Jim Brown Trivia | 95 facts about the famous football player and actor

James Brown is a former American football player, sports analyst and actor. He is considered to be one of the greatest running backs of all time.

He is currently one of the four figures that appear in the new film “One Night in Miami” which explores his friendship with Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Sam Cooke.

1. His full name is James Nathaniel Brown
2. He was born on February 17, 1936
3. He is a former American football player, sports analyst and actor
4. He was a fullback for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 through 1965
5. Brown was considered to be one of the greatest running backs of all time
6. As well as one of the greatest players in NFL history
7. Brown was a Pro Bowl invitee every season he was in the league
8. He was recognized as the AP NFL Most Valuable Player three times
9. He won an NFL championship with the Browns in 1964
10. He led the league in rushing yards in eight out of his nine seasons
11. By the time he retired, he had shattered most major rushing records
12. In 2002, he was named by The Sporting News as the greatest professional football player ever
13. Brown earned unanimous All-America honors playing college football at Syracuse University
14. There he was an all-around player for the Syracuse Orangemen football team
15. He also excelled in basketball, track and field, and lacrosse
16. The football team later retired his number 44 jersey
17. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1995
18. In his professional career, Brown carried the ball 2,359 times for 12,312 rushing yards and 106 touchdowns
19. These were all records when he retired
20. He averaged 104.3 rushing yards per game
21. Brown is the only player in NFL history to average over 100 rushing yards per game for his career
22. His 5.2 yards per rush is second-best among running backs
23. Brown was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971
24. He was named to the NFL 50th Anniversary All-Time Team, the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team, and the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team, comprising the best players in NFL history
25. Brown was honored at the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship as the greatest college football player of all time
26. His number 32 jersey is retired by the Browns
27. Shortly before the end of his football career, Brown became an actor
28. He had several leading roles throughout the 1970s
29. Brown was born in St. Simons Island, Georgia, to Swinton Brown, a professional boxer, and his wife, Theresa, a homemaker
30. At Manhasset Secondary School, Brown earned 13 letters playing football, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, and running track
31. He averaged a then-Long Island record 38 points per game for his basketball team
32. That record was later broken by future Boston Red Sox star Carl Yastrzemski of Bridgehampton
33. Brown began his acting career before the 1964 season
34. He was playing a buffalo soldier in a Western action film called Rio Conchos
35. The film premiered at Cleveland’s Hippodrome theater on October 23, with Brown and many of his teammates in attendance
36. The reaction was lukewarm
37. Brown, one reviewer said, was a serviceable actor, but the movie’s overcooked plotting and implausibility amounted to “a vigorous melodrama for the unsqueamish”
38. MGM cast Brown in his first lead role in The Split (1969)
39. The film was based on a Parker novel by Donald E. Westlake
40. Brown appeared in Mars Attacks! (1996) and Sucker Free City (2004)
41. He played a defensive coach, Montezuma Monroe, in Any Given Sunday (1999)
42. Brown married his first wife Sue Brown in September 1959
43. She sued for divorce in 1968, charging him with “gross neglect”
44. Together they had three children, twins Kim and Kevin, and a son, James Jr.
45. Their divorce was finalized in 1972
46. Brown was ordered to pay $2,500 per month in alimony and $100 per week for child support
47. In 1965, Brown was arrested in his hotel room for assault and battery against an 18-year-old named Brenda Ayres
48. He was later acquitted of those charges
49. A year later, he fought paternity allegations that he fathered Brenda Ayres’ child
50. In 1968, Brown was charged with assault with intent to commit murder after model Eva Bohn-Chin was found beneath the balcony of Brown’s second-floor apartment
51. The charges were later dismissed after Bohn-Chin refused to cooperate with the prosecutor’s office. Brown was also ordered to pay a $300 fine for striking a deputy sheriff involved in the investigation during the incident
52. In Brown’s autobiography, he stated that Bohn-Chin was angry and jealous over an affair he had been having with Gloria Steinem, and this argument is what led to the “misunderstanding with the police”
53. In 1970, Brown was found not guilty of assault and battery, the charges stemming from a road-rage incident that had occurred in 1969
54. In December 1973, Brown proposed to 18-year-old Diane Stanley, a Clark College student he met in Acapulco, Mexico in April of that year
55. They broke off their engagement in 1974
56. In 1975, Brown was convicted of misdemeanor battery for beating and choking his golfing partner, Frank Snow
57. He was sentenced to one day in jail, two years’ probation, and a fine of $500
58. In 1985, Brown was charged with raping a 33-year-old woman
59. The charges were later dismissed
60. In 1986, Brown was arrested for assaulting his fiancée Debra Clark
61. Clark refused to press charges, though, and Brown was released
62. Brown married his second wife Monique Brown in 1997
63. They have two children
64. In 1999, Brown was arrested and charged with making terrorist threats toward his wife
65. Later that year, he was found guilty of vandalism for smashing his wife’s car with a shovel
66. He was sentenced to three years’ probation, one year of domestic violence counseling, and 400 hours of community service or 40 hours on a work crew along with a $1,800 fine
67. Brown ignored the terms of his sentence and in 2000 was sentenced to six months in jail, which he began serving in 2002 after refusing the court-ordered counseling and community service
68. He was released after 3 months
69. Brown’s memorable professional career led to his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971
70. His football accomplishments at Syracuse garnered him a berth in the College Football Hall of Fame
71. Jim Brown also earned a spot in the Lacrosse Hall of Fame, giving him a rare triple crown of sorts
72. In 118 career games, Brown averaged 104.3 yards per game and 5.2 yards per carry
73. Only Barry Sanders (99.8 yards per game and 5.0 yards per carry) comes close to these totals
74. The only top-10 all-time rusher who even approaches Brown’s totals, Barry Sanders, posted a career average of 99.8 yards per game and 5.0 yards per carry
75. However, Barry Sanders’ father, William, was frequently quoted as saying that Jim Brown was “the best I’ve ever seen”
76. Brown holds the NFL record for most games with 24 or more points in a career (6)
77. The highest career touchdowns per game average (1.068)
78. Most career games with three or more touchdowns (14)
79. Most games with four or more touchdowns in a career (6)
80. Most seasons leading the league in rushing attempts (6)
81. Most seasons leading league in rushing yards (8)
82. Highest career rushing yards-per-game average (104.3)
83. Most seasons leading the league in touchdowns (5)
84. Most seasons leading the league in yards from scrimmage (6)
85. The highest average yards from scrimmage per game in a career (125.52)
86. Most seasons leading the league in combined net yards (5)
87. In 2002, The Sporting News selected him as the greatest football player of all time, as did the New York Daily News in 2014
88. On November 4, 2010, Brown was chosen by NFL Network’s NFL Films production The Top 100: NFL’s Greatest Players as the second-greatest player in NFL history, behind only Jerry Rice
89. In November 2019, he was selected as one of the twelve running backs on the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team
90. On January 13, 2020, Brown was named the greatest college football player of all time by ESPN
91. This was during a ceremony at the College Football Playoff National Championship Game celebrating the 150th anniversary of college football
92. Brown was portrayed by Rob Brown in the 2008 film The Express
93. The film is about the life of Ernie Davis, also a former Syracuse running back
94. In the stage play One Night in Miami, first performed in 2013, Brown was portrayed by David Ajala
95. In its 2020 film adaptation, he is played by Aldis Hodge

Sam Cooke Trivia | 95 facts about the famous soul singer