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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Sport and Society for Arete </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">May 23, 2023 </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Over the past few days, the sports media have been filled with commentary and tributes to Jim Brown, superstar running back of the Cleveland Browns and leader in the battle against
racism in the NFL, in Sport, in the United States, and across the world. Brown died last week at 87 having set all sorts of records in the NFL and having played an important leadership role in the fight for Civil Rights. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family:"Courier New"">Jim Brown, of course, was not a saint. His self-acknowledged anger issues are well documented. Many of the incidents involved violence toward women, and they became a matter of public record when
they entered police files and court records. This is not to be admired nor emulated, and Jim Brown acknowledged as much.</span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">As an athlete, he excelled in several sports. He is a member of the NFL Hall of Fame, the Lacrosse Hall of Fame, and the College Football Hall of Fame. After starring in both
football and Lacrosse at Syracuse University, Brown was drafted by the Cleveland Browns. In his rookie season in 1957, he won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award and, in 1964, led the Browns to an NFL Championship. He never missed a game, playing in 118 consecutive
regular season games during which he played one season with a broken toe and another with a broken wrist. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Although not all NFL games were available on national television, I remember watching him many times. He ran with tremendous power as he ran over players and carried others who
were on his back or holding on to his legs. The word “awesome” gets overworked these days, but in the case of Jim Brown, it was always appropriate. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">He led the NFL in rushing yardage as a rookie and in eight of his nine seasons. His career yardage stood as the NFL record for 18 seasons.
<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style=""> </span>In his final season in 1965, Brown rushed for the second highest total of his career, scored 17 touchdowns, and was the league MVP. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">These and other impressive numbers have been cited in the tributes and obituaries in the last week. There are other achievements that were of equal or greater importance. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">As a player, Brown exposed the racial discrimination that permeated NFL culture. There were quotas on the number of African American players per team; there were rules against
black and white players rooming together; and game officials ignored the illegal physical assaults used against African American players. Brown exposed these cases of discrimination in interviews, on his radio program, and in his autobiography. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">As a team leader, Brown organized a support system for African American players coming into the system. He tutored them in professional behavior and team standards. Off the field
he organized the Black Industrial and Economic Union to help promote black businesses. In the 1970s, after the Union faded, Brown organized the America-I-Can Foundation to teach life skills to gang members and prisoners. It remains active. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">While still playing football, Jim Brown started an acting career in which he enjoyed considerable success. His best-known film role was in “The Dirty Dozen,” and it was a role
that ended his football career. Production of the film in the summer of 1966 was delayed by bad weather. When Brown told his team he would be late for training camp, owner Art Modell said he would fine Brown for every day he missed camp. Brown answered Modell
by immediately retiring from football. <span class="x_ContentPasted0" style=""> </span> </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Perhaps of all his activities, the most important may have been the Cleveland Summit in the summer of 1967. Brown organized the gathering of prominent African American athletes
to discuss Muhammed Ali’s decision to defy the Military Draft. Among those present were Bill Russell, Willie Davis, Carl Stokes, Bobby Mitchell, Kareem Abdul Jabbar (Lew Alcindor), and others including Ali. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Courier New"">Kareem has written that the Summit was a turning point for him. At age twenty he was grappling with fame as a basketball player, and he was moved by his experience at the Summit.
The group met for several hours and debated and listened to Ali explain his decision. It was not a foregone conclusion that this group would support Ali. The debate was real and, at times, heated. The twenty-year-old basketball player came away from the meeting
impressed by what he heard there and ready to commit himself to political action. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family:"Courier New"">The Summit was also a strong statement of solidarity by African American athletes and a clear statement to Americans about the future of discrimination and civil rights. In
<i class="x_ContentPasted0">The New York Times</i> this past Saturday, Kurt Streeter summed up Brown’s significance as stemming from the Power of No: “For all his athletic prowess, all the heft he brought to his social activism, Jim Brown’s power sprang from
his unyielding resistance to the narrow definitions imposed by American society on its Black citizens and, in his case, Black male athletes.”
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family:"Courier New"">As a matter of sheer coincidence, the death of a giant of Modern British Literature was announced about the same time as that of Brown. Martin Amis is one of my favorite contemporary writers who
defied critics, broke the mold of what a British writer should be, and produced a small library of fine writing. Should I call him the Jim Brown of Literature? I probably should not, but then I think I just did. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family:"Courier New"">On Sport and Society this is Dick Crepeau reminding you that you don’t have to be a good sport to be a bad loser. </span></p>
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family:"Courier New"">Copyright 2023 by Richard C. Crepeau
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<span class="x_ContentPasted0" style="font-family:"Courier New"">Hope everyone enjoys the conference. Unfortunately, we will not make it this year. We'll see you in Maine in 2024.<br>
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