Ron Brown (wide receiver)
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| Position: | Wide receiver | ||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||
| Born: | March 31, 1961 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | ||||||||||||
| Height: | 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) | ||||||||||||
| Weight: | 181 lb (82 kg) | ||||||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||||||
| High school: | Baldwin Park (Baldwin Park, California) | ||||||||||||
| College: | Arizona State | ||||||||||||
| NFL draft: | 1983 / round: 2 / pick: 41 (by the Cleveland Browns)[1] | ||||||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||||||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||||||
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Ronald James Brown (born March 31, 1961) is an American former athlete and professional football player. He won a gold medal in the 4 × 100 metres relay at the 1984 Summer Olympics.[2] Brown played as a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He went to Arizona State University.[3]
High school career
[edit]Brown played high school football at powerhouse Baldwin Park High School in Baldwin Park, California until his senior year. He then moved to Northern California and played for Northgate High School in Walnut Creek.[citation needed]
Track and field
[edit]| Olympic medal record | ||
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| Men's athletics | ||
Representing the  United States
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1984 Los Angeles | 4 × 100 m relay |
Brown was also a track star, he ran the second leg in the 4 × 100 metres relay team that won the gold medal and set the world record in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, with a time of 37.83 seconds.
Brown also competed in the 60 meters, 100 meters and 200 meters, posting personal bests of 6.64 seconds, 10.01 seconds and 20.44 seconds, respectively.
Football career
[edit]Brown was drafted in the second round of the 1983 draft by the Cleveland Browns, but never reported to them as he was training for the Olympics. The Browns traded their rights to the Los Angeles Rams, and Brown joined the Rams after the Olympics.[4]. He caught 23 passes in 1984 for 478 yards with four touchdowns as a rookie in 1984 before being tasked to return kicks the following year. In 1985, he returned 28 kicks for 918 yards for three touchdowns (his touchdowns and 32.8 yards per return were league highs). This resulted in Pro Bowl and All-Pro honors. Only his 1989 year would exceed that season, with him returning 47 (a league high) for 968 yards. In his eight seasons, he recorded 1,000 all-purpose yards (receiving + returns) four times (1985–87, 1989) before his career ended in 1990 at the age of 30.
Brown appeared in the 1986 Rams promotional video, Let's Ram It,[5] where he went by the name "Speedball Brown" and claimed to be the fastest man in town.[6]
Personal bests
[edit]| Event | Time (seconds) | Venue | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 meters | 6.64 | Tokyo, Japan | March 10, 1984 |
| 100 meters | 10.01 | Eugene, Oregon | April 24, 1983 |
| 200 meters | 20.44 | Eugene, Oregon | June 4, 1983 |
References
[edit]- ^ "1983 Cleveland Browns". databaseFootball.com. Archived from the original on February 25, 2008. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
- ^ "A year ago, Ron Brown turned down a multi-million..." UPI. August 17, 1984.
- ^ Metcalfe, Jeff (July 30, 2014). "ASU's Ron Brown preferred track to football, leading to 1984 Olympic gold". Azcentral Sports.
- ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20241201013212/https://www.raiders.com/news/all-gold-everything-raiders-in-the-olympics-ron-brown
- ^ "Rams". Los Angeles Times. November 13, 1986. p. 129. Retrieved April 18, 2018 – via newspapers.com.
- ^ "Ram IT (NFL Rams Football Team) Song". Retrieved April 17, 2018 – via YouTube.[dead YouTube link]
External links
[edit]
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- USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
- 1961 births
- Living people
- American football return specialists
- American football wide receivers
- American male sprinters
- Athletes (track and field) at the 1984 Summer Olympics
- Arizona State Sun Devils football players
- Los Angeles Raiders players
- Los Angeles Rams players
- Medalists at the 1984 Summer Olympics
- National Conference Pro Bowl players
- Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
- People from Baldwin Park, California
- Sportspeople from Walnut Creek, California
- Players of American football from Contra Costa County, California
- Players of American football from Los Angeles
- Track and field athletes from Los Angeles
- Baldwin Park High School alumni
- 20th-century American sportsmen
- American track and field athletics Olympic medalist stubs
- American football wide receiver, 1960s birth stubs