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Have you ever given pause to take the measure of your life's achievements? If so, have there been accomplishments of which you are especially proud? Maybe you've been very successful at your job. Perhaps you excelled academically. You may have been a decorated war veteran. Possibly being a good parent is at the top of your list of accolades.
No matter the number of check marks that you place in your plus column, know this, it's not nearly enough. On Monday, April 15, the bar was dramatically raised when we said goodbye to Byron "Whizzer" White at the age of 84.
Do you think that you've put enough points on the board to have your national anthem played when the competition is over? Here's the final tally for Mr. White.
In 1937 Byron White was an All-American halfback at the University of Colorado. Big deal, you say, there's dozens of All-Americans named each year. But how many -- if any -- of the roughly 5,000 All-Americans that have been named since 1937 graduated first in their class? Byron White did. White -- who had earned the nickname "Whizzer" due to his all-over-the-field style of play -- then signed what was at the time the largest contract in pro sports history ($15,800) with the Pittsburgh Pirates of the NFL. "How can I refuse an offer like that?" White said at the time. "It will pay my way through law school."
Kevin Garnett of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves signed the largest contract in pro sports a few years ago, valued at over $130 million in total. Do you think that there's a chance that Garnett will ever attend law school? Heck, he's never even stepped foot on a college campus, entering the NBA directly out of high school.
Byron White spent 1939-40 at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Only 32 American students are chosen to be Rhodes scholars annually. Among the detailed list of criteria to even be nominated for the honor is this directive: That one must possess the "moral force of character and instincts to lead, and to take an interest in one's fellow beings." White embodied the character needed to lay claim to the title.
Conversely, former Brigham Young University Quarterback Jim McMahon spent the junior and senior years of his college experience blowing out his eardrums listening to the high-octane guitar solos of Ozzy Osbourne's axe-man Randy Rhoades.
When World War II broke out, White had to leave Great Britain before completing his studies. Before he left, however, he made the acquaintance of the son of a U.S. ambassador -- John F. Kennedy.
Back in the United States, White entered Yale Law School while simultaneously playing football for the Detroit Lions. In 1940, he led the league in rushing.
A year later, when America entered the war, White served as a Navy intelligence officer in the South Pacific.
For comparison purposes only, in 1973 O.J. Simpson led the NFL in rushing and later went on to -- well, we needn't go there.
During his stint in the Navy, White met John Kennedy again. When Kennedy's PT-109 was sunk by a Japanese warship, it was White who wrote the official report of the sinking. His friendship with Kennedy would set the stage for the most dramatic period of White's amazing life.
Again, simply in the interest of comparison, O.J. Simpson first befriended Al Cowlings on the campus of the University of Southern California, when they were teammates on the Trojan football team. O.J. convinced the Buffalo Bills to select his buddy Cowlings in the first round of the 1970 NFL draft. This set the stage for the dramatic Ford Bronco chase after O.J.'s wife had been found -- well, you know the story.
White obtained his law degree from Yale in 1946. The man who had excelled at every aspect of his life then hit the matrimonial jackpot. White married Marion Sterns -- the daughter of the president of the University of Colorado -- and they, with their two children, settled in Denver, where he practiced law for 14 years.
White's delicate choosing of a life mate must have been lost on former Atlanta Falcon wide receiver Andre Rison. In 1994 Rison got liquored up and hit his live-in girlfriend, R&B singer Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopez. Lopez waited for Rison to leave town with the team, then proceeded to smash three of his cars and set his $5 million house on fire, burning it to the ground. The happy couple tied the knot in 2001.
When John Kennedy became president, he offered White a number of positions.
White entered the Justice Department and became the second-ranking official under Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
In 1962, Chief Justice Charles E. Whittaker resigned his post. President Kennedy chose White to replace him. Byron White was sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice at the ripe old age of 44.
Former Miami Dolphin running back great Mercury Morris was sworn in at 36 -- at his trial for cocaine possession. He spent over three years in federal prison and has never regained the public approval rating that he once commanded.
On the Supreme Court, White became known as a swing justice -- he voted with the liberals on civil rights cases and with the conservatives on personal liberty issues. His most widely known act was in writing the dissenting opinion on the Roe v. Wade abortion decision. He wrote as part of that dissent these words: "As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court."
White retired from the Court in 1993 and spent much of the last years of his life engaged in philanthropic pursuits.
There is a quote by George Eliot currently on display outside of the Unitarian Universalist Church on Main Street in Niagara Falls. Eliot said, "It is never too late to become what you might have been."
The passing of a life as full and meaningful as that of Byron White reminds us that there is still much to be done if we are to become all that we may.
But there's not a minute to spare because -- as Byron White knew all too well -- life is stuck in high gear and it all just "whizzes" by us.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 23 2002 |