ABSTRACT
Byron R. White, associate justice of the US Supreme Court, was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 1917. White was an All-American halfback at the University of Colorado and later played football professionally; he was also a Rhodes scholar. His football career was significant because it brought him notoriety his entire life, which White seemed to loathe. White's jealously guarded privacy and terse media style were hallmarks of his relations with members of the national press. White's tenure as a naval intelligence officer during World War II was remarkable chiefly because he wrote the report on the loss of the PT-109 torpedo boat and subsequent heroism of Lt. John F. Kennedy. White's years at the Department of Justice were notable chiefly because of the role he played in diffusing an explosive civil rights situation. White's civil liberties record as a justice was decidedly conservative.
