Pro Football: New Day for Black Rock

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Dressed in Army fatigues and sporting a ten-day growth of beard, he looked more like a Cuban revolutionary than the best running back in pro football. He sounded pretty revolutionary too. "I want," said James Nathaniel Brown, 30, "to have a hand in the struggle that is going on in our country." Thus Jim Brown (TIME cover, Nov. 26), fullback of the National Football League's Cleveland Browns and the biggest ground gainer (12,312 yds. over nine seasons) in the history of pro football, announced his retirement from the sport that made him famous.

He made his declaration in London, where he is acting in a war film called The Dirty Dozen. An outspoken black-power advocate who has publicly praised the Black Muslims, Brown plans to promote a pet activist project: the Negro Industrial and Economic Union. "We want to instill a sense of pride in the 22 million black people in the U.S.," he said. Although he is giving up a $65,000-a-year job with the Browns, Jim will hardly feel the pinch. He is getting $40,000 for his movie role as a racist murderer. "He could," says a Hollywood pressagent, "become the black Rock Hudson."

There are reports, too, that Brown will take over as manager of boxing's Heavyweight Champion Cassius Clay. When Clay fought Britain's Henry Cooper last May, Jim was constantly at his side—even during early-morning roadwork sessions.

The losers will be the Cleveland Browns, whom Brown led to two Eastern Conference championships in a row. The way Jim figured it, though, the Browns might be even better off without him. "Now," he explained modestly, "the other teams' defenses won't be able to key on one man any more."