Remembering Jim Brown as the true GOAT

Tom Brady is misidentified as “The GOAT,” short for Greatest of All Time. He might be the greatest quarterback of all time; his seven Super Bowl wins are compelling proof. But Brady is not the greatest football player. Not even close, in my opinion.

The real “GOAT” is Jim Brown.

I don’t think it’s outrageous to suggest Brown is the greatest athlete — period — of all time.

Brown, who died Thursday night at 87, lived a long, complicated, multi-layered life. He retired from the Cleveland Browns and the NFL at 30 at the top of his game, winning his third MVP award in 1965, his ninth and final season. He became an actor of some renown. If you are of a certain age, you remember him in “The Dirty Dozen” with Lee Marvin and in “100 Rifles” with Raquel Welch. He did tremendous work as a social activist for the African-American community. The Amer-I-Can Foundation he started in the 1970s to teach life skills to gang members and prisoners still is active. He also had a frightful dark side with numerous incidents of violence involving women.

But I’m not here to judge Brown as a human being. Others can do that. I’m here to make a case for him as an athlete. I’ve never seen one better or more dominant. He was bigger than life to me when I first noticed him with the Browns. He still seems bigger than life as an athlete all these years later.

Forget football for a moment.

Brown also lettered in lacrosse, basketball and track at Syracuse. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time. He finished second in the nation in scoring in his senior year in 1957 and scored five goals in one half in his final game, the 1957 North/​South All-Star game.

I didn’t know of Brown’s Syracuse exploits when I first realized who he was. I had no idea he would be voted as college football’s greatest player in 2020. I just remember seeing him against the Steelers in Saturday night games from old Cleveland Municipal Stadium. He seemed so unstoppable. He punished would-be tacklers, who wanted no part of getting in his way.

It’s a shame a lot of younger people didn’t get to see what I saw with Brown.

Too many mistakenly think football started with the Super Bowl era. They don’t realize Brown led the Browns to the NFL championship in 1964, which was that cursed sports city’s most recent title before LeBron James led the Cavaliers to the NBA title in 2016, 52 years later. When those same people think of running backs, they talk about Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton and Barry Sanders. Those men were terrific players — every one of ’em — but there was only one Jim Brown.

He led the NFL in rushing yards in eight of his nine seasons — Jim Taylor, Steelers Hall of Famer John Henry Johnson and Dick Bass outgained him in 1962 and are the answer to a fabulous trivia question — and in touchdowns in five seasons. Remarkably, he never missed a game in his 118-game career.

I have one other memory of Brown that always makes me smile.

It happened much later, in January 1985, at Atlantic City’s Tropicana Hotel Casino. In a silly made-for-TV event, Brown raced Franco Harris in a 40-yard race. Brown was nearly 49 at the time and still the NFL’s all-time rushing leader with 12,312 yards. Harris was 34 and newly retired and ranked No. 2 on the rushing list with 12,120 yards.

I covered the, ah, race for the late, great Pittsburgh Press.

Harris beat Brown by 7 yards, his time 5.16 seconds compared to Brown’s 5.72.

I’m convinced that is the only time anyone got the better of Brown in any athletic competition.

Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com and Twitter@RonCookPG. Ron Cook can be heard on the “Cook and Joe” show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.