SYRACUSE - A half-century after Jim Brown first made it famous, Syracuse officially retired jersey No. 44 at halftime of the Orange's game against South Florida on Saturday.

With six of the 25 men who once wore the jersey on hand - Brown, Floyd Little, Thomas Stephens, William Schoonover, Michael Owens and Rob Konrad - along with Marie Fleming, the mother of the late Ernie Davis, a mammoth replica of the jersey was unveiled near the roof and to the side of one end zone of the Carrier Dome.

“It's great for the university,” Brown, who led the NFL in rushing eight times in his nine-year career with the Cleveland Browns, said to the cheers of the more than 40,000 fans in attendance. “I'm just very happy to be here and help start a new era.”

The jersey, which is white with blue letters bordered by orange, measures 20 feet across the shoulders and stands 16 feet high.

Just the sight of it brought Little to tears.

“When they unveiled that number, oh boy!” said Little, a three-time All-American at Syracuse in the 1960s. “The tears just came down.”

Davis, who inherited the number from Brown and led Syracuse to the 1959 national championship as a sophomore, became the first black Heisman Trophy winner two years later.

Coincidentally, the Saturday's ceremony came 44 years after Davis received the award. He died in 1963 of leukemia at age 23 - before he could suit up in the same backfield with Brown in the NFL.

“I'm glad to be here,” Fleming said. “I'm glad that this is done.”