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Jim Brown on the Lesson of Muhammad Ali: 'Money Is Not God'

'I’d like to make one thing very clear,' said Brown. 'Muhammad Ali loved people.'
Image: Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali, in his dressing room before a fight against Archie Moore in Los Angeles in 1962, predicting he'd knock Moore out in the fourth round, which he went on to do. Harold P. Matosian / AP file
By Hasani Gittens

NFL legend Jim Brown was on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday morning to talk about the passing of his friend Muhammad Ali.

Near the end of the interview, host Chuck Todd asked Brown, "What should today's athletes, what lesson should today's athletes take from you and Muhammad Ali and the things you did for them in the '60s?"

Related: Muhammad Ali Died of Septic Shock, Will Be Honored at Public Funeral

"Money is not God, and human dignity is very important," Brown responded. "Your integrity is way up there. And as a single human being, if you carry yourself in a certain way you can defy all evil that comes at us."

Brown concluded by noting that Ali's biggest opponents were prejudice and bigotry: "I’d like to make one thing very clear, Muhammad Ali loved people, and he had white friend as well as black friends — and the only thing that he hated was discrimination and racism. And so, that’s the way that I look at him and that’s how I’d close out my talking to you today."

Related: Float Like a Butterfly: Muhammad Ali's Life in Photos

Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali
Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali hold Ali's "Sport Magazine Top Performance Award" in 1966.AP file
Hasani Gittens

Hasani Gittens is a Senior News Editor at NBCNews.com. Gittens, a WNBC veteran, joined NBCNews.com in January 2013. Before that he worked at The Daily — News Corp's short-lived "iPad newspaper" — where he spent two years also as a news editor.

Prior to that, he worked at WNBC as the managing editor of the station's website, and even longer ago he spent eight years as a reporter and eventually an editor for the New York Post. 

Gittens lives in Queens, New York.