Profiles in Courage: Breaking Records and Breaking Barriers in Pro Sports--Henry Aaron, Jim Brown, Marion Motley

I saw all three of these heroes in the 1963 All Star Game.

Hank Aaron passed away today. The headline of the AP news story reads, "Hank Aaron, the baseball legend who endured racist threats with stoic dignity as he broke Babe Ruth's home run record, has died at 86."

The title is heartbreaking because it says so much about the cruelty many of our black heroes were experiencing while we cheered for them from the stands. The story, if you are unfamiliar with it, was that as the veteran all-star Aaron was approaching Babe Ruth's home run record, he began getting death threats. 

This was not in the news, but did come out later. It is an appalling commentary of our nation. It took courage to go out there and do the work he'd be called to do. 

 It also brings to mind for me some other stories from sports history.

An Aside: My favorite player of the era was the Puerto Rican star from the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente. Sometime in the mid-Sixties I sent him a letter and said how much I appreciated him (or something to that effect.) He sent me a note and an autographed photo of himself. The striking thing about that was that this was not a publicity still or a professionally printed photo made for signing. It looked like a page from a magazine that was cutout and signed with a ballpoint pen. I had that photo on the bulletin board in my room all through high school.

Henry Aaron influenced me, too. I had read a long article in Sports Illustrated about his consistency as a player. The sportswriter described how Aaron's power was in his wrists. Because I was determined to be a baseball player one day--had been playing seemingly every day since 7--I used to work out a lot. Our coach of the freshman team at BRHS-Wet shared an exercise that was designed to strengthen your wrists and I took it to heart based on the Aaron article. There is no sweeter sound than the crack of a bat on a ball the lines into the outfield and it's done with a flick of the wrists.  

* * * 

Marion Motley and Jimmy Brown

Nearly everyone knows the story of how Jackie Robinson was the first African American to cross into the Majors from the Negro  Leagues in baseball. Football stories are less well known.

When I read Jimmy Brown's autobiography years ago, he told stories about some of the tricks white opponents from the Jim Crow South did to hurt him. For example, when he was tackled, they would sometimes have a fistful of dirt, sand or whatever and fling it into his eyes while he was on the ground under a pile where the refs couldn't see.

In preparation for last Sunday's playoff game between the Browns and the KC Chiefs, I decided to watch a "History of the Cleveland Browns" DVD that I have. Every Browns fan should own a copy. It would make you proud. Paul Brown, founder and first head coach of the team, is one of the truly great coaches in NFL history. Many of his innovations are still in use today.

Paul Brown took the lead in bringing black players into pro football. It seemed strange to him that these men who fought for our country in WW2 could not participate in pro sports. In 1946, the year before Jackie Robinson crossed the color barrier in baseball, Paul Brown recruited three Negro players, among them the powerful running back Marion Motley.

Motley and the Browns were the best in the game for many years, but few knew the challenges he had to deal with. Again, just one anecdote tells a lot. Football is a very physical game, and normally the goal is to tackle the guy running with the ball. Sometimes, however, the white boys on the other team took a different approach. Instead of tackling him they would hold him up to keep him from falling, pummeling his body with their fists. 

I only learned about this from the documentary, which I'd watched before but with fresh eyes again last weekend.

Here's some football trivia you may not know. As you know, there are many arguments about who is the greatest this or greatest that. I did a research paper on who is the greatest baseball player of all time. The first step is to establish criteria.

That being said, who was the greatest running back of all time? It could be argued that the player who has the most rushing yards in a season is the top dawg. But as we know, today they play more games in a season than they used to. Today's rushers get four extra games in a season.

My favorite player was Jimmy Brown. Over the last half century I have compared all highly touted running backs against Brown. Here is a stat worthy of note: most yards per game, lifetime. No player in NFL history has averaged more than 100 yards per game, except Jimmy Brown. 

Interestingly, Marion Motley, the Cleveland Browns running back who preceded brown, set another record that no other running back has ever broken: most yards per carry average, lifetime. Motley averaged 5.7 yards rushing every time he touched the ball. 

* * * 

These two stories came to mind when I learned of Hank Aaron's passing today. They were heroic not just for the achievements on the field, but for the character they displayed. 

In his Hall of Fame acceptance speech Henry "Hank" Aaron said, "A man's ability is only limited by his lack of opportunity." These are words to ponder well and take to heart.

Photo courtesy Gary Firstenberg

* * * 

Things I Learned about Jimmy Brown from Reading Terry Pluto’s Things I’ve Learned from Watching the Browns

In case you don’t know, I’m a Browns fan. Cleveland Browns. NFL Football. I don’t always wear it on my sleeve, but it’s always there like a genetic disposition. I was born in Cleveland in 1952 and my earliest memories were formed during the glory years of the Cleveland Indians and the Browns. Even though I moved away in my twelfth year and have spent the rest of my years elsewhere, the Browns have never moved far from my heart. Browns fans everywhere know this feeling.

Back in those days the sports page each week would print the rosters from both teams so you could learn the numbers of all the players and follow them during the game. Bill Glass, Vince Costello, Lou “The Toe” Groza, Gary Collins, Leroy Kelly, Frank Ryan and our hero of heroes, Jimmy Brown.

From nearly the beginning the Browns training camp was at Hiram College, which just happened to be where my parents met as students and eventually married upon my dad’s early graduation. This may have contributed to our Browns fandom, though proximity to Cleveland gave the primary impetus. It also gives one a bit of Browns cred to be able to say “My dad once watched the Steelers play the Browns from the Dawg Pound.” (It wasn't really the Dawg Pound yet, though. They were the cheap bleacher seats in the end zone where the beer turned fans into rowdies.)

In the fall of 1963, my last full year in Ohio, I opened a pack of football cards and got a Jimmy Brown card. It was as if the gods had smiled. Life was good. And then the unthinkable happened. Some of the packs of football cards we acquired had been stolen. My younger brother was caught red-faced and red-handed, and a police car paid our home a visit. Somehow the punishment seemed excessive because Ronnie had been the thief, but all of our football cards were to be burned, including mine. As the cards were being dropped onto the flaming charcoals I found myself holding Jimmy Brown and could not bring myself to do this dastardly thing. I ran to the garage and slid the card in between the cinder blocks that formed its foundation. I would never see the card again, but knew it would be preserved from the fire. (Several decades later I visited my childhood home and that garage, along with its treasure, had been demolished.)

Terry Pluto is one of the great sportswriters of all time in my estimation. He’s certainly a most respected journalist in Cleveland where he has remained a faithful advocate for high ideals and all things good there.

If you are a Browns fan and do not already have Pluto’s Things I’ve Learned from Watching the Browns, then you're missing something special. Every chapter is a treasure, beginning with “Being a Browns fan is completely irrational. But you already know that.” Ten pages later the story every Browns fan needs to read is about the Fumble. Pluto demonstrates unequivocally that “The Fumble didn’t cost the Browns a chance to go to the Super Bowl.” Every Browns fan knows which fumble we're talking about here.

So now let’s talk about Jimmy Brown, the greatest running back of all time. Chapter 9. The Browns almost didn’t draft Jim Brown. How Jim Brown became a Brown is a story in itself. If the Hall of Fame Browns quarterback Otto Graham hadn’t retired when he did, the Browns would have continued to be a great team. In his last three seasons as QB the Browns only lost six games. But the year after he retired the Browns were so weakened that it became their only losing season in their first 28 years as a pro franchise. The upside was a chance to get a high draft pick in the first round.

Coach Paul Brown (another great chapter in this book is dedicated to this “greatest Browns Brown”) was eager to nab a quarterback to replace Graham, but the three he had his eye on were snatched before he could get his mitts on them. Upshot was this Son of Hercules, this Superman of an athlete who became a Browns legend.

Man on the move, Jim Brown.

Most of us who watched Jimmy Brown as fans knew how powerful he was, and we also knew the psychological game he played with opposing players. After every run he got up slow. You’d think he had exhausted his strength, or was hurt in some way as he lumbered back to the huddle. Then he would explode again into the line, dragging opponents downfield, sometimes carrying them on his back. We knew, too, how he never made a show when he scored a touchdown, as if to say, “Been here before. Will be here again. All in a day’s work.” Brown’s greatness was unquestioned and to this day no runner has ever averaged more yards per game over an entire career than Jimmy Brown. In fact, he is the only player to average more than 100 yards per game (104.3) lifetime.

Terry Pluto gives Browns fans an overview of the star's college achievements and amazing high school stats as well. Brown earned 13 high school letters in five sports. His senior year he averaged 38 points per game in basketball. He set new records in track. He averaged 14.9 yards per carry in football. Seems like having Brown on the team would have been an unfair advantage for any school.

Once with the Browns Jim Brown not only played every game, he never missed practice. One year he played an entire season with a broken wrist. He was tough, not just physically but mentally as well. Said Brown, “If you were a marked man like I was back then, you had to be tough. You had to take the pain.”

In Brown’s autobiography Out of Bounds, he shared how opposing defenders would sometimes take gravel or dirt and fling it in his eyes to blind him after they tackled him. Pluto tells how when tacklers got their hand inside his facemask, he would bite their fingers. These images of the game aren’t always visible from the stands.

There's plenty more to tell, but that's it for now. The rest of what I learned is there in the book. And much, much more.

Thank you, Terry Pluto, for yet another gift for Browns fans everywhere.

The team I remember best was the best. 

Go Browns!

"Browns fans, this was a day your team made you proud. It was a day when they proved worthy of your loyalty that has never wavered through rain, sleet, snow or a move to Baltimore." ~ Terry Pluto
Dec. 16, 2007

Pluto is a sportwriter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. And he is a fan of the Cleveland teams that I grew up learning to love. Till I was twelve I lived in Cleveland, then moved away, but the Indians and Browns continued to live in my heart.

OK, so we have not had much to cheer about for a while. Like, a very long while. The Indians came surprisingly close to representing the American League in the World Series this year, which was good. Then the walls crashed in. But they gave us a thrill.

Most people do not remember how dominant the Indians were in the 1950's. When my parents brought me home from the hospital in 1952, they named my four teddy bears after the Cleveland Indians starting rotation. My favorites were Feller and Lemon, one of the best one-two combos ever. In 1954 the Indians were the first team in baseball history, and the only team since, to have a pitching staff with four twenty game winners. The Tribe, as they are affectionately called by fans, won a pennant that year and came in second at least a half dozen times during that decade. Then, the bad thing happened.

Terry Pluto wrote a book about it, actually: The Curse of Rocky Colavito. (Thanks, Terry!) It is a book about how the team management decimated a good team for money, and about how the bad behavior of that team owner resulted in a perpetual cloud of bad luck to hang over the city and it team of perennial also-rans. It's an entertaining book for all Indians fans and I recommend it heartily. It helped explain why there were no Indians on the team when I went to the 1963 All Star Game in Cleveland's municipal stadium, and why there were no fans at so many of the games I went to at that time as a kid.

But today, we're talking about the Browns. The Cleveland Browns, one of football's great traditions, have been having a surprisingly good year. Like their baseball counterpart, the Browns have likewise had a disappointing history these past four decades. The glory days of Jimmy Brown and Leroy Kelly, Lou "the Toe" Groza, Frank Ryan, Paul Warfield, Bobby Mitchell, Gary Collins... well, it may have been a long time ago but the precious memories are very present. The legacy since that time includes a three year stint when we had no Browns at all. The team had been moved to Baltimore. Ack!

Well, we all know that the Browns are not Super Bowl bound because, ahem, our former coach Bellicek has built one heckuva a dynasty up in New England, if those Colts in Indy don't squash us first. Nevertheless, it's exciting to watch a team that has the potential to win every week, like they're supposed to. It's been a long time since I have read "the latest line" and found our Brownies actually favored almost every week. Woof! Woof Woof!

Check out this 1963 Cleveland Browns football card. Them Browns was great, weren't they?