certainly a product of his life experiences.
So let's go to the vault for part one of
Steve Sable and Jim Brown. This is just Jim as
if you and I are sitting here bullshit, that's what
I just want to have a normal flow of conversation.
It's not like a structured kind of interview. And there
are things that that that you might be saying all
(03:45):
of a suddenly give me an idea to go in
another direction. Not normal conversation is there's there's so many
things that we can go in so many different directions.
You said, just an okay, you can just asking on tape,
all right, okay, good, find a lot of pre in it.
All right, good, All I need to do why because okay,
we're all said Jim, when we look back on in
your childhood, who was the most dominant figure in your
(04:07):
development as a child when you were growing up? Uh,
my great grandmother we call her Mama, and uh she
raised all of us, you know, I mean she raised
everybody and she was everything to me, very strong woman.
There really no men in the house, and when she died,
(04:28):
it was like almost like my total family was gone.
But uh, she was a strong one. And then later
on my grandmother became who was an alcoholic for about
twenty some years. She became like the strong person of family.
But Mom was the most influence around me from the
standpoint of family. When you said there were no men
in your life, did what about your father? Did you
(04:49):
have any kind of a relationship with him at all? No?
He was a player. He was everywhere and I saw
him about four times in my life. But I did
have an uncle in New York, uncle Bubba, who would
come down and visit us. He drove a tax in
New York and then he'd come down and uh in
his taxi and he was a big influence. But he
(05:10):
was only there. Uh, you know every once in a while, Well,
is there one broken friendship that you you would like
to repair? When he was like, that's a deep that's
a deep question. Well, I give you a real line
of st answer. My mother. My mother was very young,
(05:34):
and uh, when she had me in her teens, and
then I was brought up about the first eight years
by my great grandmother, who I love dearly. I didn't
really know my mother. And when then when I moved
with my mother, she was a young woman and I
was a young boy, and uh, it was very difficult
for us because she was in the prime of her
life from standpoint of dating, and I was growing up
(05:57):
wanting my mother just to be a mother. And uh,
at a point in my life I didn't trust her.
But instead of working at it and trying to have
greater wisdom and reaching out, I withdrew and with and withdrawing.
(06:17):
It didn't do me any good because it did not
allow us to come together before she died. So basically
I wish I could have done something about that. I
wish I had reached out because what I realized in
my older wisdom that you can always reach out. It
doesn't have to be fifty fifty, you know, anything close
(06:39):
to that. I mean, if you want to, you can
reach out and make things better. And so that's basically
uh the one broken UH friendship that I wish I
could have no at least taken initiative to to mend. Well,
when you moved to New York, your mom moved with you, right,
you want, with your uncle, she was already she was
(07:01):
in New York. Now what kind of jobs did she
have when you were growing up? She was a made
you know, she worked in Great Neck for a family
called the Brockman's, very nice people. And then when my
great grandmother Uh died, I had to move with her.
So we lived in a little apartment over the garage
in Great Neck, and my mother was there made, and
(07:23):
she sent me to a school and Manhasset. So it
was a very strange kind of living situation. But I
emphasized that the family, the Brockmans, were really really nice
to us and my mother, you know, she had to
struggle and make sure that I got to school every
day and she did that. When you went to Syracuse, Jim,
what was the initial reaction by the football coach when
(07:47):
you first came out with the team. Will you have
to understand that Syracuse really didn't want me. That was
a brain child of my great fans and manhassean to
have me go there. And when I got there, I
was not on scholarship, and uh it was a trial situation.
The community paid my way. And in this reaction was
(08:10):
I was black. There had been a black quarterback that
he had disappointed them, and I was going to be
like him. I didn't know who the guy was and
did not even understand the relationship or the way they
could say that I was gonna be like him. But
there was one coach there, Roy Simmons, who was a
cross coach, assistant backfield coach. He was great and he
(08:31):
welcomed me. He made me feel at ease, and uh,
he was the one person that really reached out. So
it was very difficult at that time, probably the most
difficult time in my whole career as far as sports
and education, because, uh, they just didn't want me. I
heard they wanted to make you a defensive end that
they wanted to make me anything that they could make me,
(08:53):
but it was it was just not a good situation.
Did you ever think of quitting? Absolutely? I uh decided
I was going to leave school. But then my superintendent
of Manhasset, Dr. Collins, who was a great friend of
the kids and a great friend of mine, he flew
up and met with me in a hotel room until
(09:15):
him I should never give up, and that they were wrong,
and that if I stayed there, we would prove them
wrong and I would be successful. So because of him
and the way he had treated me at Manhasset was
just the opposite of Syracuse. Those people are really high
class people, I stayed, and uh the rest was history.
What role did Ken Malloy have in your in your staying?
(09:37):
Wasn't he a factor in that too? Kenney was a
factor in my life ever since I was years old.
If you're joining us for the first time, this is
part of my role providing the excess and o's if
you will, of the background of these interviews. So before
we get too far, let me give you a little
insight into who is Ken malloy and why he's so
important to Jim Brown Lake Brown. Malloy was a native
(09:59):
of House in New York. He was a mentor to Brown,
but also a Syracuse graduate who encouraged Brown to go there,
But when Syracuse denied Brown his scholarship, Malloy and forty
three of his friends raised the funds necessary to pay
for Brown's freshman year. Kenny was a lawyer, young lawyer.
(10:20):
He helped kids. He took a liking to me and
knew I had talent. He kept me from reading comic books,
and he was like my surrogate father. He presented you
at the Hall of Fame that me had the hall
of fame. And uh, I loved him, you know, always
respect him. I always knew what goodness was because he
just helped people. You know, nothing in it for him
(10:41):
other than just seeing kids get to school that normally
wouldn't get to school. So uh and everything I did,
he was an influence. When you graduated, when you left Syracuse,
you got an offer to play in the NBA, the
NFL Canadian Football League. I read where some boxing promoter
wanted to pay you twenty five dollars because yeah, he
(11:02):
thought you could beat Floyd Patterson in two years in
the NFL offer g I think was it fifteen thousand
and you took pro football out of all those offers, Jim,
Why why did you pick pro football? Well, basically, I
was too short to play forward in professional basketball. Syracusan
As at the time drafting me. Uh, football was a
(11:22):
sport that I felt that I could really play well
and I can make money doing it, and I love
all sports, so it wasn't a matter of just love.
So I felt that a career wise would be the
right thing to do. I didn't want to go to
Canada for any amount of money. I wanted to play
in the best league. And Uh, those simple reasons that
all seven he went to the All Star camp. Ye,
(11:47):
Otto Graham tells you, you know, forget it. Yeah, you're
not You're not good enough to play. What did you
think about that? When Well, he didn't exactly said that.
He just basically treated me that way. And Uh, they
wouldn't play me. They played me a few minutes in
the game. I was so disappointed until right after the game,
I put my clothes on and I drove to Cleveland
(12:10):
so I could start my rookie year there. And I
got in I think two practices before any of the
rookies got in and it was the best thing I
ever did. So, actually, I was motivated by the negatism.
Uh at that game, I felt that I was as
good as any back there. And they put John Arnett,
I think, and a couple other guys ahead of me,
(12:31):
and Otto just did not seem to really like certain
kind of players at that time. When you went to
the Browns, was there one player that pulled you aside
and gave you some advice and said, Jim, this is
what you gotta watch out for. This is this, this
is that. Was there one player that gave you some
advice when you first were a rookie that you remember what?
(12:51):
I was thinking about it the other day, just funny
asked a question because there was a big end called
Lenny Ford, and I remember being in the neighborhood. I
think I stayed in the house that he stayed and
I rented a room, and he used to really look
out for me. And he was a great end. But
he was drinking a lot, and he was like in
the last years of his career, and he had a
bad arm. And uh, I remember some of the games
(13:13):
when he was brilliant, but he was like my big brother.
But I only thought about that about a few days ago.
I was just going over my mind, you know, some
of the things that happened, and great relationship. Had a
lot of respect for him. And then also it allowed
me to think of myself as a young player, because
normally I just think of my nine years and I
(13:36):
have this image. But then I realized when I first
went there, I was square as hell, you know, I
didn't know anything. And Lenny, uh, basically Lenny Ford sort
of guy. What did he tell you? You remember? Specific?
He just guided me very gently. He didn't sit down
and give me a speech, but he let me hang
out with him. He would give me knowledge without ever
(13:58):
really uh making it seem that way. And I just
picked up a lot of things from him, you know,
about the community, from about the community, about the team.
What do you tell you about Paul Brown? What do
you tell you about Paul? Well, he didn't really have
to tell me anything about Paul, because when you got there,
you know, Paul was a dictator. He was the man.
Everybody was afraid of him. He was articulate, he was brilliant,
(14:23):
and he ran a very tight organization. No one stepped
out of line. And uh, I kind of liked it
that way. But you know, Lenny was kind of a rebel,
so he was kind of at odds with Paul, you know,
and so he never really tried influence me because there
was nothing influenced. Paul is such a dominant figure. Until
(14:46):
the first day you get there, you know who he is.
He's but I loved him in the sense of they
were so afraid of nobody formed any cliques. You know,
it's very racially intense at that time in this country,
and uh, you know Paul and allow any racial things
to come up in a division, to come up in
the team. And uh, people so afraid of him. You
(15:09):
until he just ran a great organization. Were you afraid
of him? No, nope, I like what he did. I
just abided by the rules. And my first exhibition game,
he started me in the rubber ball and acron and
I broke on up the middle and school and he
called me off the field. He said, you my running back.
(15:31):
So that's all I wanted. And that was like probably
the greatest day in my early career when he said that.
How would you describe your relationship with him? I mean,
did he treat you differently? Than other players. Do you
think later in your career, Oh, yeah, yeah, he treated
me differently. I'll tell you something about that. Coaches always
(15:51):
treat people differently. You can't ever treat everybody saying that's
a myth. Uh, stars are gonna be treated differently in life.
See was going to be treated differently. Celebrities gonna be
treated differently. And I was a style of his team
and he gave me the ball. Uh. He didn't give
me any special privileges because I didn't want any special privileges.
(16:13):
I had to practice like everyone else. But if there
was something politically going on, I could go up to
Paul and represent it probably better than anybody else. And
that was because of my ability and being basically the
running back on the team. Remember I told you that
the game was different back when Brown played, and we're
(16:34):
gonna get into that more in the next segment. But
what really strikes me here is can you imagine a
player of Brown's caliber today saying it's a myth that
coaches treat everybody the same. I so missed those pre
social media days of such candor. When we come back,
Steve delves into the nitty gritty details of Jim's football career,
(16:57):
including his controversial thoughts about wait for it, drinking water.
You don't want to miss his reasoning for that. Stay tuned,
Welcome back to Tails from the Vault. For the first
six years of Jim Brown's career, his head coach was
Paul Brown. Following the nineteen sixty two season, Paul Brown
(17:20):
was replaced by Blanton Collier. The move was controversial and
that the man who was responsible for the origin of
the Browns It's no coincidence they bear his name, who
had been there coach for seventeen years, had been replaced
due to differences with the new owner of the team,
Art Model, and Model wanted to have his own coach
(17:42):
at the Helm, hence he hired Collier. But before we
rejoined the interview, I want to point this out to you. Now,
when you're the greatest, like an Ali or at your
position like a Jim Brown, you can say anything you
want because you've backed it up with your actions. But please, folks,
as you listen to the tremendous detail in which Steve
(18:02):
and Jim break down the minutia of his craft, try
to envision Brown running in your mind's eye. A few
specific points about your career details. You never ran out
of bounds. You look at running backs in later years
Hall of Famers Frank o'harris that they take a pitch out,
they see they couldn't get anything, they run out of bounds.
(18:24):
You never did that. Why not? I mean there would
be times where you think that there was no way
you could get the extra yard. It's you'd save a
little wear and tear in your body. Why didn't you
just sort of glide out of bounds? Let me be
emphatic about that. Those excuses for what I would consider
weaker minds. Uh, You never assume you can't do something.
(18:47):
You never give your opponent any opportunity that they don't deserve.
In other words, for me to run out of bounds
because of a collision is to admit weakness. To think
I can save my self is ridiculous, because when you
get hurt, it isn't that your tiredness says. Sometimes it's
just an accident. So you get in condition, you have
(19:08):
a game plan, and the only time you go out
of bounds is when they force you out, or when
you go out to stop the clock. But if a
hundred and eighty five pound cornerback is going to make
me go out of bounds. I'm gonna be building a
pizzy ego. I'm gonna try to drop a forreharm into
his chest. And sometimes when you do that, miracles happen.
(19:30):
Sometimes you get away. A lot of times when a're
running back breaks the tackle, you don't know you're gonna
break it, but you try to break it. So on
the on the sidelines, sometimes when I dropped that show
they don't get me out of bounds. So and then
if I get an extra yard, I get an extra inch.
That's a part of my my my psychic So I
can't turn it on and turn it off. I have
(19:53):
to turn it on and keep it on until the
game is over. Even if we're losing and can't win,
I still keep it going. Now, if I fly out
to life, I'm going to be successful. That's not even
a question. I would not argue about anyone saying when
you should run out of bound. I don't think quarterbacks
can say themselves. I think quarterback sliding. I think it's
a ridiculous thing. I think it makes them weak. I
(20:14):
think it makes them more prone to injury because they're
not conditioned mentally or physically to take the blows. So
it's just not a concept that works. Jimmy, you just
mentioned condition. You said once that in your whole career
you were only in peak condition one year. Is that true, Well,
let me explain that not from the standpoint of condition.
(20:37):
When Paul left, I went to a different emotional and
mental level because I didn't want people to think that
my career is based on Paul Brown, and we wanted
a new coach, and Blanton was our guy that was
coming who would allow us to express ourselves artistically. Therefore,
(20:57):
I took it to another level mentally with brought me
to another level physically. I wanted it so bad until
I did the whole offseason. I just did things I
never did. I thought about it all the time constantly,
and I would visualize things in my mind, and uh,
I practiced, I think harder than I ever did in
(21:17):
my life. But it was mentally driven. And then what happened.
I got to level where I could go eight ears
and wouldn't be tired at all. Oh I could get
hit and it was like a whole different thing. I
had so much under my command that year, but that
was like putting almost everything you had into football. It
was like my life was just that. So that year
(21:40):
it was an awesome kind of experience for me, you know,
But you can't live at that level. It's impossible. You
can peek at that level and then you get a
little below that and you can function. But that's almost
like a radical level, you know. I was very radical
that year. So that's sort of tyson. The next question
(22:00):
that that you said that you were only at your
maximum potential, or that you never were at your maximum potential.
I mean, he said, let me rephrase that. In your career,
as great as it was, you're you said that you
never played at your maximum potential. It's almost an impossibility,
but it's a it's an intellectual thing. Uh. Football, you
(22:24):
have eleven minute on the field. You have plays that
you run. Each person has to make decisions on those plays.
Right now. Let's say, for example, we run a sweep
and I don't start out quick enough and there's penetration
and I can't clear that penetration. But maybe I knocked
(22:47):
the guys side and make a couple of moves in
game five yards to the viewing audience. That was a
great thing because I got rid of this guy. He
interfered with me, but it slowed me down and I
got five yards. But if I had done what I
was supposed to do in the beginning and had that
extra step, then maybe I could have gone fifty yards,
(23:08):
you see. So it's it's in my mind what perfection
would be, and there's no way that you can reach
perfection because you have to make decisions mentally. You have
a physical thing you have to deal with, you have
an emotional thing. You have to do what you have
other people you have to deal with, and there's no
way that it's just cut and dry, you see. So
you have to be able to uh know when to
(23:30):
float on a play, when to accelerate, when to jump,
when not to jump, when you put your head down,
when to throw a forearm, all those choices, and you're
never gonna make the right choice throughout a football game.
You mentioned something about you know your arms, and I
always thinking looking at your footage that I never saw
running back use his arms the way you did. And
(23:52):
not only the stiff farm, I mean you were a
way of when a guy would hit you. You're using
your arm here like it's like a crowbar that could
you could pry them off your legs. Was something that
that you developed instinctively or or or that, or about
talk to me about how you use your arms when
you were already Well, my arms were like my protectors
and my weapon. Uh, if I'm walking in a crowd,
(24:16):
I can do this and stop anybody from touching me.
I can do this and move somebody back easily. Or
I can do that and knock them down, you know,
but it puts a circle around my body. See your
vulnerable all through here, you know. But so you make
sure that no one is getting under you don't want
tacklers to get your arms spread and put the shoulders
(24:37):
up in here on you put the helmet in your chest.
You want to put something in front of that you
want to hear. So I basically perfected that and then
well I didn't perfect it, but I got good at it,
and I started working on it all the time, you know,
doing practice, I work on it. So doing the week,
my arms would be very, very sore. So when we
(24:58):
do push ups and exercise, I loafed on the push ups, Paul,
and understand it. And this goes into the theory that
each each position should have its own set of calisthenics,
because if I could get my arms well during the week,
then my weapon will be working. But if I did
push ups and kept them hurting, I would be less effective.
(25:22):
But I thought about everything you know, and I had.
I knew the pressure you can put on the top
of a person head, so that yeah, if I if
you're coming at me and you and I put my
hand on top of your head, then as you come
and I'm pressed down, your own force is gonna take
you down because your body's gonna follow your head. If
(25:42):
I hit you in your face with the straight on,
your eyes are gonna blink, which means you to throw
you off. If you're too close for that, and I
hit you up in the chest with your form you're
not expecting, that can throw you off. And then if
you're closer than that and I put this here and
stiffing it up and lift when you hit me, you
might not be able to knock me down. So I
(26:04):
knew all of those things from the standpoint of just
a science. I couldn't always apply it, but every day
I would think about things that other people did, other backs.
I knew everybody's all the running backs. I knew what
they you know what they could do and what they
couldn't do, And in certain situations I would take some
of their skills. I would I would adopt adapt myself
(26:26):
to something that they did to make my arts feel better.
But yeah, right now, my arms are very strong, and
when I'm around people, I'm always these are always what
they have to worry about if they come at me,
don't worry. What about another thing that I read that
(26:48):
you never drank water doing a game. During a game.
Why is that? Well, the theory was is that it
could cramp you up, or it could make you sluggish.
If you enough of it is definitely gonna make it sluggish.
But also the ritual was that if I drank water,
it would not mentally help me because I thought about
(27:09):
the negative aspect of what could happen. Then the point is,
if I'm good, if I'm good enough condition, I don't
need to drink water. Okay. And but the main thing
is that if I can start from from point one
to point ten and hold my mental thing, then I'm
at the peak from the standpoint of producing producing because
I have no negotism within my mind. I don't know
(27:31):
if you understand right, but to succumb to water and
to not know it's gonna help me would be ridiculous.
But if I got in condition and practice and I
knew I was in condition, I didn't need water. So
it was it was that kind of thing. Now, what
about hip pads. You didn't wear hip pats. I had
(27:52):
a lot of things. But the whole thing about playing
football is that you play, you can always find the
excuse not to play. And I wasn't a tough guy
like I'm tough. No, I was just determined that I
wanted to play this game on a certain level. So
hip the lack of hip pass gave me more maneuverability
and speed. So I wanted more maneuverability and speed. I
(28:13):
didn't want protection. Yeah, if I was going to do
a prediction, I put paths everywhere and I wouldn't produce nothing. Yeah,
I can get a big element extra pass paths around
my rear black theast quarterbacks. But I want to be
sleek like a greyhound. You know that's what you are.
You're running back your greyhound, your thoroughbread. You have to
be quick, you have to have balance, and uh, you
(28:36):
don't want to have a lot of heavy equipment. On.
You need to jump in here for a quick sidebar
about one of the behind the scenes technical aspects from
these old interviews. They were all shot on film, not
videotaped or recorded digitally as they are now. In fact,
fun fact, NFL Films was the largest purveyor of film
(28:57):
outside the Department of Defense, so the film role was
only about ten minutes long. So every ten minutes the
interview would have to pause for all the cameras to
change the film, magazines, or reels. Why is that important
for you to know? Well, for an interviewer, when you
disrupt the flow, you've got to remember where you left
(29:17):
off so you can pick back up. But it also
gives you the opportunity for some casual conversations that take
place outside the scope of the interview. During this changeover,
Jim Brown, who is pretty familiar with movie making, starts
asking Steve about the setup. Now, if you heard our
podcast with how We Long, you might recall that Steve
was an extremely knowledgeable film aficionado. So for Jim Brown
(29:41):
to tell Steve something about filmmaking, that's pretty cool. So
you guys, you got three cameras set up, you don't
have to do any well, we just want to do
it right and we want to have the whole. This
guy's shooting both of us, and then this camera's just
coming across one. Then you don't have to do no
more setup. No, this is it. Yeah, it's good. That
(30:02):
was European style filmmaking. Really yeah, thanks seriually only started
with the once part of Time in the West. Well
that was one of his idea the Dollar movies though,
Oh yeah first, but he wouldn't he could take his
mask in both close ups and one setup all set um.
One question we're talking earlier about, you know, the physical
(30:24):
nature of football, the condition you were in. Do you
feel that when you played that physically, that that you
were that much more powerful than the other players that
you've played against. Well, you never, you never really think
of it that way. What you do is you analyze
what your tools. I had a great body, uh you know,
that was given to me by my mother and father
(30:45):
and by God. And because I was about two thirty
two six too, I could beat am well, I beat
almost I beat everybody on the Browns in the forty
Renfrew and Bobba Mitchell, those guys, and I had balanced
and I had quickness, and I was I was very strong.
Now that sounds like I'm bragging about something, but that
was the body that God gave me. And then I
(31:06):
tried to keep that body in the best condition that
I could. So I was fortunate because it was kind
of a rare individual. Usually a bigger guy is not
that fast and quick, but I never thought of being big,
so that never did hinder me. Uh. And because of
that body and the diversification, I was able to maintain
(31:27):
a career because sometimes I would have to run up
in the middle for one yard. Uh. It was a
grueling game with five yard games and sometimes to be
a game where I'd get eighty yards and sixty yards
and seventy yards, so that at some point I'd be
like a tank and other points that would be like
a gazelle, you know. Uh. And so it was like
those diversification that was in my body that allowed me
(31:50):
to perform consistently because they were defense for one thing.
Defense to you for one thing, they can stop that,
Now can you do the other thing? Can you make
all the different adjustments and force? And I was so
if you think about yaddage, you know, and you think
about running backs and you think about it. Back that
stays in the game all the time and deals with
(32:11):
all the situations. It means that a lot of times
you're gonna have to go for one yard on the
goal line or a first down. You can't go for yardage,
you can't take a chance on third down and one
of doubling back and losing yardage. You want to get
to one yards. So I always looked at my body
and my career as being there for whatever was necessary
(32:35):
for us to maintain a drive, not to gain yardage,
not to have a high average. Let all of that
come out of that. You see what I'm saying. So
I wouldn't be a situational player or a player that
just wanted to make long runs. I wanted to do
what was necessary at that particular time, and I was
equipped to do that. A lot of thinking about these things.
White was it so important to you to conceal any
(32:58):
injuries that you had, I mean, from your from your teammates,
from your opponents. Why is that? Why is that so
important to you? Because it's not a part of the
expectation of the fans, the coaches, the owners, all your teammates.
They don't want they don't want to know anything about
no injuries. They don't They want you to play. Everybody
(33:21):
wants you to play. So what difference does it make
if I'm hurt or not hurt, They still want me
to play. They don't have time for sympathy, So the
sympathy is gonna be false because the bottom line is
that if I'm not playing, I'm not helping them. So
my dedication was to uh, maintain my mental strength and
take the pain and play. And I was very proud
(33:45):
of that. Well that your greatest season, I think you
played with a broken toe was yards and had a
broken toe. We had one. You had a broken wrist.
I had broken fingers that had a broken toe. But
I think it's funny at think coach says somethingbody, do
you want to have the doctor check it? I said,
there's no point of checking if you want me to
(34:06):
play anyway. Right now, that wasn't strength. But in order
to play pro football, you have to have a mental
attitude because they'll beat it. They'll beat you to death
if you don't. So I try to take my mental
attitude to another level where I didn't want to go
in the training room and lay down and have the
train to do anything and let other players see that.
(34:26):
So what they would do on this on the other
side of that coin is that they will go tell
their teammates, this is a strange guy, you know. I mean,
he doesn't want to go in the training room. He
don't get hurt. He's strange. And that helped me because
it caused a kind of mystery, and it gave me
a psychological advantage. Maybe not much, but because when you're
to start of a team, the other team is always
(34:48):
studying a characteristics. They're getting information on you. They're seeing
the pressure that you put on your hands when you
running particular play. They want to know the kind of
mind you've got. And so in the off season, I
would not allow that to happen. If I go a
Pro Bowl game, I wouldn't allow them to understand me,
and I wouldn't give my teammates too much to work
with to explain me. I remember once in New York
they were gouge in my eyes and I think they
(35:10):
scratched my eyeball and I couldn't I couldn't see real well.
Everything was like blurry. This was in the game against
the Giants. Against the Giants, and Uh, I said, blat,
you know, my eyeballs or not reacting right. Maybe I
should have a doctor check it right because eye bowls
and not strong, you know, your eyeballs and eyeballs, and
then I don't want to get my eyes punched out. Sinaid, Well,
(35:33):
Jimmy better wait so uh later, so the team won't
know that you have your eyes check it'll it'll bother them.
And that's what he said to me, and I understood it,
you know, because I was a guy that they looked
forward to, uh, never getting hurt, never getting tired. In
my opinion, you know, each guy had different impressions, but
(35:56):
as the guy that the ball was going to most
of the time, I had to take that out of too.
So it all worked in having nine years of football.
And that's why I got out after my ninth year,
because you can't do that fifteen and twenty years. I mean,
that's intensively levels too high. Brown had committed to play
ten seasons and he had one year remaining on his
(36:17):
contract with the team. But Brown had already begun his
acting career and was in the midst of shooting The
Dirty Dozen in London when production delays forced shooting to
bleed into training camp, faced with a thread of being
fined fifteen hundred dollars per week missed by owner Art Model.
Brown announced his retirement on July sixty six. There were
(36:41):
no press conferences in those days, so here's Brown's quote
to the Cleveland Plane Dealer. This decision is final. I
am no longer preparing mentally for football. I'm committing myself
to other things. I'm not going to play again. And
with that, Brown exited the NFLS stage, leaving an indelible
(37:02):
mark on the game. But what a time capsule this is.
Listening to Jim talk about playing hurt, well, that's ingrained
as part of the culture of football, especially back when
he played. But I think it's also interesting to contemplate
how the running backs role is devalued more today. In
the sense of what Brown was talking about, he wanted
(37:23):
to succeed on each and every play, in each and
every situation. Today there are third down backs, past catching
specialist short yardage guys. Back then, there was one Jim Brown.
When we come back, Brown tells Steve what the biggest
misperception of him is. Not surprisingly, he is very outspoken
(37:44):
about being described as the ultimate perpetrator of violence. Welcome
back to Tales from the Vault. I think one thing
we've learned about Jim Brown is he's intentional about everything
he does, including one of the trademark images of him
the way he walked back to the huddle after every play.
(38:05):
Regardless of the result, Brown took his time getting up
and getting back to the huddle. And if you think
it was just so he could catch his breath, well
that's not exactly right. But for some perspective, juxtaposed the
way that Walter Payton jumped up because he never wanted
to let an opponent think he was hurt, this turns
out to be the opposite of Jim Brown's approach and
(38:28):
is wont to be the case with Brown. Thought has
been given to every action and reaction. Another thing that
was characteristic Any father that that saw you play and
talks to his son now will always one of the
things they remember is the way you would walk back
to the huddle. Now, in talking to you, now, there
must have been a scientific or a reason why you
(38:49):
did that. Well, let me give you an example. Let's
say that you get hit and you go down and
wins and knocked out of me and I lay down
there and I get up slow. After I had been
jumping up. The sharks in the water said, oh, this
guy is bleeding. They attack you. You motivate them to
(39:10):
attack you when you do that. If you get up
slow each time, that's the constant. They don't know what's happening.
You just get up slow every time. And then when
you come out blasting, he gets up slow and he blasts.
So they don't know when when the wind is knocked
out of me. They don't know when I'm hurt, they
don't know when I'm dizzy. They don't know anything, and
therefore I give them no advantage psychological advantage. Bobby Mitchell
(39:34):
told us that that you were always the last, the
last to get in the locker room to get dressed,
and the last on the bus. The last one is
that was a reason for that. Well, basically, everything is
a rhythm. You create a rhythm, you create a consistent rhythm,
and you're not only aware of yourself, you're aware of
other players. During that time, there's a lot of racism
(39:59):
in America, and a lot of things were going on
and didn't have anything to do with football. So, uh,
there were certain conscientious efforts I made by being last
to make sure everything was all right. I won't go
into details on that, but uh, I think if you
study the Cleveland Browns and you look at the players,
(40:19):
and you look at the black players that were on
the Browns doing my era, you see that all of
those individuals are doing well in life. That's solid citizens
and uh they have great jobs. And one of the
things that I did, uh as a part of the Browns,
I made sure that the black players were united, they
would carried ourselves with dignity. Uh. I looked at the
(40:42):
room in situation. For example, one time they decided to
put a white guy in a single room and a
black guy in a single room because I think it
was an odd number of black guys. And I didn't
mind rooming with black guys when it was even because I,
you know, I didn't want to listen to country Western
music and I wasn't trying to integrate. But when they
made a distinct separation, that was an issue because no
(41:05):
one was in it better than anybody else. And so
I went right to ownership, you know, and said to them,
you can't do that. You know, that's that we can't
go for so there's a lot of things going on.
I mean, you you asked me that question. You're not
looking at the bus being first last in the locker room.
But when you last, you can observe everything. You know,
(41:29):
you see how citch a scenario is you. It's like
everything is all right. You know, Jim, we're talking about
your teammates, and it's that this might be a difficult question.
But if a bunch of your old teammates were, say,
we're sitting over here in the corner of the pool,
and you knew that they were talking about you, what
would you hope that they would be saying, Well, there's
(41:53):
only one thing that wouldn't matter, uh, that they felt
play the game hard. That's the only thing. That's the
only connection they could ever have to me that would
be important to me. The rest of it would not
basically matter, not if I was a good guy, bad guy, whatever,
(42:14):
But if they thought I played the game hard and
made a contribution that allowed us to win a world
championship or to win games and be a good team,
that's all, Because that's that would be the constant. Because
you've got a diversified group of individuals, they have personalities,
all of that and uh, their feelings other than that
(42:35):
is their business, you know, and I can't shape that.
But if they thought I didn't play hard, but if
they thought I neglected the game, or if I made
no contribution, that would that would concern me. That might
be an issue I would discuss with him. But are
there from Mississippi and they were in one political party
and not in another. Uh, if you know they weren't
(42:57):
partial to black folks, that would kind of be their business,
you know. I just I just said it to you,
not as arrogance, but I have no power over that.
I give an example. Dick Shafraf was my offensive tackle
and Dick and I had very close friends now, and
I remember Dick was always a good guy, fair guy,
and one of the hardest workers on the team. But
(43:18):
the many thing I remember about him is that he
was an overachiever from the standpoint of making a contribution
to our team. Being a nice guy was okay, but
he was an overachiever. He played above his talent and
should probably be in the Hall of Fame. So that
would be the one thing. Because you know, people don't
always understand you. And I don't say this out of defense,
(43:40):
but I don't always understand everybody else until I get
to know them. Bobby Night, Uh, I thought Bobby was crazy,
like people think I'm crazy, And then when I met
Why do people think you're crazy? Well, that's what they
tell me. I heard that. I really think I'm different.
You know, they think them different or eccentric or whatever,
(44:03):
you know, because they don't understand the thought pattern. Maybe
when I'm supposed to be thinking about football, I'm thinking
about politics, or maybe uh, you know, when you come
up here, it's supposed they have a perception of what
it should be. Or maybe going on TV and I'm
in an interview like this interview, maybe I say things
that they don't expect me to say. I think that
(44:25):
adds to it mainly. I think in the end, though,
it clears itself up. What do you think, Jim, is
the public's biggest misperception of you? Well, the changes, Uh, Well,
they think I'm the ultimate uh perpetrator of violence. The
headlines that I've had in the past, my look on
(44:47):
my face seems to uh make me like the original
bad guy that I invented. All the things that are
basically violent, and I don't in exaggeration. I just say
that in honesty and trying to give you the interview
that you should have. Um, they buy into the hype.
(45:09):
And media has a lot to do with I don't
blame media. A lot has to do with things I've done,
A lot has to do with things I've been accused of,
but most of it has to do of the reporting
of those things. Uh, never clearing up certain things that
should be cleared up. And then people come in and
adopt that. For example, they said I threw a female
(45:32):
off of a balcony, which was totally untrue. The story
hit I was accused of at about thirty some years ago.
People right now say, yeah, he threw somebody off a
barcon it happened last year. So it it. It sticks
in the minds. And when you have, say, for example,
(45:54):
a good guy like oh J, they have a bad
guy like Jim Brown. Oh J plays the game. He's arming,
he says what he's supposed to say. He belongs to Rivera.
Jim Brown is out in the ghetto. He's hanging out
with gangsters. Uh, he's in the clubs. He likes girls. Uh.
Then things change around all of a sudden, O J
isn't quite the calendar boy. Then the people come, O,
(46:17):
so what Jim is working with these kids, that Jim
is doing this, And then they started listening to me more,
and then they find out maybe there's some intelligence and
what he's saying, Maybe there's some fairness in what he's saying.
He hates racism, he hates discrimination. So they say, Okay,
hates white people. Right, No, I hate discrimination. I hate racism.
(46:38):
But on the other hand, I tell black people, I say,
there's never been a movement in this country that white
people did not sacrifice their lines for us. That ain't
popular either, right, but it's honest. I say, Jackie Robinson
was great, but in my opinion, branch Rickey was greater
because he was the catalyst that allowed Jackie to do
his thing. So if you hear me saying I hate
(46:58):
racism and you just stay with that, you think, oh,
you don't like wife folks, then black folks heim me
saying branch Rickey did the hell of a job. Oh
he's kissing up the wife folks. Well, to me, there's
a truth that has to be laid out there, and
in order for you to get it, you have to
hear all of the comments. And they sell them. Do
people take the time to hear all of the comments.
(47:22):
So I've been a person that has been accused of
a lot of different things, But there's selling that I
ever get a chance to have a platform to lay
out all of my thoughts and all of my lives,
you know. So there's been a perception out there, no
doubt about it. It's getting a little better now. Look,
we neither canonize nor demonize these players, but as with
(47:44):
the rest of the podcast, we need to provide some
context on what Steve subjects are talking about. Brown broached
this subject himself. He is a litany of domestic violence
accusations and charges that are a part of his resume
as much as his on field excellence. Next week we
bring you part two of this iconic interview, in which
(48:06):
Steve and Jim wrap up his football career and get
into his off the field endeavors, including his time as
an actor and as a political activist. I hope you'll
join us. Thanks for listening. I'm Andrea Kramer.
Welcome to NFL Films Tales from the Vault. I'm your host,
Andrea Kramer. For nearly fifty years, Hall of Famer Steve
Sable was the voice and visionary of NFL Films. In
that time, Steve conducted hundreds of interviews with the greatest
figures in NFL history. On this podcast, you'll get to
(00:25):
hear them raw, unedited in their entirety for the first time.
My role, well since Steve launched my Hall of Fame
career when he hired me as NFL films first female producer, director, writer, editor.
I'm here to help guide you, providing context, insights, and
the occasional anecdote from my time covering these quote men
(00:47):
who made the game, as Steve like to call them. Today,
we have part one of Steve's epic interview with the
legendary Jim Brown. Yeah, Jim Brown was sixty three years old.
(01:16):
He'd been retired from football and living in Los Angeles
for over thirty years. Brown has long been considered the
greatest running back of all time and is usually in
the conversation about being the greatest player of all time
as well. He retired after nine of the most dominant
seasons in NFL history, and he started every game of
every one of those seasons. He's the only back to
(01:38):
average over a hundred yards per game for his entire career.
He never sustained a major injury and walked away from
the game of his own volition at age thirty. That
alone tells you how unique and complex, and in many
ways as well learn polarizing Jim Brown really is. Among
his non football accomplishments are a tote of fifty three
(02:01):
acting credits, including being one of the stars of, or
maybe I should say members of the nineteen sixty seven
World War Two classic The Dirty Dozen. Brown has also
long been a political activist, dating back to the Civil
rights movement of the nineteen sixties. He carried that activism
into his work with gangs in Los Angeles and Cleveland
(02:21):
in the nineteen seventies and eighties. In the interview you're
about to hear Stephen, Jim sat on the deck of
his house in Los Angeles and talked for so long,
and we think with so much compelling material that we
had to split it up into two parts. Plus I
know what your attention span is. In part one, Brown's
(02:42):
reflections about his time in the NFL are both honest,
enlightening and a reminder of how different the game was
when he played. He talks not just about the sport,
but the men he encountered along the way and the
relationships he forged. Jim Brown is never short of opinions.
But if you're listening, I want you to really take
(03:02):
notice of the fact that everything Jim Brown does he
does with a purpose. But also this conversation highlights Steve
sables interviewing and listening skills. He approaches the interview in
a chronological manner. He knows that to understand where someone
came from is to understand how they turned out to be,
(03:23):
and Jim Brown is certainly a product of his life experiences.
So let's go to the vault for part one of
Steve Sable and Jim Brown. This is just Jim as
if you and I are sitting here bullshit, that's what
I just want to have a normal flow of conversation.
It's not like a structured kind of interview. And there
are things that that that you might be saying all
(03:45):
of a suddenly give me an idea to go in
another direction. Not normal conversation is there's there's so many
things that we can go in so many different directions.
You said, just an okay, you can just asking on tape,
all right, okay, good, find a lot of pre in it.
All right, good, All I need to do why because okay,
we're all said Jim, when we look back on in
your childhood, who was the most dominant figure in your
(04:07):
development as a child when you were growing up? Uh,
my great grandmother we call her Mama, and uh she
raised all of us, you know, I mean she raised
everybody and she was everything to me, very strong woman.
There really no men in the house, and when she died,
(04:28):
it was like almost like my total family was gone.
But uh, she was a strong one. And then later
on my grandmother became who was an alcoholic for about
twenty some years. She became like the strong person of family.
But Mom was the most influence around me from the
standpoint of family. When you said there were no men
in your life, did what about your father? Did you
(04:49):
have any kind of a relationship with him at all? No?
He was a player. He was everywhere and I saw
him about four times in my life. But I did
have an uncle in New York, uncle Bubba, who would
come down and visit us. He drove a tax in
New York and then he'd come down and uh in
his taxi and he was a big influence. But he
(05:10):
was only there. Uh, you know every once in a while, Well,
is there one broken friendship that you you would like
to repair? When he was like, that's a deep that's
a deep question. Well, I give you a real line
of st answer. My mother. My mother was very young,
(05:34):
and uh, when she had me in her teens, and
then I was brought up about the first eight years
by my great grandmother, who I love dearly. I didn't
really know my mother. And when then when I moved
with my mother, she was a young woman and I
was a young boy, and uh, it was very difficult
for us because she was in the prime of her
life from standpoint of dating, and I was growing up
(05:57):
wanting my mother just to be a mother. And uh,
at a point in my life I didn't trust her.
But instead of working at it and trying to have
greater wisdom and reaching out, I withdrew and with and withdrawing.
(06:17):
It didn't do me any good because it did not
allow us to come together before she died. So basically
I wish I could have done something about that. I
wish I had reached out because what I realized in
my older wisdom that you can always reach out. It
doesn't have to be fifty fifty, you know, anything close
(06:39):
to that. I mean, if you want to, you can
reach out and make things better. And so that's basically
uh the one broken UH friendship that I wish I
could have no at least taken initiative to to mend. Well,
when you moved to New York, your mom moved with you, right,
you want, with your uncle, she was already she was
(07:01):
in New York. Now what kind of jobs did she
have when you were growing up? She was a made
you know, she worked in Great Neck for a family
called the Brockman's, very nice people. And then when my
great grandmother Uh died, I had to move with her.
So we lived in a little apartment over the garage
in Great Neck, and my mother was there made, and
(07:23):
she sent me to a school and Manhasset. So it
was a very strange kind of living situation. But I
emphasized that the family, the Brockmans, were really really nice
to us and my mother, you know, she had to
struggle and make sure that I got to school every
day and she did that. When you went to Syracuse, Jim,
what was the initial reaction by the football coach when
(07:47):
you first came out with the team. Will you have
to understand that Syracuse really didn't want me. That was
a brain child of my great fans and manhassean to
have me go there. And when I got there, I
was not on scholarship, and uh it was a trial situation.
The community paid my way. And in this reaction was
(08:10):
I was black. There had been a black quarterback that
he had disappointed them, and I was going to be
like him. I didn't know who the guy was and
did not even understand the relationship or the way they
could say that I was gonna be like him. But
there was one coach there, Roy Simmons, who was a
cross coach, assistant backfield coach. He was great and he
(08:31):
welcomed me. He made me feel at ease, and uh,
he was the one person that really reached out. So
it was very difficult at that time, probably the most
difficult time in my whole career as far as sports
and education, because, uh, they just didn't want me. I
heard they wanted to make you a defensive end that
they wanted to make me anything that they could make me,
(08:53):
but it was it was just not a good situation.
Did you ever think of quitting? Absolutely? I uh decided
I was going to leave school. But then my superintendent
of Manhasset, Dr. Collins, who was a great friend of
the kids and a great friend of mine, he flew
up and met with me in a hotel room until
(09:15):
him I should never give up, and that they were wrong,
and that if I stayed there, we would prove them
wrong and I would be successful. So because of him
and the way he had treated me at Manhasset was
just the opposite of Syracuse. Those people are really high
class people, I stayed, and uh the rest was history.
What role did Ken Malloy have in your in your staying?
(09:37):
Wasn't he a factor in that too? Kenney was a
factor in my life ever since I was years old.
If you're joining us for the first time, this is
part of my role providing the excess and o's if
you will, of the background of these interviews. So before
we get too far, let me give you a little
insight into who is Ken malloy and why he's so
important to Jim Brown Lake Brown. Malloy was a native
(09:59):
of House in New York. He was a mentor to Brown,
but also a Syracuse graduate who encouraged Brown to go there,
But when Syracuse denied Brown his scholarship, Malloy and forty
three of his friends raised the funds necessary to pay
for Brown's freshman year. Kenny was a lawyer, young lawyer.
(10:20):
He helped kids. He took a liking to me and
knew I had talent. He kept me from reading comic books,
and he was like my surrogate father. He presented you
at the Hall of Fame that me had the hall
of fame. And uh, I loved him, you know, always
respect him. I always knew what goodness was because he
just helped people. You know, nothing in it for him
(10:41):
other than just seeing kids get to school that normally
wouldn't get to school. So uh and everything I did,
he was an influence. When you graduated, when you left Syracuse,
you got an offer to play in the NBA, the
NFL Canadian Football League. I read where some boxing promoter
wanted to pay you twenty five dollars because yeah, he
(11:02):
thought you could beat Floyd Patterson in two years in
the NFL offer g I think was it fifteen thousand
and you took pro football out of all those offers, Jim,
Why why did you pick pro football? Well, basically, I
was too short to play forward in professional basketball. Syracusan
As at the time drafting me. Uh, football was a
(11:22):
sport that I felt that I could really play well
and I can make money doing it, and I love
all sports, so it wasn't a matter of just love.
So I felt that a career wise would be the
right thing to do. I didn't want to go to
Canada for any amount of money. I wanted to play
in the best league. And Uh, those simple reasons that
all seven he went to the All Star camp. Ye,
(11:47):
Otto Graham tells you, you know, forget it. Yeah, you're
not You're not good enough to play. What did you
think about that? When Well, he didn't exactly said that.
He just basically treated me that way. And Uh, they
wouldn't play me. They played me a few minutes in
the game. I was so disappointed until right after the game,
I put my clothes on and I drove to Cleveland
(12:10):
so I could start my rookie year there. And I
got in I think two practices before any of the
rookies got in and it was the best thing I
ever did. So, actually, I was motivated by the negatism.
Uh at that game, I felt that I was as
good as any back there. And they put John Arnett,
I think, and a couple other guys ahead of me,
(12:31):
and Otto just did not seem to really like certain
kind of players at that time. When you went to
the Browns, was there one player that pulled you aside
and gave you some advice and said, Jim, this is
what you gotta watch out for. This is this, this
is that. Was there one player that gave you some
advice when you first were a rookie that you remember what?
(12:51):
I was thinking about it the other day, just funny
asked a question because there was a big end called
Lenny Ford, and I remember being in the neighborhood. I
think I stayed in the house that he stayed and
I rented a room, and he used to really look
out for me. And he was a great end. But
he was drinking a lot, and he was like in
the last years of his career, and he had a
bad arm. And uh, I remember some of the games
(13:13):
when he was brilliant, but he was like my big brother.
But I only thought about that about a few days ago.
I was just going over my mind, you know, some
of the things that happened, and great relationship. Had a
lot of respect for him. And then also it allowed
me to think of myself as a young player, because
normally I just think of my nine years and I
(13:36):
have this image. But then I realized when I first
went there, I was square as hell, you know, I
didn't know anything. And Lenny, uh, basically Lenny Ford sort
of guy. What did he tell you? You remember? Specific?
He just guided me very gently. He didn't sit down
and give me a speech, but he let me hang
out with him. He would give me knowledge without ever
(13:58):
really uh making it seem that way. And I just
picked up a lot of things from him, you know,
about the community, from about the community, about the team.
What do you tell you about Paul Brown? What do
you tell you about Paul? Well, he didn't really have
to tell me anything about Paul, because when you got there,
you know, Paul was a dictator. He was the man.
Everybody was afraid of him. He was articulate, he was brilliant,
(14:23):
and he ran a very tight organization. No one stepped
out of line. And uh, I kind of liked it
that way. But you know, Lenny was kind of a rebel,
so he was kind of at odds with Paul, you know,
and so he never really tried influence me because there
was nothing influenced. Paul is such a dominant figure. Until
(14:46):
the first day you get there, you know who he is.
He's but I loved him in the sense of they
were so afraid of nobody formed any cliques. You know,
it's very racially intense at that time in this country,
and uh, you know Paul and allow any racial things
to come up in a division, to come up in
the team. And uh, people so afraid of him. You
(15:09):
until he just ran a great organization. Were you afraid
of him? No, nope, I like what he did. I
just abided by the rules. And my first exhibition game,
he started me in the rubber ball and acron and
I broke on up the middle and school and he
called me off the field. He said, you my running back.
(15:31):
So that's all I wanted. And that was like probably
the greatest day in my early career when he said that.
How would you describe your relationship with him? I mean,
did he treat you differently? Than other players. Do you
think later in your career, Oh, yeah, yeah, he treated
me differently. I'll tell you something about that. Coaches always
(15:51):
treat people differently. You can't ever treat everybody saying that's
a myth. Uh, stars are gonna be treated differently in life.
See was going to be treated differently. Celebrities gonna be
treated differently. And I was a style of his team
and he gave me the ball. Uh. He didn't give
me any special privileges because I didn't want any special privileges.
(16:13):
I had to practice like everyone else. But if there
was something politically going on, I could go up to
Paul and represent it probably better than anybody else. And
that was because of my ability and being basically the
running back on the team. Remember I told you that
the game was different back when Brown played, and we're
(16:34):
gonna get into that more in the next segment. But
what really strikes me here is can you imagine a
player of Brown's caliber today saying it's a myth that
coaches treat everybody the same. I so missed those pre
social media days of such candor. When we come back,
Steve delves into the nitty gritty details of Jim's football career,
(16:57):
including his controversial thoughts about wait for it, drinking water.
You don't want to miss his reasoning for that. Stay tuned,
Welcome back to Tails from the Vault. For the first
six years of Jim Brown's career, his head coach was
Paul Brown. Following the nineteen sixty two season, Paul Brown
(17:20):
was replaced by Blanton Collier. The move was controversial and
that the man who was responsible for the origin of
the Browns It's no coincidence they bear his name, who
had been there coach for seventeen years, had been replaced
due to differences with the new owner of the team,
Art Model, and Model wanted to have his own coach
(17:42):
at the Helm, hence he hired Collier. But before we
rejoined the interview, I want to point this out to you. Now,
when you're the greatest, like an Ali or at your
position like a Jim Brown, you can say anything you
want because you've backed it up with your actions. But please, folks,
as you listen to the tremendous detail in which Steve
(18:02):
and Jim break down the minutia of his craft, try
to envision Brown running in your mind's eye. A few
specific points about your career details. You never ran out
of bounds. You look at running backs in later years
Hall of Famers Frank o'harris that they take a pitch out,
they see they couldn't get anything, they run out of bounds.
(18:24):
You never did that. Why not? I mean there would
be times where you think that there was no way
you could get the extra yard. It's you'd save a
little wear and tear in your body. Why didn't you
just sort of glide out of bounds? Let me be
emphatic about that. Those excuses for what I would consider
weaker minds. Uh, You never assume you can't do something.
(18:47):
You never give your opponent any opportunity that they don't deserve.
In other words, for me to run out of bounds
because of a collision is to admit weakness. To think
I can save my self is ridiculous, because when you
get hurt, it isn't that your tiredness says. Sometimes it's
just an accident. So you get in condition, you have
(19:08):
a game plan, and the only time you go out
of bounds is when they force you out, or when
you go out to stop the clock. But if a
hundred and eighty five pound cornerback is going to make
me go out of bounds. I'm gonna be building a
pizzy ego. I'm gonna try to drop a forreharm into
his chest. And sometimes when you do that, miracles happen.
(19:30):
Sometimes you get away. A lot of times when a're
running back breaks the tackle, you don't know you're gonna
break it, but you try to break it. So on
the on the sidelines, sometimes when I dropped that show
they don't get me out of bounds. So and then
if I get an extra yard, I get an extra inch.
That's a part of my my my psychic So I
can't turn it on and turn it off. I have
(19:53):
to turn it on and keep it on until the
game is over. Even if we're losing and can't win,
I still keep it going. Now, if I fly out
to life, I'm going to be successful. That's not even
a question. I would not argue about anyone saying when
you should run out of bound. I don't think quarterbacks
can say themselves. I think quarterback sliding. I think it's
a ridiculous thing. I think it makes them weak. I
(20:14):
think it makes them more prone to injury because they're
not conditioned mentally or physically to take the blows. So
it's just not a concept that works. Jimmy, you just
mentioned condition. You said once that in your whole career
you were only in peak condition one year. Is that true, Well,
let me explain that not from the standpoint of condition.
(20:37):
When Paul left, I went to a different emotional and
mental level because I didn't want people to think that
my career is based on Paul Brown, and we wanted
a new coach, and Blanton was our guy that was
coming who would allow us to express ourselves artistically. Therefore,
(20:57):
I took it to another level mentally with brought me
to another level physically. I wanted it so bad until
I did the whole offseason. I just did things I
never did. I thought about it all the time constantly,
and I would visualize things in my mind, and uh,
I practiced, I think harder than I ever did in
(21:17):
my life. But it was mentally driven. And then what happened.
I got to level where I could go eight ears
and wouldn't be tired at all. Oh I could get
hit and it was like a whole different thing. I
had so much under my command that year, but that
was like putting almost everything you had into football. It
was like my life was just that. So that year
(21:40):
it was an awesome kind of experience for me, you know,
But you can't live at that level. It's impossible. You
can peek at that level and then you get a
little below that and you can function. But that's almost
like a radical level, you know. I was very radical
that year. So that's sort of tyson. The next question
(22:00):
that that you said that you were only at your
maximum potential, or that you never were at your maximum potential.
I mean, he said, let me rephrase that. In your career,
as great as it was, you're you said that you
never played at your maximum potential. It's almost an impossibility,
but it's a it's an intellectual thing. Uh. Football, you
(22:24):
have eleven minute on the field. You have plays that
you run. Each person has to make decisions on those plays.
Right now. Let's say, for example, we run a sweep
and I don't start out quick enough and there's penetration
and I can't clear that penetration. But maybe I knocked
(22:47):
the guys side and make a couple of moves in
game five yards to the viewing audience. That was a
great thing because I got rid of this guy. He
interfered with me, but it slowed me down and I
got five yards. But if I had done what I
was supposed to do in the beginning and had that
extra step, then maybe I could have gone fifty yards,
(23:08):
you see. So it's it's in my mind what perfection
would be, and there's no way that you can reach
perfection because you have to make decisions mentally. You have
a physical thing you have to deal with, you have
an emotional thing. You have to do what you have
other people you have to deal with, and there's no
way that it's just cut and dry, you see. So
you have to be able to uh know when to
(23:30):
float on a play, when to accelerate, when to jump,
when not to jump, when you put your head down,
when to throw a forearm, all those choices, and you're
never gonna make the right choice throughout a football game.
You mentioned something about you know your arms, and I
always thinking looking at your footage that I never saw
running back use his arms the way you did. And
(23:52):
not only the stiff farm, I mean you were a
way of when a guy would hit you. You're using
your arm here like it's like a crowbar that could
you could pry them off your legs. Was something that
that you developed instinctively or or or that, or about
talk to me about how you use your arms when
you were already Well, my arms were like my protectors
and my weapon. Uh, if I'm walking in a crowd,
(24:16):
I can do this and stop anybody from touching me.
I can do this and move somebody back easily. Or
I can do that and knock them down, you know,
but it puts a circle around my body. See your
vulnerable all through here, you know. But so you make
sure that no one is getting under you don't want
tacklers to get your arms spread and put the shoulders
(24:37):
up in here on you put the helmet in your chest.
You want to put something in front of that you
want to hear. So I basically perfected that and then
well I didn't perfect it, but I got good at it,
and I started working on it all the time, you know,
doing practice, I work on it. So doing the week,
my arms would be very, very sore. So when we
(24:58):
do push ups and exercise, I loafed on the push ups, Paul,
and understand it. And this goes into the theory that
each each position should have its own set of calisthenics,
because if I could get my arms well during the week,
then my weapon will be working. But if I did
push ups and kept them hurting, I would be less effective.
(25:22):
But I thought about everything you know, and I had.
I knew the pressure you can put on the top
of a person head, so that yeah, if I if
you're coming at me and you and I put my
hand on top of your head, then as you come
and I'm pressed down, your own force is gonna take
you down because your body's gonna follow your head. If
(25:42):
I hit you in your face with the straight on,
your eyes are gonna blink, which means you to throw
you off. If you're too close for that, and I
hit you up in the chest with your form you're
not expecting, that can throw you off. And then if
you're closer than that and I put this here and
stiffing it up and lift when you hit me, you
might not be able to knock me down. So I
(26:04):
knew all of those things from the standpoint of just
a science. I couldn't always apply it, but every day
I would think about things that other people did, other backs.
I knew everybody's all the running backs. I knew what
they you know what they could do and what they
couldn't do, And in certain situations I would take some
of their skills. I would I would adopt adapt myself
(26:26):
to something that they did to make my arts feel better.
But yeah, right now, my arms are very strong, and
when I'm around people, I'm always these are always what
they have to worry about if they come at me,
don't worry. What about another thing that I read that
(26:48):
you never drank water doing a game. During a game.
Why is that? Well, the theory was is that it
could cramp you up, or it could make you sluggish.
If you enough of it is definitely gonna make it sluggish.
But also the ritual was that if I drank water,
it would not mentally help me because I thought about
(27:09):
the negative aspect of what could happen. Then the point is,
if I'm good, if I'm good enough condition, I don't
need to drink water. Okay. And but the main thing
is that if I can start from from point one
to point ten and hold my mental thing, then I'm
at the peak from the standpoint of producing producing because
I have no negotism within my mind. I don't know
(27:31):
if you understand right, but to succumb to water and
to not know it's gonna help me would be ridiculous.
But if I got in condition and practice and I
knew I was in condition, I didn't need water. So
it was it was that kind of thing. Now, what
about hip pads. You didn't wear hip pats. I had
(27:52):
a lot of things. But the whole thing about playing
football is that you play, you can always find the
excuse not to play. And I wasn't a tough guy
like I'm tough. No, I was just determined that I
wanted to play this game on a certain level. So
hip the lack of hip pass gave me more maneuverability
and speed. So I wanted more maneuverability and speed. I
(28:13):
didn't want protection. Yeah, if I was going to do
a prediction, I put paths everywhere and I wouldn't produce nothing. Yeah,
I can get a big element extra pass paths around
my rear black theast quarterbacks. But I want to be
sleek like a greyhound. You know that's what you are.
You're running back your greyhound, your thoroughbread. You have to
be quick, you have to have balance, and uh, you
(28:36):
don't want to have a lot of heavy equipment. On.
You need to jump in here for a quick sidebar
about one of the behind the scenes technical aspects from
these old interviews. They were all shot on film, not
videotaped or recorded digitally as they are now. In fact,
fun fact, NFL Films was the largest purveyor of film
(28:57):
outside the Department of Defense, so the film role was
only about ten minutes long. So every ten minutes the
interview would have to pause for all the cameras to
change the film, magazines, or reels. Why is that important
for you to know? Well, for an interviewer, when you
disrupt the flow, you've got to remember where you left
(29:17):
off so you can pick back up. But it also
gives you the opportunity for some casual conversations that take
place outside the scope of the interview. During this changeover,
Jim Brown, who is pretty familiar with movie making, starts
asking Steve about the setup. Now, if you heard our
podcast with how We Long, you might recall that Steve
was an extremely knowledgeable film aficionado. So for Jim Brown
(29:41):
to tell Steve something about filmmaking, that's pretty cool. So
you guys, you got three cameras set up, you don't
have to do any well, we just want to do
it right and we want to have the whole. This
guy's shooting both of us, and then this camera's just
coming across one. Then you don't have to do no
more setup. No, this is it. Yeah, it's good. That
(30:02):
was European style filmmaking. Really yeah, thanks seriually only started
with the once part of Time in the West. Well
that was one of his idea the Dollar movies though,
Oh yeah first, but he wouldn't he could take his
mask in both close ups and one setup all set um.
One question we're talking earlier about, you know, the physical
(30:24):
nature of football, the condition you were in. Do you
feel that when you played that physically, that that you
were that much more powerful than the other players that
you've played against. Well, you never, you never really think
of it that way. What you do is you analyze
what your tools. I had a great body, uh you know,
that was given to me by my mother and father
(30:45):
and by God. And because I was about two thirty
two six too, I could beat am well, I beat
almost I beat everybody on the Browns in the forty
Renfrew and Bobba Mitchell, those guys, and I had balanced
and I had quickness, and I was I was very strong.
Now that sounds like I'm bragging about something, but that
was the body that God gave me. And then I
(31:06):
tried to keep that body in the best condition that
I could. So I was fortunate because it was kind
of a rare individual. Usually a bigger guy is not
that fast and quick, but I never thought of being big,
so that never did hinder me. Uh. And because of
that body and the diversification, I was able to maintain
(31:27):
a career because sometimes I would have to run up
in the middle for one yard. Uh. It was a
grueling game with five yard games and sometimes to be
a game where I'd get eighty yards and sixty yards
and seventy yards, so that at some point I'd be
like a tank and other points that would be like
a gazelle, you know. Uh. And so it was like
those diversification that was in my body that allowed me
(31:50):
to perform consistently because they were defense for one thing.
Defense to you for one thing, they can stop that,
Now can you do the other thing? Can you make
all the different adjustments and force? And I was so
if you think about yaddage, you know, and you think
about running backs and you think about it. Back that
stays in the game all the time and deals with
(32:11):
all the situations. It means that a lot of times
you're gonna have to go for one yard on the
goal line or a first down. You can't go for yardage,
you can't take a chance on third down and one
of doubling back and losing yardage. You want to get
to one yards. So I always looked at my body
and my career as being there for whatever was necessary
(32:35):
for us to maintain a drive, not to gain yardage,
not to have a high average. Let all of that
come out of that. You see what I'm saying. So
I wouldn't be a situational player or a player that
just wanted to make long runs. I wanted to do
what was necessary at that particular time, and I was
equipped to do that. A lot of thinking about these things.
White was it so important to you to conceal any
(32:58):
injuries that you had, I mean, from your from your teammates,
from your opponents. Why is that? Why is that so
important to you? Because it's not a part of the
expectation of the fans, the coaches, the owners, all your teammates.
They don't want they don't want to know anything about
no injuries. They don't They want you to play. Everybody
(33:21):
wants you to play. So what difference does it make
if I'm hurt or not hurt, They still want me
to play. They don't have time for sympathy, So the
sympathy is gonna be false because the bottom line is
that if I'm not playing, I'm not helping them. So
my dedication was to uh, maintain my mental strength and
take the pain and play. And I was very proud
(33:45):
of that. Well that your greatest season, I think you
played with a broken toe was yards and had a
broken toe. We had one. You had a broken wrist.
I had broken fingers that had a broken toe. But
I think it's funny at think coach says somethingbody, do
you want to have the doctor check it? I said,
there's no point of checking if you want me to
(34:06):
play anyway. Right now, that wasn't strength. But in order
to play pro football, you have to have a mental
attitude because they'll beat it. They'll beat you to death
if you don't. So I try to take my mental
attitude to another level where I didn't want to go
in the training room and lay down and have the
train to do anything and let other players see that.
(34:26):
So what they would do on this on the other
side of that coin is that they will go tell
their teammates, this is a strange guy, you know. I mean,
he doesn't want to go in the training room. He
don't get hurt. He's strange. And that helped me because
it caused a kind of mystery, and it gave me
a psychological advantage. Maybe not much, but because when you're
to start of a team, the other team is always
(34:48):
studying a characteristics. They're getting information on you. They're seeing
the pressure that you put on your hands when you
running particular play. They want to know the kind of
mind you've got. And so in the off season, I
would not allow that to happen. If I go a
Pro Bowl game, I wouldn't allow them to understand me,
and I wouldn't give my teammates too much to work
with to explain me. I remember once in New York
they were gouge in my eyes and I think they
(35:10):
scratched my eyeball and I couldn't I couldn't see real well.
Everything was like blurry. This was in the game against
the Giants. Against the Giants, and Uh, I said, blat,
you know, my eyeballs or not reacting right. Maybe I
should have a doctor check it right because eye bowls
and not strong, you know, your eyeballs and eyeballs, and
then I don't want to get my eyes punched out. Sinaid, Well,
(35:33):
Jimmy better wait so uh later, so the team won't
know that you have your eyes check it'll it'll bother them.
And that's what he said to me, and I understood it,
you know, because I was a guy that they looked
forward to, uh, never getting hurt, never getting tired. In
my opinion, you know, each guy had different impressions, but
(35:56):
as the guy that the ball was going to most
of the time, I had to take that out of too.
So it all worked in having nine years of football.
And that's why I got out after my ninth year,
because you can't do that fifteen and twenty years. I mean,
that's intensively levels too high. Brown had committed to play
ten seasons and he had one year remaining on his
(36:17):
contract with the team. But Brown had already begun his
acting career and was in the midst of shooting The
Dirty Dozen in London when production delays forced shooting to
bleed into training camp, faced with a thread of being
fined fifteen hundred dollars per week missed by owner Art Model.
Brown announced his retirement on July sixty six. There were
(36:41):
no press conferences in those days, so here's Brown's quote
to the Cleveland Plane Dealer. This decision is final. I
am no longer preparing mentally for football. I'm committing myself
to other things. I'm not going to play again. And
with that, Brown exited the NFLS stage, leaving an indelible
(37:02):
mark on the game. But what a time capsule this is.
Listening to Jim talk about playing hurt, well, that's ingrained
as part of the culture of football, especially back when
he played. But I think it's also interesting to contemplate
how the running backs role is devalued more today. In
the sense of what Brown was talking about, he wanted
(37:23):
to succeed on each and every play, in each and
every situation. Today there are third down backs, past catching
specialist short yardage guys. Back then, there was one Jim Brown.
When we come back, Brown tells Steve what the biggest
misperception of him is. Not surprisingly, he is very outspoken
(37:44):
about being described as the ultimate perpetrator of violence. Welcome
back to Tales from the Vault. I think one thing
we've learned about Jim Brown is he's intentional about everything
he does, including one of the trademark images of him
the way he walked back to the huddle after every play.
(38:05):
Regardless of the result, Brown took his time getting up
and getting back to the huddle. And if you think
it was just so he could catch his breath, well
that's not exactly right. But for some perspective, juxtaposed the
way that Walter Payton jumped up because he never wanted
to let an opponent think he was hurt, this turns
out to be the opposite of Jim Brown's approach and
(38:28):
is wont to be the case with Brown. Thought has
been given to every action and reaction. Another thing that
was characteristic Any father that that saw you play and
talks to his son now will always one of the
things they remember is the way you would walk back
to the huddle. Now, in talking to you, now, there
must have been a scientific or a reason why you
(38:49):
did that. Well, let me give you an example. Let's
say that you get hit and you go down and
wins and knocked out of me and I lay down
there and I get up slow. After I had been
jumping up. The sharks in the water said, oh, this
guy is bleeding. They attack you. You motivate them to
(39:10):
attack you when you do that. If you get up
slow each time, that's the constant. They don't know what's happening.
You just get up slow every time. And then when
you come out blasting, he gets up slow and he blasts.
So they don't know when when the wind is knocked
out of me. They don't know when I'm hurt, they
don't know when I'm dizzy. They don't know anything, and
therefore I give them no advantage psychological advantage. Bobby Mitchell
(39:34):
told us that that you were always the last, the
last to get in the locker room to get dressed,
and the last on the bus. The last one is
that was a reason for that. Well, basically, everything is
a rhythm. You create a rhythm, you create a consistent rhythm,
and you're not only aware of yourself, you're aware of
other players. During that time, there's a lot of racism
(39:59):
in America, and a lot of things were going on
and didn't have anything to do with football. So, uh,
there were certain conscientious efforts I made by being last
to make sure everything was all right. I won't go
into details on that, but uh, I think if you
study the Cleveland Browns and you look at the players,
(40:19):
and you look at the black players that were on
the Browns doing my era, you see that all of
those individuals are doing well in life. That's solid citizens
and uh they have great jobs. And one of the
things that I did, uh as a part of the Browns,
I made sure that the black players were united, they
would carried ourselves with dignity. Uh. I looked at the
(40:42):
room in situation. For example, one time they decided to
put a white guy in a single room and a
black guy in a single room because I think it
was an odd number of black guys. And I didn't
mind rooming with black guys when it was even because I,
you know, I didn't want to listen to country Western
music and I wasn't trying to integrate. But when they
made a distinct separation, that was an issue because no
(41:05):
one was in it better than anybody else. And so
I went right to ownership, you know, and said to them,
you can't do that. You know, that's that we can't
go for so there's a lot of things going on.
I mean, you you asked me that question. You're not
looking at the bus being first last in the locker room.
But when you last, you can observe everything. You know,
(41:29):
you see how citch a scenario is you. It's like
everything is all right. You know, Jim, we're talking about
your teammates, and it's that this might be a difficult question.
But if a bunch of your old teammates were, say,
we're sitting over here in the corner of the pool,
and you knew that they were talking about you, what
would you hope that they would be saying, Well, there's
(41:53):
only one thing that wouldn't matter, uh, that they felt
play the game hard. That's the only thing. That's the
only connection they could ever have to me that would
be important to me. The rest of it would not
basically matter, not if I was a good guy, bad guy, whatever,
(42:14):
But if they thought I played the game hard and
made a contribution that allowed us to win a world
championship or to win games and be a good team,
that's all, Because that's that would be the constant. Because
you've got a diversified group of individuals, they have personalities,
all of that and uh, their feelings other than that
(42:35):
is their business, you know, and I can't shape that.
But if they thought I didn't play hard, but if
they thought I neglected the game, or if I made
no contribution, that would that would concern me. That might
be an issue I would discuss with him. But are
there from Mississippi and they were in one political party
and not in another. Uh, if you know they weren't
(42:57):
partial to black folks, that would kind of be their business,
you know. I just I just said it to you,
not as arrogance, but I have no power over that.
I give an example. Dick Shafraf was my offensive tackle
and Dick and I had very close friends now, and
I remember Dick was always a good guy, fair guy,
and one of the hardest workers on the team. But
(43:18):
the many thing I remember about him is that he
was an overachiever from the standpoint of making a contribution
to our team. Being a nice guy was okay, but
he was an overachiever. He played above his talent and
should probably be in the Hall of Fame. So that
would be the one thing. Because you know, people don't
always understand you. And I don't say this out of defense,
(43:40):
but I don't always understand everybody else until I get
to know them. Bobby Night, Uh, I thought Bobby was crazy,
like people think I'm crazy, And then when I met
Why do people think you're crazy? Well, that's what they
tell me. I heard that. I really think I'm different.
You know, they think them different or eccentric or whatever,
(44:03):
you know, because they don't understand the thought pattern. Maybe
when I'm supposed to be thinking about football, I'm thinking
about politics, or maybe uh, you know, when you come
up here, it's supposed they have a perception of what
it should be. Or maybe going on TV and I'm
in an interview like this interview, maybe I say things
that they don't expect me to say. I think that
(44:25):
adds to it mainly. I think in the end, though,
it clears itself up. What do you think, Jim, is
the public's biggest misperception of you? Well, the changes, Uh, Well,
they think I'm the ultimate uh perpetrator of violence. The
headlines that I've had in the past, my look on
(44:47):
my face seems to uh make me like the original
bad guy that I invented. All the things that are
basically violent, and I don't in exaggeration. I just say
that in honesty and trying to give you the interview
that you should have. Um, they buy into the hype.
(45:09):
And media has a lot to do with I don't
blame media. A lot has to do with things I've done,
A lot has to do with things I've been accused of,
but most of it has to do of the reporting
of those things. Uh, never clearing up certain things that
should be cleared up. And then people come in and
adopt that. For example, they said I threw a female
(45:32):
off of a balcony, which was totally untrue. The story
hit I was accused of at about thirty some years ago.
People right now say, yeah, he threw somebody off a
barcon it happened last year. So it it. It sticks
in the minds. And when you have, say, for example,
(45:54):
a good guy like oh J, they have a bad
guy like Jim Brown. Oh J plays the game. He's arming,
he says what he's supposed to say. He belongs to Rivera.
Jim Brown is out in the ghetto. He's hanging out
with gangsters. Uh, he's in the clubs. He likes girls. Uh.
Then things change around all of a sudden, O J
isn't quite the calendar boy. Then the people come, O,
(46:17):
so what Jim is working with these kids, that Jim
is doing this, And then they started listening to me more,
and then they find out maybe there's some intelligence and
what he's saying, Maybe there's some fairness in what he's saying.
He hates racism, he hates discrimination. So they say, Okay,
hates white people. Right, No, I hate discrimination. I hate racism.
(46:38):
But on the other hand, I tell black people, I say,
there's never been a movement in this country that white
people did not sacrifice their lines for us. That ain't
popular either, right, but it's honest. I say, Jackie Robinson
was great, but in my opinion, branch Rickey was greater
because he was the catalyst that allowed Jackie to do
his thing. So if you hear me saying I hate
(46:58):
racism and you just stay with that, you think, oh,
you don't like wife folks, then black folks heim me
saying branch Rickey did the hell of a job. Oh
he's kissing up the wife folks. Well, to me, there's
a truth that has to be laid out there, and
in order for you to get it, you have to
hear all of the comments. And they sell them. Do
people take the time to hear all of the comments.
(47:22):
So I've been a person that has been accused of
a lot of different things, But there's selling that I
ever get a chance to have a platform to lay
out all of my thoughts and all of my lives,
you know. So there's been a perception out there, no
doubt about it. It's getting a little better now. Look,
we neither canonize nor demonize these players, but as with
(47:44):
the rest of the podcast, we need to provide some
context on what Steve subjects are talking about. Brown broached
this subject himself. He is a litany of domestic violence
accusations and charges that are a part of his resume
as much as his on field excellence. Next week we
bring you part two of this iconic interview, in which
(48:06):
Steve and Jim wrap up his football career and get
into his off the field endeavors, including his time as
an actor and as a political activist. I hope you'll
join us. Thanks for listening. I'm Andrea Kramer.
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