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About the series
Each week, staff writer Ray Buck takes a look at the history of the Cowboys - from a great game to a singular moment to a memorable player - in his online-exclusive offering, Old 'Boys Club.
Next Friday
"The catch" by "Bullet" Bob Hayes that turned Tom Landry’s head for the first time. Hint: The game was played in Oklahoma.
Each week, staff writer Ray Buck takes a look at the history of the Cowboys - from a great game to a singular moment to a memorable player - in his online-exclusive offering, Old 'Boys Club.
Next Friday
"The catch" by "Bullet" Bob Hayes that turned Tom Landry’s head for the first time. Hint: The game was played in Oklahoma.
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Take it from the Dallas Cowboys’ first 1,000-yard rusher: Barack Obama should be on a clear path to the White House.
Calvin Hill has always been political-minded. The fact that he’s vocal in his support of “Obama for President” is not really a surprise. Unless, of course ... you consider that Calvin’s wife, Janet, was Hillary Rodham’s suitemate at Wellesley College in the ’60s.“We’re both supporting Barack,” Hill said from his Washington, D.C.-area home. “I first met him, informally, about 10 years ago when he was a community organizer in Chicago.”Two decades before that, “Barry” Obama — as he was known during his days at Punahou prep school in Hawaii — was a teenaged fan of Calvin Hill and the World Football League Hawaiians.(Hill, after leaving the Cowboys, played one year in the short-lived World League. The ’75 WFL season opened two days before Obama’s 14th birthday.)Coincidentally, Calvin Hill was 14 when John Kennedy entered the White House. Calvin is still reminded of JFK’s magnetic personality in bringing young people into the process whenever he watches Obama campaign.“He’s a real smart guy,” Hill said of Obama. “And he listens.”These Old ’Boys Club entries are intended to be more than just football tales. Likewise, Calvin Hill is more than just a former NFL running back whose career spanned three decades (1969-81) with the Cowboys, Redskins and Browns. He’s a renaissance man.His resume includes:Being a Delta Kappa Epsilon frat brother of George W. Bush at Yale.Being Baltimore Orioles’ VP/administration (’87-94) and hiring a young PR assistant named Theo Epstein, who is now a two-time world champion GM of the Boston Red Sox. Serving seven years on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness during the Bill Clinton White House.Attending the Wellesley College graduation ceremonies when Hillary Rodham gave her since-famous student commencement speech — Saturday, May 31, 1969. Calvin was there that weekend on behalf of his future wife, a Wellesley mathematics major who had shared a dorm suite with the future First Lady and now presidential candidate.He remembers being “kind of nervous” — because he was meeting Janet’s parents for the first time.And ... oh, by the way ... he met Cowboys personnel man Gil Brandt at the Boston airport and signed his first NFL contract that same day.So, pardon a young Calvin Hill if there were other things on his mind when Hillary stood and railed on The Establishment.She espoused a need for “human reconstruction,” criticized the misuse of political power of the time in this country and even took a moment to mock Senator Edward M. Brooke’s commencement remarks.“[Brooke] gave this sort of humdrum speech,” Hill recalled. “Then, Hillary stood and gave this sort of revolutionary speech. All the girls cheered. I thought it was kind of rude.”Hill played six seasons for the Cowboys, coming out of Yale in ’69 as a first-round pick (24th overall) and hailed as the “next Jim Brown” almost immediately.
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