Byron White

Byron Raymond White, nicknamed Whizzer, lived from June 8, 1917 to April 15, 2002 and was an American lawyer and professional football halfback who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1962 to 1993. At the time of his retirement he was the Supreme Courts only sitting justice appointed by a Democrat and the last living member of the progressive Warren Court. Born and raised in Wellington, Colorado, White was a consensus All-American halfback for the Colorado Buffaloes and runner-up for the 1937 Heisman Trophy before playing in the National Football League for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Detroit Lions while attending Yale Law School and serving as a Navy officer in the Pacific during World War II. After graduating from law school with honors in 1946 he clerked for Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, then returned to Denver to practice law before serving as United States Deputy Attorney General and being nominated to the Supreme Court by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, becoming the Courts first justice from Colorado. White espoused a pragmatic, non-doctrinaire approach that strengthened federal power and supported school desegregation and affirmative action, while dissenting in Miranda v. Arizona and Roe v. Wade and writing the majority opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick.