John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on this day (November 22) in 1963 in Dallas. People around the world remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the tragic news. One such person was Roger Staubach, at the time the junior quarterback of the U.S. Naval Academy.
“I heard people screaming in the hall that the president’s been shot,” Staubach told Joe Trahan of WFAA in Dallas/Fort Worth in an interview that ran on wfaa.com back in 2013. “And as I’m walking to class down Stribling Walk, people were yelling back and forth that [Kennedy’s] been shot and it doesn’t look good.
“Everybody was sick. You didn’t care about football. You didn’t care about the Heisman. You didn’t care about anything. Just wondering what the heck is going on here.”
Staubach had met the president a year earlier, at Navy’s preseason football camp, and then spoke to him when JFK visited the Navy team locker room following its victory over Army near the end of that season.
“He became really close to our team, relatively speaking, on a good basis,” Staubach told Trahan. “It was pretty neat having him there. Just [the president] being at the game was great.”
Life Replaces Staubach With JFK
Staubach was inextricably linked to JFK in another, perhaps less-well-known, way. As the nation’s best college football player (he would be voted the winner of the Heisman Trophy), Staubach was the cover subject for Life magazine for the November 29, 1963 edition. The issues, a reported 7 million of them, were recalled after the print run when Kennedy was assassinated. A photograph of JFK replaced that of Staubach on the cover with new editorial content added. Staubach talked about that in a conversation I had with him a few years ago.
“That’s correct,” Staubach said. “That Friday afternoon, the magazines were on their way out, and [Life] pulled them back. I have a few copies, but most of them were destroyed, and they just redid the whole cover.”
Staubach went on to make his mark in football and in Dallas. He graduated from the Naval Academy and fulfilled his military service requirement (including a year in Vietnam). In 1969, as a 27-year-old rookie, he joined the Dallas Cowboys, who had drafted him in 1964. He led the Cowboys to nine consecutive winning seasons, including their first Super Bowl championship in 1972, for which he was named the game’s MVP.
The First "Hail Mary" Pass
Staubach was well known for his ability to rally the Cowboys, directing them to 23 come-from-behind victories in the fourth quarter, including 14 in the final two minutes of regulation. Less well-known perhaps is the fact that he threw the very first “Hail Mary” pass.
“That term had never been used by the press or anybody else,” Staubach said. “In the past, if you threw a pass at the end of the game, it was the alley-oop or the bomb or whatever you wanted to call it.
“We were playing the Vikings in a playoff game and were behind 14-10. Drew Pearson made a heck of a catch—it wasn’t a great throw—and went in the end zone and we won 17-14. After the game, the press asked me what I was thinking about at the time.
“When I threw the ball I got hit. So I said, ‘I just closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary.’ The next day, the press wrote ‘Hail Mary Pass Wins Game.’ ”
Not Mean Enough
Staubach revealed one other secret during our conversation. Remember the commercial with ex-Pittsburgh Steelers great Joe Greene and the little boy who famously offered Mean Joe his bottle of Coke? That aired during Super Bowl 14. It was a memorable spot. Less memorable is the footnote that Staubach was the original choice for the Greene role. The All-America quarterback, however, projected the wrong image.
“Somebody asked me about that and said that I turned it down,” Staubach said, “but that’s not the case. I would have loved to do it. Some creative guy must have evaluated the concept and said, ‘Hey, we need a mean guy. It would be better to have Joe Greene than Staubach because Staubach’s a nice guy.’
“It probably made more sense, gave a more cuddly feeling to it, to have this big old tough football player give his jersey to this little boy. It turned out, I guess, it was the right decision, but I would have loved to do it.”
Staubach retired in 1979 with the NFL's No. 1 passer rating. Six years later, he was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
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