Speedster Running His Last Race

They were in Miami for the fifth Super Bowl, their first. The Dallas Cowboys were about to hit America's great new stage. And they were sick as dogs.

"We were throwing up before that game, we were so nervous," said Jethro Pugh, the towering Cowboys defensive lineman. "Bob comes and tells me it will be OK, to relax. He talks about this big track meet in Russia, about the Tokyo Olympics. I mean, this was Bob Hayes, Olympic champion, fastest man on Earth. It kind of relaxed me. Later, I go inside and there he is, puking. My man Bob."

Pugh laughed. Thinking about his friend does that. Lots of old Cowboys are thinking about their man Bob this week. Hayes, long denied a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died seven years ago on the outside looking in. Now his name and career are being reconsidered, probably for the last time.

"We've got our fingers crossed," Cowboys Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach said. "We're hoping that justice will take over."

To them, it goes beyond the numbers, which are impressive themselves. In 11 NFL seasons, all with the Cowboys, Hayes caught 371 footballs and averaged 20 yards per catch. One out of every five times he grabbed a ball, he scored a touchdown, 71 in all.

"Bob changed football," former Cowboys tight end Pettis Norman said of his friend and teammate. "Before Bob came along, you saw man-to-man defense."

"They tried, man," Cowboys Hall of Fame offensive lineman Rayfield Wright said. "They tried, man - but Bob was the man. Think about it - a Super Bowl ring and Olympic gold medals. No man has done that outside of Bob. He was simply astonishing."

The Cowboys drafted Hayes out of Florida A&M in the seventh round in 1964. Hayes struck double sprinting gold at the 1964 Tokyo Games, but his football skills were a question mark. "We never expected what we got," former Cowboys executive Gil Brandt said. "Bob revolutionized the game."

He made speed a staple, spreading the field for the Cowboys' offense. "How fast was Bob Hayes?" Hall of Fame Lions cornerback Lem Barney said. "There. Want to see how fast he was again? Blink. That's how fast Bob was."

Teams tried doubling him, then tripling him, before a new defense was devised: the zone.

Hayes didn't have his best games in the postseason. At Super Bowl V in Miami, a loss to the Colts, he caught a pass for 41 yards. The next season, in Super Bowl VI, the Cowboys won their first world championship. Hayes caught two passes against the Dolphins and ran for 16 yards on a sweep to set up a touchdown.

Old Cowboys laugh when they hear about the latest fast guys in the NFL.

"Speedo would be the king of them all," Pugh said.

Hayes was more than astonishing to his teammates - he was beloved. He was the guy they called "Speedo," not "Bullet Bob," because he deserved a Cowboys nickname, seeing as he'd nicknamed everyone else.

Bob Hayes crowned Rayfield Wright "Big Cat," Jethro Pugh "Buzz," cornerback Cornell Green "Sweet Lips" and on and on. He would goose guys in the huddle. Knowing Pettis Norman's fear of creepy crawlies, Hayes filled Norman's training camp bed with bugs, frogs, even snakes. "You drew the sheets back slow when Speedo was on the job," Norman said.

"The relationship he had with our team was overwhelming," Wright said.

They stuck with him when addictions brought him down. Staubach paid for Hayes' treatment programs and gave him a job. But for the longest time, Bob Hayes couldn't crack the Cowboys' Ring of honor. Pettis Norman went to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

"I told him we needed to do this while Bob was alive," Norman said. "I told Jerry that if Bob Hayes wasn't in the Ring of Honor, then we really should take everyone else down."

In 2001, the year before he died, Bob Hayes was inducted in the Ring of Honor. Jerry Jones sent a plane to Jacksonville for Hayes, who wept at the ceremony. "I can still see Bob's smile," Staubach said. At the funeral, he helped carry his friend's casket.

A lot of fingers will be crossed Saturday as the Hall of Fame Class of 2009 is announced.

"Speedo deserves his day," Pugh said.