Footy's devil Campbell Brown also had plenty of admirers
CAMPBELL Brown was an angel and the devil, and it's not unreasonable to suggest the devil will be remembered most.
CAMPBELL Brown always was a man of extremes.
JFK famously asked what you could do for your country and you get the feeling Brown would ask of himself what he could do for his football team.
He loved footy, he loved his teammates and, despite breaking Stephen May's jaw, he says they will remain friends.
He was an angel and the devil, and it's not unreasonable to suggest the devil will be remembered most.
This latest episode, a fight outside an LA nightclub with a teammate which has ended his career, comes just two months after Brown helped another teammate out of a bind on a flight back to Australia.
The teammate, who was well stocked with alcohol, had fallen asleep in the aeroplane toilets.
And it was Brown who helped clean him up, dress him, look after him on the flight and get him through customs.
Even years back in Thailand, when Brown was arrested after a fight at a full-moon party, it was because he jumped in to help a teammate who was outnumbered.
You could both despise and admire Brown.
Just hated what he did to Callan Ward with the blind elbow to Ward's head, and the follow-up front-on hit to Barry Hall was an inch off being horribly dangerous.
That he was semi-proud of both hits also grated.
And then there were all the other reportables, the most famous being his punches to the head of Essendon's Matthew Lloyd as Lloyd lay on the ground.
They are incidents which will define his footy career.
On the flip side, Brown's acts of inspiration set him apart.
He was as kamikaze as Glenn Archer, and often told teammates he had their back.
They are just words, but when coming from Brown, they would never be doubted.
Time and again, Brown would sacrifice his body to lay a shepherd for a teammate, or bump an opponent to make it a clear ball.
He did not get as much kudos for them as he did criticism for his punches or elbows, but his coaches, Al Clarkson and Guy McKenna, would testify that Brown was a team man.
The Suns' announcement was not a surprise.
One of the most reported players in the game's history, he had a mental trigger which punched first and thought of the consequences second.
For what it's worth, he was unlucky with the May incident.
Both drunk, the fight lasted two punches, a bit of push and shove, and probably nothing would have come of it if May hadn't woken up the next morning with a sore jaw.
From that moment, Brown's career was cooked.
Although teammates clocking each other happens more times than you'd think, you just can't be breaking a teammate's jaw.
He leaves having played 205 games, leaving Brown "pretty proud with what I have achieved with what I see as fairly minimal ability".
In the end, his career lived and died by his trademark aggression.