[Hammock Parties]

This is the best part:

Vince Costello’s voice lowers to a whisper. Voices often lower to a whisper when the topic is Jim Brown. There was something about the way Jim Brown ran a football that defies words. Players from Brown’s time will call him Superman and Hercules and recall superhuman feats of strength like some time when he dragged 10 mud-covered men over a goal line on a snowy day in Cleveland.

Then, often, those players will drop their voices and speak in the hushed tones you hear in church. Vince Costello was Jim Brown’s teammate in Cleveland for nine seasons.

“The kid’s just like him,” Costello whispers. “I never thought I would see anyone run the ball like Jim. But this kid runs the same way, upright, proud. He runs angry, the way Jim used to run. He wants to hurt you. Jim wanted to hurt you.”

Costello’s whisper dives even lower, so now you can barely make out the words. Maybe he’s whispering out of respect. Maybe he cannot believe what he’s saying.

“There will never another Jim Brown,” he whispers. “But Larry Johnson is the closest thing I think I’ll see in my lifetime.”