Cleveland Browns Great Jim Brown Quiz

Answer: Syracuse

Jim grew up in Manhasset, NY, and despite winning 13 letters in five sports, was unable to win a college athletic scholarship. A prominent Manhasset attorney, himself a Syracuse alumnus, paid for Jim's freshman year at Syracuse, with the understanding that if Brown lived up to expectations, the university would provide a scholarship for his final three years there.

Answer: Lacrosse

Brown lettered in both basketball and track, and of course football at Syracuse, but it was in lacrosse that he truly shined. He was an All-American in his senior year, and often said that he thought he was a better lacrosse player than football player.

By the end of the 20th century, Jim was the only person to have been named to the Halls of Fame in college football, pro football, and lacrosse. Award-winning sportswriter Dick Schaap was a lacrosse goalie at Cornell and played against Brown's Syracuse teams. During the 1960s, when Brown would barely speak to reporters, Schaap used their shared lacrosse experiences (Schaap thought Brown was the best opponent he ever faced) to break the ice with the star running back.

Answer: Paul Hornung

Jim Brown was the sixth overall pick that season behind Paul Hornung, Jon Arnett, John Brodie, Ron Kramer, and Len Dawson. Not a bad draft year: Hornung, Dawson, and Brown wound up in the Hall of Fame, and Brodie had an excellent career with the San Francisco 49ers. Scary to think how good the Green Bay Packers would have been, had they selected Brown that year instead of the talented but less-durable Hornung.

Answer: Rushed for 1,000 yards

The NFL played just a 12-game season in 1957, and to that point, there had only been six years in which someone had rushed for 1,000 yards. Jim led the league in 1957 with 942 yards, one of only two seasons he failed to crack 1,000 yards. He won the Rookie of the Year honors for 1957, and his Cleveland Browns, despite having the league's best record that year, were obliterated, 59-14, by the Detroit Lions in the title game.

Answer: Ran 65 yards for a touchdown on the next play, then yelled "Hey Sam, how do I smell from here?"

Huff, the Giants' Hall of Fame linebacker, was one of Brown's toughest adversaries on the field, and delighted in roughing Brown up and taunting him, not that Brown wasn't more than up to the challenge of taking on Huff. As related in the November 26, 1965, issue of Time magazine: "[Huff] actually flattened Brown singlehanded for no gain twice in a row.

Then Sam succumbed to the temptation to rub it in. "Brown", he sneered, "you stink"! The next thing Huff remembers was seeing the backside of a fire-breathing, chocolate-colored monster that burst straight up the middle on a trap play and streaked 65 yards for a touchdown. 'Hey, Sam,' called Jimmy from the end zone, 'how do I smell from here"?

Answer: Rushed for more yards in a season than Brown

The 1962 NFL season was Jim's most disappointing. Although he never missed a game during his career, he played most of 1962 with a broken toe and felt stymied by Coach Paul Brown's dictatorial style. Brown finished the season with 996 rushing yards in 14 games, fourth in the league behind Taylor, Johnson, and Bass.

In 1963, a healthy Brown, playing under a new coach, broke his own single-season rushing record, amassing 1,863 yards.

Answer: Steve Van Buren (season) and Joe Perry (career)

When Brown entered the league, the single-season rushing record was held by Steve Van Buren of the Philadelphia Eagles, with 1,146 yards in 1949. Jim eclipsed that record in his second season, with 1,527 yards, then broke his own mark in 1963, rushing for 1,863 yards.

In seven of Jim's nine NFL seasons, he amassed more yards than Van Buren's earlier record. The NFL career rushing leader had been Joe Perry of the San Francisco 49ers, but Brown surpassed Perry's 8,378 career yards in 1963, on his way to 12,312. Buffalo's OJ Simpson broke Brown's season record, rushing for 2,003 yards in 1973, and Walter Payton surpassed the career record during the 1984 season.

Answer: Blanton Collier

Paul Brown founded the Cleveland Browns, led the team to four straight All-America Football Conference championships, then six straight NFL title game appearances, winning three. His Browns lost the NFL championship game during Jim's rookie season, then lost their division to the Giants or Eagles after that.

After a disappointing 7-6-1 finish in 1962, Jim led a player revolt that resulted in Browns owner Art Modell replacing Paul Brown with Blanton Collier as coach. Collier's Browns won the NFL title in 1964 over the favored Baltimore Colts, their final NFL championship of the 20th century. Jim's final NFL game was the 1965 title contest against Green Bay on a muddy field.

The Packers held him to 50 yards in 12 carries, controlling the game so firmly that Brown only carried three times in the second half.

Answer: The Dirty Dozen

In 1966, athletes were expected to do what they were told, and to be grateful for the opportunity they had to play. So it was big news when Brown, under contract for the following season, defied owner Art Modell's demand to leave the set of "The Dirty Dozen" to join the 1966 Browns in training camp. "The Dirty Dozen" featured an all-star cast (Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Charles Bronson) and was about a band of felons on a secret mission to kill German officers in World War II.

The role was probably the most significant of Brown's movie career. He went on to more than 50 appearances in films and television shows, but most of the rest were either small parts, or featured roles in low-budget action films of the early 1970s.

Answer: He was angry that Franco Harris might break his career rushing record

Pittsburgh Steelers great Franco Harris zoomed close to 12,000 career rushing yards during the 1983 season, leaving him within easy striking distance of Brown's record of 12,312 yards. Brown held Harris's running style in contempt, saying that his challenger left too many yards on the table by running out of bounds instead of pressing for more yardage.

He posed for a December 1983 Sports Illustrated cover in an Oakland Raider uniform, still looking like he could rack up a few more 100-yard games if needed, and saying he was prepared to play again to keep the record from Harris.

As it turned out, Harris's career was essentially over by then. He was traded to the Seattle Seahawks, played in only eight 1984 games, and gained only 170 yards, leaving him 192 shy of the mark. Walter Payton, whose power, speed, and agility reminded many of Brown, broke the record in the sixth week of the 1984 season, with Brown's blessing.