On Dec. 27, 1964, Jim Brown asked the Cleveland Browns’ coaches to leave the team’s locker room. Brown had something he wanted to say to his teammates before they all took the field against the favored Baltimore Colts in the N.F.L. championship game.
Brown said he had never done this before.
While he was the greatest running back of his or anyone else’s generation and the acknowledged leader of the team, he preferred to let his play provide the inspiration. But this was a special moment at the end of what had been yet another harrowing year of civil rights struggles in the United States.