Bob Hayes -- Sports Hero One of my all-time inspirational heroes is Bob Hayes, known as the only athlete to win a gold medal in the Olympics and also a Super Bowl ring. Hayes as a young man with a great deal of athletic talent grew up in a segregated community in Jacksonville, Florida, but he went on to dazzle the world with his accomplishments. This paper details that rise to fame.

Bob Hayes struggled from childhood on to become what he knew he could become, and his career should serve as a positive role model for any young man caught in a socioeconomically underserved neighborhood with odds against him because of the color of his skin and because of racial stereotyping.

Bob Hayes' Life and Times

Hayes was born to Mary (Green) Hayes and George Sanders on the 20th day of December, 1942 in a ghetto on the east side of Jacksonville, Florida. Sanders never adopted him and he actually grew up with three siblings and Joseph Hayes, who ran a shoeshine stand in what was known as "the Bottom" or "Hell's Hole" in that Jacksonville ghetto.

According to the Gale Biography in Context, Hayes' father warned him not to think too much about a career in sports. His father was very bitter about the segregated, racist Jim Crow conditions in Jacksonville at that time, and told Hayes: "Learn to shine shoes. Forget sports. You'll never make any money messing with kids' games." But Hayes was so gifted even at a young age he knew he had a future in sports. For example, the Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives explains that Hayes -- who was often...

They would solicit bets from non-believing witnesses and, according to the Scribner account, Hayes "never lost."
After he became a football sensation at Matthew W. Gilbert High School in Jacksonville the track coach took him under his wing and coaxed him to join the track team. There, in a tryout, Hayes "outdistanced the squad's sprinters wearing street shoes," Scribner explains. He excelled in the high school track and football programs and though he was recruited by football powerhouses like Oklahoma, Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State and the University of Southern California, he chose Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU). On his application to FAMU, Hayes wrote that he wanted to "…be a professional football player and better the conditions of my family" (Gale). To say he was a standout there would be an understatement.

His university track accomplishments opened the door for him into big time track and field, and he got into the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo where he won gold medals in the 100 meter event and in the 4 x 100-meter relay. He tied the world record in the 100 meters (10.05 seconds). He became known as the "World's Fastest Human." After playing football for FAMU in the fall of his senior year he left school in the Spring and signed with the Dallas Cowboys -- 3 years for $100,000 (Scribner). He was also given a Buick Riviera as a bonus.

In his rookie season with Dallas Hayes caught…