himself to football, basketball and running. Brown not only averaged onefour.9 yards per run in football and 3eight points per game in basketball, but one of those stories that "grow" like Pinocchio's nose claims that Casey Stengel tried to get Brown to play baseball in the Yankee drug club system.

However, despite such numerous talents, Syracuse University remained the only consumer of his services - and then only in partial lacrosse classes. But before he left the university, his achievements became as impressive as the institution itself.

Brown averaged "only" one3.one points per basketball game in Syracuse; he became one of the greatest players in lacrosse history. And if you listen to the old folks, he was the best, averaging 5.7 yards per run for a total of 2,09one yards and oneeight7 points, 37 of which came from skids; in addition, he excelled on the treadmill, and especially in the high jump.

Those who remember him from his Syracusan days can still imagine this one00-kilogram, beautifully sculpted Greek statue, endowed with excellent, powerful muscles, worthy of the closest attention, ranging from wide shoulders like a door to a thirty-two-inch wasp waist, with which barely pants didn't fall off. On the playing field, these heavy muscles and powerful shoulders merged as he carried a ball or lacrosse stick in his left hand, resting it like a newborn, and the right, as if of its own accord, repelled and scattered all who tried to stand in his way, scattering like defenders skittles.

Syracuse still remembers one game that vividly demonstrated his greatness at the college level: the Cotton Bowl match. (Approx. Transl.)], held in one957. As the selection committee sourly pondered whether or not to invite Syracuse after several setbacks that befell the team, the most recent being a 6one-6 thrashing of Alabama at the Orange Bowl. in Miami. one953, Brown took matters into his own hands, scoring four3 points in the final game of the season against Colgate's team with six drifts and seven extra points as the Oranges won 67-6 to win the right to meet in match for the "Cotton Cup" with the representative of the Southwestern Conference, Texas Christian University (TCU).

Everyone expected the game to turn into a duel between Brown and famed THU runner Jim Swink. But in reality, the match turned into a duel between THU and Brown. What was the scenario of the game? He wasn't there, just Brown was running, throwing, responding, hitting himself and scoring. He brought the team of Syracuse 2one of all points scored, although his teammates lost the victory with a score of 27:2eight. After the game, THU coach Abe Martin summed up the general impression with the following words: "Only an ignoramus or a blind person would not call Jim Brown a great player."

That spring, Paul Brown of the Cleveland team, whose name was his last name, was looking in the annual muscle market, that is, in the National Football League draft, for a quarterback who could replace Otto Graham and return the Browns to their former heights of glory. However, when the Steelers selected Len Dawson with the No. one pick in the one957 draft and two other teams were also looking for quarterbacks, Brown had to go back to the board and take Jim Brown.

And when, in his very first exhibition game, J. Brown broke through the defensive formations and landed the ball in the playing field, P. Brown took his rookie aside and patted his shielded shoulders: “Now you are my fullback.” After which he laid on his massive shoulders the entire attack of Cleveland. P. Brown used J. Brown in the middle and on edges of the field, so to speak, combining defense and attack in a single person. In addition, at times he even used the services of J. Brown as a receiver, just like if you were sent money from home when you did not ask for it.

- If you already have a thoroughbred horse, - P. Brown explained his idea, - you need to ride it.

This alchemy brought immediate results, as the Cleveland Browns once again rose to the top of the Eastern Conference - in full accordance with the Providence of the Lord and the plans of Paul Brown. And Jim Brown, straining his Thoroughbred heart, batted twenty2 times, earning the title of champion, and in one game with the Los Angeles Rams, he showed a then-record result of 237 yards.

Over the next four seasons, Jim Brown became the greatest carrier after the bacillus carrier Typhoid Mary [four - Mary Mallon (oneeight70-one93eight) - an Irish cook who worked in many American families, infected more than fifty people with typhoid fever, of whom three died. (Approx. transl.)] and won a permanent right to the championship in carrying, averaging 5.one yards per carry and one,3eight0 yards in total per season. His style in practice was not a style, but, as he himself said, "the use of a wide variety of abilities." Lacking an "established reputation as a runner," he could turn, slip, cut off an opponent, step back, spin, step over, expose a shoulder, push, swipe with his forearm, and so on. It's not hard to imagine Brown turning, ducking, shoving frustrated defenders aside, sticking out his hand and tearing the front line to shreds with a loud crack, and then, as if seeing daylight, flashing forward like lightning. Effortlessly accelerating, he could break away from his pursuers, leaving them far behind him.

However, Brown's inherent manner of slowly and confidently returning to the fight after each transfer is especially memorable. Slowly lifting his body off the ground, he seemed to be cautiously returning to the fight, as if his legs were hurting, depicting with all his movements that it would take him at least two weeks to get back in line for the next game, while in fact in fact, his inertia was partly due to the desire to consider the defensive formations of the enemy or to hide the bruises he received, and also, when he pushed off the ground with his knuckles, by not wanting to touch the cold ground with his palms, which, in his opinion, could provoke a fight. And then suddenly, suddenly and imperceptibly, as if he heard the echoes of the trumpet of the Archangel Gabriel somewhere in the distance, Brown dug his hands into the ball, like a mechanical toy, and rushed at the opposing linemen.

But the main thing is how other players remembered the 32nd number. Asking some is like asking a lamppost about its relationship with the marauders of the Canine Tribe. Chuck Bednarik, the ubiquitous player for the Philadelphia Eagles, called him superhuman. Alex Karras, the great defensive linebacker for the Detroit Lions, said, "To stop him, you had to give every defensive lineman an axe." Dick Modzelewski, one of the New York Giants' broadest-shouldered defensemen, argued that "God didn't make a better fullback. If the NFL lasts another two thousand years, there won't be another full-back that's as good. I needed the help of all our defense and Sam Huff to bring Brown down." Well, Huff himself, who made a career in fighting Brown, once wearily said: “Jim Brown can only be stopped by shooting him at the exit of the locker room.”

However, in one962 his victories came to an end. In the most literal sense of the word. Having injured his left wrist early in the season, he was forced to carry the ball in his destructive right hand. And now Brown was, at least in his own eyes, a mere mortal, running "only" 996 yards, rushing per run down to four.3, and the drifting championship passed to Jim Taylor, the Green Bay Packer.

The entire one962 season was a disappointment, not only for J. Brown, but for P. Brown and the Cleveland Browns. Paul Brown traded Bobby Mitchell for the draft rights to Ernie Davis, who was supposed to strengthen the Browns' offense. However, the Heathman Prize winner was stricken with leukemia before he could become a professional player, leaving Jim Brown without support, without a brother to distract his opponent. After a company devoid of luster, in which Paul Brown gradually became moving farther and farther away from the team—so much so that one could already be certain that the team and the coach would not be redrawing cards at Christmas—Paul Brown was removed from the team by its owner, Art Modell, after a brief rebellion by the player himself.

Freed from the restrictions of Paul Brown, expressed in the constant change of guardians and signals, J. Brown returned to form in one963, rushing across the green field for oneeight63 yards and earning another championship title. The following year, he again became a champion, and the Cleveland Browns won the NFL championship, ahead of the Baltimore Colts, and J. Brown participated in thirty games with a total carrying one5one yards. And then, after winning his eighth league title in nine years, in one965 Jim Brown retired from football at the age of twenty-nine, long before his role could have been played.

Explaining the reasons for ending his career so early, Brown said: "I left the game before I became like many of my acquaintances - sitting on the bench in scars and bruises and suspiciously looking at all the young guys, believing that another newcomer can take their place.".

But хотя ему предстояло сменить футбольный стадион on the сцену Голливуда, никто еще не сумел занять место Джима Брауon the, атлета, так точно определяющего собой слово «великий".

JIM THORPE

(oneeighteighteight-one953)

The story of Jim Thorpe begins in one90four, when the great-grandson of the chief of the Sok and Fox Indian tribe