Jim Brown

It seemed that he was capable of dragging an entire opposing team along for the ride as he headed inexorably to his destination. Or he could make the best defenders seem wholly pedestrian as they grabbed nothing but air while he tangoed away. At other moments he would simply turn on the jets and leave those seeking his capture gasping for breath and shaking their heads.

There was much more to Jim Brown's resume than football, as a large section of his life was devoted to other undertakings. But he will be most recalled as the best who ever performed his particular trade on the gridiron.

Over the past decades there have been a legion of extraordinary running backs from Gale Sayers to Barry Sanders, OJ Simpson, Tony Dorsett and a continuing stream of others. But there has never been another Jim Brown, who was simply a man among boys, bigger, stronger, more elusive and faster than the rest.

We remember our sports elite as if they were frozen in time, still performing on their particular stage. Jim Brown is now and forever standing unencumbered in the end zone, the opposition defeated and diminished, strewn across the field, shrunken in size, both physically and psychologically by his utter dominance. 

There were running backs. And then there was Jim Brown.