Bob Hayes

1942-2002

American track and field athlete

Bob Hayes broke records on the athletics track and the football field, and is the only person ever to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. In his prime, he was considered the world's fastest human. His speed on the football field led coaches to adopt and refine complicated zone defense strategies, since no other player could catch him in man-to-man defense.

"To Better the Conditions of My Family"

Hayes was born on December 20, 1942 in Jacksonville, Florida, the youngest of three children in a poor family. His father, who struggled to make a living in the days of legal segregation and limited opportunity for African Americans, fought in World War II and returned in a wheelchair. The family's poverty increased, as their only source of income was his disability pension. Hayes spent much of his childhood skipping school, roaming the streets with friends, and avoiding his father's military-style discipline.

Although Hayes was interested in sports, his father warned him to forget about an athletic career. He encouraged Hayes to learn to shine shoes, stay in the neighborhood, and make connections. Although Hayes was interested in football, he was a very fast runner, and he was soon recruited by his high school track coach. Even in street shoes, he outran everyone. At Hayes's first high school meet, he entered seven events—the 100, 220, 440, and 880 yards, sprint relay, high jump, and long jump—and won them all. His friends began making money by lining up races between Hayes and

older boys, and taking bets on the results. They, and Hayes, always won.

Hayes also played football through high school, and scouts for Florida A&M in Tallahassee, saw him play and offered him a scholarship. When Hayes filled out the college application in 1960, he wrote, "I want to be a professional football player and better the conditions of my family," according to Dave Kindred in the Sporting News. And he did play football at school, under coach Jake Gaither. He was a starter at wide receiver in the 1965 College All-Star Game.

Despite his running speed, Hayes never intended to become a world-class sprinter, and knew nothing about track and field until Robert "Pete" Griffin, who coached with Gaither on the football team and who also coached track and field, encouraged him to enter the sport. According to Kindred, Hayes later said, "I went to [Florida A&M] to play football, nothing else. But after practice every day, we'd run wind sprints and I'd be beating everybody, even the upperclassmen." Coach Griffin, seeing talent, asked Hayes to run track, and Hayes initially refused because if he joined the team he would have to stay in Tallahassee on weekends, and he wanted to go home with his friends. However, Griffin kept after him and ultimately convinced him to join the track team.

Under Griffin's direction, Hayes went from competitions in Tallahassee to Los Angeles, Des Moines, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, moving up to qualify for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.

Hayes was an unlikely sprinter. Although he was powerfully built, with small feet, long legs, and short, muscular thighs, he had such a pigeon-toed stride that he often spiked one leg with the other foot while running, and he surged heavily from side to side instead of running straight forward. However, he had phenomenal acceleration and finishing strength. Sprinters who followed him, including Britain's Linford Christie and Dwain Chambers, emulated his power and finishing kick.

Wins Gold at 1964 Olympics

At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, Hayes's performance in the 100 meters was amazing. His time equaled the current world record of ten seconds, but he achieved it while running on a wet cinder track that had been chewed up by a previous event. In addition, one of Hayes's shoes had been misplaced, so he won the event while wearing one borrowed shoe—and he beat the other runners by more than two meters. In Sports Illustrated, Paul Zimmerman described Hayes's response to winning the gold medal: "He did a little hop-step across the room, stopped, put his hands on his temples, looked upward and let out a big surge of emotion: 'Ooooh! Ooooh! He did this for five minutes or so before being called out to get his medal. I can't remember ever seeing such pure joy in a human being."

Chronology

In the 4 × 100-meter relay, Hayes ran the anchor leg, taking his team from fifth place, three meters behind the leader, to the gold medal, winning by three meters. His split was clocked at 8.6 seconds. The team as a whole set a world record of 39.06 seconds. When Hayes returned home, he went to Griffin's house, and thanked Griffin for his coaching. Then he put his gold medal around Griffin's neck. Hayes told Kindred, "In good times and bad times, Coach Pete was there for me…. When I was down, he was up for me."

Plays with Dallas Cowboys

After his Olympic performance, Hayes returned to Florida A&M, but was soon drafted by the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL) as a wide receiver, and left school before finishing his degree. Although some observers scoffed at Dallas's choice because Hayes was a runner, not a football player, Dallas scouts believed that Hayes's speed was a valuable asset, and that a player either had speed or did not have it. Hayes had it, and the scouts believed he could learn football techniques from coaches.

The scouts were right. In Hayes's first two seasons, he caught 110 passes for twenty-five touchdowns, averaging twenty-two yards per catch. He made the Pro Bowl his first three seasons, and played ten seasons in all with the Cowboys, scoring seventy-one touchdowns and averaging twenty yards per catch; he helped the team win its first Super Bowl in 1972.

Other teams took notice, and the New York Giants actually signed another Olympic champion, 200-meter runner Henry Carr, to cover Hayes when the teams played each other. What the Giants didn't realize was that Hayes had beaten Carr in the 200-meter Olympic trials, and that Carr could never catch Hayes man-toman. Other teams drafted other sprinters, such as Willie Gault, Ron Brown, and Renaldo Nehemiah. None ever duplicated Hayes's feats on the football field.

Hayes's speed was so great that opposing teams began devising improved zone defenses in order to catch him. Zone defense had existed before Hayes, but it was simple and easy for Hayes to destroy. Coaches had to come up with double zone defenses, involving more than one player, to try and catch him. No other player has single-handedly caused this kind of strategic change in the defensive game.

Hayes retired from football in 1975, after playing a season with the San Francisco 49ers.

Hayes ran into trouble in 1979, when he sold cocaine and speed to an undercover officer. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison, but was paroled after 10 months in jail. When he was released, he was eligible to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but because of his conviction, he was passed over.

The Cowboys' former president and general manager Tex Schramm told Zimmerman, "The situation with Bob Hayes and the Hall of Fame is one of the most tragic stories I've ever been associated with during my time in professional football." However, Schramm's comment seemed somewhat hollow, since he was the selector for the Cowboys' Ring of Honor, and he did not admit Hayes to the Ring.

Earns His Degree at Age Fifty-One

For the next decade, Hayes fought his addiction to drugs and alcohol, entering rehab three times before moving back to Jacksonville, Florida, where he lived with his parents and finally earned his degree in elementary education from Florida A&M, at the age of fifty-one. Hayes told a reporter for Jet, "It's a thrill at fifty-one years of age to finally be graduating from college. I think so many people give up and take the attitude that it's not worth it—but they're wrong." He also said, "I take great pride in this accomplishment. I challenge all athletes to get their diploma."

Career Statistics

In addition to his difficulties with drugs and alcohol, Hayes also suffered from liver disease and prostate cancer. Hayes's old friend, fellow track athlete Ralph Boston, told Dwight Lewis in the Nashville Tennessean that he saw Hayes in 2001, "He was in a wheelchair and couldn't walk. He showed me his swollen feet and said, 'Cancer is something.'"

In 2001, Hayes was finally honored by being inducted into the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor, after being selected by team owner Jerry Jones. A track meet named after him, the Bob Hayes Invitational, hosts more than 25,000 high school athletes each year, and he is a member of the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame. In 2002, he was elected to the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame.

Related Biography: Coach Jake Gaither

Born April 11, 1903, in Tennessee, Alonzo Smith "Jake" Gaither grew up to become a teacher and coach at Henderson Institute in North Carolina. He became an assistant coach at Florida A&M in 1937 and was head football coach from 1945 to 1969. He led his teams to six National Black Championships, won twenty-two conference titles, and produced thirty-six All-American players.

"I like my players mobile, agile, and hostile," Gaither once said, according to a writer in Contemporary Black Biography. However, he balanced this aggressive view with a softer side. Gaither also said, "Kindness is the universal language that all people understand." His players responded to this kindness. Bob Hayes once said that Gaither was "my father, my coach, my friend, my mentor."

Gaither was also innovative on the playing field, elaborating on the T-formation by splitting the offensive line. With his coaching associates, he wrote a book on his tactics, titled The Split Line Offense of Florida A&M, published in 1963.

Gaither was named Small College Coach of the Year three times. He retired in 1969, remaining as athletic director until 1973. In 1975, he became the first coach from a largely African-American college to be inducted into the Football Foundation Hall of Fame.

Gaither died on February 18, 1994 in Florida.

Awards and Accomplishments

Hayes died of kidney failure on September 18, 2002, in Jacksonville, Florida. Former Cowboys running back Calvin Hill told Teneshia L. Wright in the Florida Times Union, that he believed Hayes's most memorable characteristics, apart from his athletic abilities, were his kindness and humor. "Here was a guy who talked to emperors and kings," Hill said. "Yet he could meet a janitor and make that janitor feel like he's the most important person in the world."

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

"Jake Gaither." Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 14. Detroit: Gale Group, 1997.

Winters, Kelly. "Hayes, Robert ('Bob'; 'Bullet')." Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, edited by Arnold Markoe. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.

Periodicals

Carlson, Michael. "Obituaries: Bob Hayes, America's Fastest Footballer on the Athletics Track." Guardian (London, England) (September 27, 2002): 22.

"Football Star, Sprinter 'Bullet' Bob Hayes Earns Education Degree at FAMU." Jet (August 29, 1994): 48.

Kindred, Dave. "Giving the Gift of Gold." Sporting News (June 8, 1998): 63.

Lewis, Dwight. "'Bullet' Bob Hayes Could Not Outrun His Own Weaknesses." Tennessean (Nashville, TN) (September 22, 2002): A25.

Wright, Teneshia. "Hometown Tribute: 'Bullet Bob' Hayes Remembered for His Talent and His Struggles." Florida Times Union (September 26, 2002): A1.

Yeager, Melanie. "Tallahassee Remembers Bob Hayes." Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service (September 24, 2002): K0250.

Zimmerman, Paul. "Bob Hayes (1942-2002)." Sports Illustrated (September 30, 2002): 66.

Other

"Bob Hayes, Wide Receiver." Football Reference. http://www.football-reference.com/ (November 11, 2002).

Sketch by Kelly Winters