Bob Hayes

Robert Hayes is a redirect to this article. For the politician of the same name, see Robin Hayes .

Bob Hayes
nation	United States
birthday	December 20, 1942
place of birth	Jacksonville , Florida
date of death	September 18, 2002
Place of death	ibid
Career
discipline	sprint
Medal table
Olympic games 2 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Tokyo 1964 100 meter run gold Tokyo 1964 4 × 100 m relay

Bob Hayes
Bob Hayes
Position (s): Wide Receiver	Jersey number (s): 22
born on December 20, 1942 in Jacksonville , Florida
died on September 18, 2002 , ibid
Career information
Active : 1965 - 1975
NFL Draft : 1964 / Round: 7 / Pick: 88
College : Florida A&M
Teams
Dallas Cowboys (1965–1974) San Francisco 49ers (1975)
Career statistics
Pass catches	371
the space gained thereby	7,414 yards
Touchdowns	71
Stats at NFL.com
Stats at pro-football-reference.com
Career highlights and awards
Super Bowl Winner ( VI ) 3 × Pro Bowl election ( 1965 , 1966 , 1967 ) 3 × All-Pro election (1966–1968) 1st + 2nd team Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor Pro Football Hall of Fame (2009) Texas Sports Hall of Fame
Pro Football Hall of Fame

Bob Hayes (actually: Robert Lee Hayes ; * December 20, 1942 in Jacksonville , Florida ; † September 18, 2002 , ibid) was an American athlete and American football player. Hayes is the only athlete to have both become an Olympic gold medalist and win the Super Bowl .

Career

Even in his youth, Hayes showed exceptional talent for sprinting and American football.

sprinter

Play media file

The world record run of the 4 x 100 meter relay, in which Hayes ran the relay well behind to victory

In 1963 he set a world record over 100  yards with 9.1 seconds . At the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Hayes celebrated his greatest success as a sprinter. First he won the run over 100 meters and equalized the world record over this distance with a time of 10.06 seconds (hand-stopped: 9.9). Later he won his second gold medal and his second world record in 39.0 seconds as the final runner of the US team in the 4 x 100 meter relay together with Paul Drayton , Gerry Ashworth and Richard Stebbins . This relay race was the last athletics competition that Hayes contested. From then on, he focused exclusively on his career as an American football player.

American football player career

In late 1964, he signed a contract with the Dallas Cowboys . Hayes played on the position of the wide receiver . His first two seasons were the most successful. In both years he led the league statistics over the most captured touchdowns . In 1971 he won the Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys . In 1974, Hayes joined the San Francisco 49ers . There he played another season and then retired from active competitive sports. Hayes played three times in the Pro Bowl , the selection game of the best players of the season.

Hayes, who was called "Bullet Bob" for his unique speed, was considered one of the most effective punt returner in the NFL and indirectly ensured the spread of zone defense in American football. Since no cornerback was fast enough to be able to take him under cover , opposing coaches were forced to let him cover in the room. Hayes not only employed a cornerback, but also a safety , and the opponents learned the bump-and-run cover, which was unusual at the time, in order to bump into him in the first 5 yards of his path . Nonetheless, Hayes recorded 71 touchdowns , 371 catches in his career , averaging almost 20 yards of space and four catches of 82, 95, 89 and 85 yards.

Sporting honors

On January 31, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame . He is a member of the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame . He also played three times in the Pro Bowl and was elected three times for All Pro .

Private life

Hayes had four daughters and one son. Hayes was convicted of drug trafficking in 1978 , spent ten months in prison and battled drug addiction and alcoholism throughout his life . On September 18, 2002, Hayes died of kidney failure in his hometown of Jacksonville at the age of 59 after previously suffering from prostate cancer and liver disease. He was completely impoverished at the time of his death and was buried in Edgewood Cemetery in Jacksonville.

Seven years after his death, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In the run-up to the meeting, there was a controversy when Hayes 'alleged sister read Hayes' “farewell letter” on his behalf in front of an assembled public. The letter contained several errors (including calling his quarterback Roger Staubach "Roger Stauback") and was written in the Calibri font , which did not exist during Hayes' lifetime. The woman was excluded from the honor.

Web links

• Bob Hayes in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame
• Boy Hayes with the Cowboys
• Bob Hayes in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Biography and obituary in the New York Times

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Class of 2009 announced , profootballhof.com
2. ^ Hayes deserves a better place in history , ESPN.com.
3. ↑ Lucille Hester: Half the Truth is a Total Lie , Dallas Observer
4. ↑ Column 3, middle: "First Olympic gold, now drugs" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna April 20, 1978, p. 27 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
5. ↑ Bob Hayes' tomb in the Find a Grave database
6. ↑ Hayes' Family Feud Tarnishes a Long-Awaited Hall of Fame Entry for the Cowboys Great  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Dallas Observer