This August was the anniversary of an event that marked a key moment in Browns history, although I can't tell you how many Browns fans were aware of it at the time.
Richard Crow, a devoted Browns fan with a keen grasp of the team's history, recently wrote me with some background of Jim Brown's first game as a Cleveland Browns, an event which took place on August 14th, 2007.
I'll let Richard give you the details of how Jim Brown wound up wearing his famous #32:
Today, August 14th, is the 50th Anniversary of Jim Brown playing in his 1st game as a Cleveland Brown.
It was the Browns at the Detroit Lions .... The program said his uniform number was 32, but he actually wore 45.
In the game they used him as a halfback, not a fullback. At Syracuse, Brown wore #44 but Chet" The Jet" Hanulak was already assigned #44 after John Petitbon was traded with QB Babe Parilli on 4/19/57 for QB Bobby Garrett.
Since Hanulak had the number before he went into the service, Paul Brown automatically switched him back to 44 from 48 which he was assigned while not playing. Preston Carpenter had 40, and Lowe Wren had 42 so since Brown was unproven, he was given the last activational number of 45. An irony here is that Hanulak got discharged late...and wore #48 in his first 1957 photo.
What interesting is that the decision to play Brown at fullback was made while he played in the AllStar game vs the N Y Giants (where he wore #44). Camp was going on and Maurice Bassitt did not report to camp because he was disgruntled with the signing of Brown in May. Paul Brown, however, kept the veteran's number (30) open till later when he heard that Bassett signed with the CFL.
Brown later assigns #30 to Lew Carpenter after he got out of the service late in the year because Brown did not want to switch to #30. It's said that Brown thought of it as Bassett's number and did not want it, but had no problem with taking Fred Morrisons number. Morrison retired and became an investment banker.
...and The Rest is History.