The Annotated Bobblehead Justice Byron White

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Byron White, 1962-1993

Byron White was born in Fort Collins, Colorado in 1917, and he grew up in a small nearby farming town. At the University of Colorado, White excelled playing football, became an All-American and was named to the Collegiate Hall of Fame. After graduating, he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and then attended graduate school at Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. When White was forced to return to the United States at the start of World War II, he attended Yale Law School while playing for the Detroit Lions. In December 1941, he enlisted in the Navy, where he served as an intelligence officer stationed in the Pacific. When he was discharged in 1946, he completed his law degree at Yale, graduating magna cum laude. White clerked for Fred Vinson, the Chief Justice of the United States, and then entered private practice for 14 years in Denver. White was active in state and local politics, and he organized state and national campaigns for John F. Kennedy, whom he first met as a Rhodes scholar, leading up to the 1960 presidential election. President Kennedy then appointed White as Deputy Attorney General of the United States. After Justice Charles E. Whittaker retired in 1962, the president nominated White to the Supreme Court. White retired in March of 1993.