Thomas William Brown (December 12, 1940 – April 24, 2025) was an American professional football and baseball player. He won three consecutive National Football League (NFL) championships with the Green Bay Packers. He was the first athlete to both play baseball in the major leagues and appear in a Super Bowl.
Brown played both college football and baseball for the Maryland Terrapins. In 1963, he played baseball professionally for the Washington Senators of the American League, before becoming a defensive back in the NFL for six seasons with the Packers and Washington Redskins.
Contents
Early life and education
Brown was born in Laureldale, Pennsylvania, on December 12, 1940. He attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. He was an All-Met selection in football and basketball, but not in baseball, which he said "was always my first love".
Brown accepted a football scholarship from the University of Maryland, College Park, on the condition that he was exempt from spring practice, freeing him to play baseball. "Football I just used, I guess, to get an education in college. I never really liked football that much", he said, adding that his parents were not well off. As a junior for the Terrapins, Brown was named a first-team baseball All-American and set an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) record with a .449 batting average. In his senior year in 1962, he was an honorable mention All-American in football while recording an ACC-record 11 interceptions.