Former United States Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White was born in Wellington, Colorado in 1918. After graduating at the top of his high school class, Byron White chose to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder, graduating in 1938 as the student body president, class valedictorian and an extraordinary athlete. White was named to the All-American football team his senior year.
After graduating from CU Boulder, Justice White played professional football for one year in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he led the league in rushing yards. In 1939, he studied in Oxford, England as a Rhodes Scholar. His studies, however, ended prematurely with the eruption of World War II. He came home that same year and began studying at Yale Law School, also taking courses at Colorado Law. He then took a leave of absence to play two more years of professional football with the Detroit Lions, using his salary to pay his law school tuition. In 1941, White left behind both law school and football to join the Navy Reserve. As an intelligence officer stationed in the Pacific Theater, he received two bronze stars. He returned to Yale after three years of military service and completed his law degree in 1945.
White clerked for Supreme Court Justice Fred Vinson for the 1946 term, and moved back to Colorado in 1947 with his wife, Marion Lloyd Stearns. He started his law practice with a firm called Newton, Davis & Henry (known today as Davis, Graham and Stubbs, LLP). In 1960, White took an active role in John F. Kennedy’s bid for the presidency. Following Kennedy’s election, White became a Deputy Attorney General and less than a year later, in 1962, White was appointed the ninety-third Justice of the Supreme Court.
Over the thirty-one years that Justice White served on the Supreme Court, some of the most pivotal cases of our times were decided, with Justice White writing over nine hundred opinions. He is known for his practical approach to the law, heavily weighing the facts and circumstances of each case and fiercely questioning attorneys in their arguments. Upon his retirement from the Supreme Court in 1993, he maintained an office and heard cases in both Washington, D.C., and by designation, on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. White passed away in 2002 at the age of 84.
