Tommy James (American football)
James in 1950 | |||||||||
| No. 22, 82, 42, 20 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Defensive back Punter | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born: | September 16, 1923 Canton, Ohio, U.S. | ||||||||
| Died: | February 7, 2007 (aged 83) Massillon, Ohio, U.S. | ||||||||
| Height: | 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) | ||||||||
| Weight: | 185 lb (84 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school: | Massillon Washington | ||||||||
| College: | Ohio State | ||||||||
| NFL draft: | 1947: 17th round, 146th pick | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Career NFL/AAFC statistics | |||||||||
| |||||||||
Thomas Laverne James Jr. (September 16, 1923 – February 7, 2007) was an American professional football player who was a defensive back and punter in the National Football League (NFL) and All-America Football Conference (AAFC) from 1947 to 1956, primarily for the Cleveland Browns. He was born in Canton, Ohio, and attended Massillon Washington High School, where he played as a back on the football team under head coach Paul Brown. James was a key part of a Massillon team that went undefeated in 1940. After graduating, he followed Brown to played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes and played there as a halfback. Ohio State won its first national championship in 1942 when James was on the team.
After a three-year stint in the U.S. Army during World War II, James returned to play a final season at Ohio State in 1946. He then signed with the Detroit Lions of the NFL, where he stayed for a year before rejoining Brown, who had become head coach of the Cleveland Browns in the AAFC. James spent eight seasons in Cleveland, playing as a defensive halfback on five championship teams, including two in the AAFC in the late 1940s and three in the NFL in the 1950s. He left football after playing briefly for the Baltimore Colts in 1956. Later in life, he worked as a salesman at a trucking company. He died in 2007.