Byron White 2002 Deaths

Byron White

college and professional football star who went on to become associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1962–93). White, considered a “swing” justice who typically voted with liberals on civil-rights cases and with conservatives on personal liberty and criminal justice issues, was the last surviving member of the Warren Court. He was an All America halfback at the University of Colorado and signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates (now the Steelers) in 1938 for the then largest contract in pro history ($15,800). He went to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship in 1939 and returned to the gridiron in 1940. White earned his law degree from Yale in 1946 and served as Robert Kennedy's deputy attorney general.