Former Cowboys rusher talks football, politics

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.

However, injuries always seemed to be a spike strip in Calvin’s path to NFL greatness. Yet — time and time and time again — he persevered.

After barely missing 1,000 yards in ’69, Hill became Dallas’ first 1,000-yard rusher in the next-to-last game of his fourth NFL season.

Think about it. It took the Tom Landry’s Cowboys seven years to reach a league championship game, 11 years to reach a Super Bowl ... and 13 years to produce a 1,000-yard rusher.

Hill, now 61, is a longtime consultant for the Cowboys. He works both ends of the spectrum — helping rookies adapt to the NFL and helping older players prepare for life after football.

And everything in between.

With the Cowboys, the former Ivy League star gained 1,000 yards rushing at a time when it was accomplished over a 14-game schedule — usually by only a handful of players each year.

Here’s a chronology of Hill’s 1K run with the Cowboys — twice:

Nov. 16, 1969 (Cowboys 41, Redskins 28): Hill took a comfortable lead over Bears’ great Gale Sayers into RFK. Hill gained 150 yards on 27 carries, but broke a bone in his foot and was forced to sit out the next two weeks.