The first, definitive biography of Jim Brown, the controversial and outspoken sports legend, and one of the most important athletes of the 20th century.

This will be a sweeping, grand book about a man whose life is a tough, sprawling drama. Even at 66andndash;years old, Jim Brown still possesses the qualities, in abundance, that made him one of the most important athletes of the 20th century. Brown's hardened will was the catalyst that molded him into such a great athlete and provided him with the confidence to become an unflinching symbol of black pride and selfandndash;reliance. His legend remains as sturdy as the bodyandndash;scattering runs that lifted him to prominence. There is no doubt about it: he is the greatest pure runner football has ever known. Brown was a physical masterpiece, intimidating on and off the field. He is the only player to be inducted into the Pro Football, College Football, and Lacrosse Halls of Fame. It was his magnetic appeal that enabled Brown to crush previously taboo sexual images of blacks in Hollywood. It was Brown who became the first black action star, with leading role in The Dirty Dozen.

JIM BROWN: THE FIERCE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN HERO will be part biography, part cultural history. It will chronicle not just Brown himself, but how the passion and chaos of the period in which he rose to stardom, mainly the 1960s, and in particular the civil rights movement, influenced Brown and how he influenced that decade.

Unlike now, when many professional athletes fear taking public stances or discussing the thorny topic of race, Brown was a boisterous voice pushing for civil rights. To many blacks, Brown was as important to them as Muhammad Ali. Indeed, it was Brown who rallied other black athletes in a public show of support for Ali's draft resistance in 1967 and it is Brown now who is still unbelievably outspoken. Brown remains an engrossing figure, one who still attracts the attention of both sports fans and nonandndash;sports fans alike.

"In the context of today's world of sports-commercialization, bloated salaries and superstar athlete egos-the newest from sports writer and author Freeman (Bloody Sundays) is not just a definitive biography of pioneering African-American athlete Jim Brown, arguably the best football player ever, but a fascinating look at a culture in transition. Broken down by decade, each section of the book covers a distinct phase in Brown's life and career, based on old coverage as well as new interviews with family, friends and enemies. In an engaging, honest and powerful narrative, Freeman covers all aspects of the American hero, including his amazing athletic feats-besides football, he was also a top-notch lacrosse player-as well as his work with the Civil Rights movement, his explosive anger and his run-ins with the law. Beginning in the fifties, Freeman convincingly recreates the dirty game of the time, in which shoves and blinding jabs to the eyes were commonplace-especially for Brown, as Freeman uncovers in candid interviews with players and coaches who admit to pointed attacks on the running back. Though he forgives the American hero a little too easily for his history of domestic abuse, Freeman captures the life of a legend with grace and passion, while brilliantly exposing the hypocrisy and cruelty suffered by the black athletes of yesterday." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"'There have been few athletes smarter or more defiant or more controversial,' Mike Freeman writes in his new biography of football legend, actor and activist Jim Brown. A sportswriter who formerly worked at The Washington Post and the New York Times, Freeman offers a complex narrative of a dynamic and contradictory man. He resists the familiar practice of constructing heroes as all good and villains..." Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) as pure evil, revealing Brown to be 'both heroic and flawed,' a contradictory figure who was ahead of his time but whose personal failures continue to limit our ability to see his greatness.

'Just as he left the crumbs of opponents scattered behind him on his blazing sprints on the football field, Jim Brown also cast aside the shells of stereotypes wherever he passed,' Freeman writes. 'He redefined what it meant to be a movie star, a lover, a civil rights leader, an activist. He helped to redefine what it meant to live as a black man in America, from the 1950s until today.' Athletically, Brown was a pioneer at the collegiate level, putting Syracuse University football on the national map in the late 1950s. He was an all-American in both football and lacrosse (although Freeman gives too little attention to his lacrosse career) and excelled at track and basketball, as well. To this day, he remains the only athlete to be inducted into the halls of fame of lacrosse, collegiate football and professional football.

Freeman elucidates how 'Brown redefined what it meant to be an athlete,' whether through his physical dominance, his intellectual approach, his work ethic or his unwillingness to kowtow to the demands of his coaches, fans and the media.

'Brown was unlike any other football player,' Freeman writes. 'He purposely used the clout accumulated from his years of football stardom to try to enact social awareness and change.' To Freeman, Brown's greatness rests with his commitment to civil and human rights, evidenced in his involvement with the Negro Industrial and Economic Union (an organization he helped form in the 1960s to assist black businesses) and Amer-I-Can (an organization founded by Brown in 1988 to curtail gang violence and promote economic development).

Freeman also shows how Brown's acting career was a natural continuation of his efforts to challenge what was acceptable for a black man. In Hollywood, he 'kicked in that door by being the uncompromising, forward-thinking man that he was as a football star and a civil rights leader.'

A second theme of Freeman's book is the continuity of Brown's views and activism. As a college student, he challenged racism and the mistreatment he experienced as a black student-athlete. Fifty years removed, he remains a vocal critic of the exploitation of today's athletes.

Not surprisingly, given his fighting spirit and his outspokenness, Brown has been equally defined by controversy. Freeman documents how he has faced surveillance from the FBI and continues to be a pariah within some media circles. He addresses accusations of Brown's violence toward women, suggesting that the domestic battery he was charged with — and twice convicted for — is a mere character flaw: 'Brown's alleged acts of domestic abuse ... indeed scar him, but they do not define him.'

Finally, Freeman questions why Brown is not held in higher repute by the American sports establishment. Notwithstanding his flaws and contradictions, he argues, Brown is an American hero who deserves respect and celebration. 'What makes Brown's accomplishments more impressive than others' is that Brown's activism has been the most lasting,' Freeman writes. 'For five decades he has used the platform of his various careers and businesses, as well as his eloquence, to further his causes and beliefs. No athlete has done all of these things as well or as long as Brown. Not even (Muhammad) Ali.'

Reflecting his effort to celebrate Brown and rebuff his critics, Freeman shies away from some of the controversy that swirls around his life, most notably Brown's gender politics. He even condemns the 'soundless athlete' of today as the antithesis of what Brown stands for as an athlete, entertainer, activist and man. But the greatness of Jim Brown need not be defined through any comparisons. Rather, the greatness of others should be measured against his accomplishments and failures, and his example of what it means to be a black man in America.

" Reviewed by Carolyn See, who can be reached at www.carolynsee.comDavid J. Leonard, an assistant professor of comparative ethnic studies at Washington State University, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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He intimidated people on and off the football field. He was brutal yet brilliant, narcissistic yet magnanimous, relentless yet unyielding. Most of all, he was the greatest football player of all time. He was Jim Brown.

Jim Brown was an astonishing physical specimen with tremendous skills and intelligence. An athlete who played a number of sports at Syracuse University, he ultimately discovered that it was the violence of football that appealed to him most. The idea of physically dominating other men, surviving ferocious battles on the field against opponents who would just as soon call him a nigger as try to gouge out his eyes fueled an astonishing, record-making NFL career that led to the Hall of Fame. He battled his defenses, sometimes his teammates, and often the Cleveland Browns' legendary head coach Paul Brown.

But Jim Brown had ambitions greater than football. He used his athletic brilliance to launch a movie career, becoming Hollywood's first black action hero, culminating in a scandalous love scene with America's sweetheart Raquel Welch. He leveraged his popularity into helping the NFL's black players and becoming a civil rights activist. Never shy about expressing his opinions, Brown would become the subject of FBI investigations and surveillance throughout parts of his life.

Then there were the women. The patient wife who was essentially a single mother and who endured public humiliation. The girlfriends he ran through and the scandalous accusations of violence made by some of them.

A complex and fascinating story, Jim Brown is a towering biography of a living legend.

An award-winning investigative reporter pens the first definitive biography of one of the most important athletes of the 20th century--the controversial and outspoken sports legend Jim Brown. 12 photos.

Mike Freeman is a national columnist for CBS SportsLine. He has previously worked for the Florida Times-Union, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Dallas Morning News. Freeman is the author of two other books including Bloody Sundays, which was a New York Times Notable Book. In 2006 he became one of only a handful of writers ever to win three Associated Press Sports Editors top-ten writing awards in one year. He lives with his wife and dog in New Jersey.