Supremely Influential: How The Man That Once Was Whizzer White Shaped My Career

Abstract

Supremely Influential:How The Man That Once Was Whizzer White Shaped My Career Helen J. Knowles-Gardner (bio) "He graduated from Yale Law School; he served in the Navy in World War II; and he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University …" Introducing my "law and courts" students to the extraordinary biography of Byron R. White usually begins with these observations. Although this summary of his accomplishments is traditionally prefaced with a statement saying that White had a "résumé you pretty much can't beat," I still have not captured my students' attention. Yale Law seems several worlds away for them; World War II is ancient history; and they have no idea what a Rhodes Scholar is. So, I continue. "Deputy Attorney General during the presidency of John F. Kennedy; and then one of Kennedy's appointments to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1962, serving on that Court until 1993." Some of the students are now impressed. "Oh," I then casually remark, "and he played in the N.F.L." Now I have the attention of all of the students, attention generally confirmed with numerous exclamations of "whoa" or "say what?" While I love bringing Justice Byron R. White to life in this manner, I always feel rather ashamed at doing so. Ashamed, because I have the distinct feeling that White is sitting in the corner of the classroom politely trying not to roll his eyes in frustration that yet another person has capped off their description of his lifetime of accomplishments with reference to his athletic achievements. In 1935, a Denver Post journalist "saddled" the rising college football star White "with a name he did not seek, did not like, and could not shake."1 Much to White's dismay, [End Page 95] the name "Whizzer White"—and all that it embodied—stuck with him, through thick and thin. Far too frequently journalists were wont to undermine (not necessarily deliberately, sometimes just carelessly) the man's legal, political, and judicial accomplishments by reminding their readers of the notable fact that "Whizzer" White had once been a standout on the gridiron. My shame does not last long, however, for the simple reason that "Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and N.F.L. player" is a unique biographical description that has, over the years, etched itself into the memories of my students, and captivated their attention, just like it did for me during the winter of 2000. I was in my first year of graduate school, and had very quickly reached the conclusion that studying Supreme Court politics and history was my educational raison d'être. At the end of my first semester, I sought out suitable winter break reading material at the local bookstore. Little did I know that one of my purchases was a book that would have a truly significant influence on my career. The book captivated my attention and burned one of its central arguments (and a good many anecdotes and useful pieces of information) into my memory in a way very few books have ever done (and likely ever will). That aptly titled biography of White—The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White—(hereinafter referred to as Whizzer White), written by one of the Justice's former clerks, Dennis Hutchinson, is the book in question. At the end of the Prologue to that volume, Hutchinson recalls White's mid-career observation that, "[j]udges have an exaggerated view of their role in our polity."2 I do not have an "exaggerated view" of the "role" that Whizzer White has played in shaping and influencing my own research, scholarship, and teaching. It has been, and always will be supremely influential. An Influence On My Researching My original marginalia, circa January 2001, begin to appear in the pages of chapters eleven and twelve of my well-thumbed copy of Hutchinson's book (back then, I was less prone to extensive annotation and page corner-folding of volumes). There is one noticeable exception, however. A solitary, pencil-written exclamation point appears next to the paragraph at the top of page three. And it is there that we find the second thing...