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By Root 1422 0

rural town with dirt roads and dirt driveways and dirt aspirations for the black kids who filled its streets. Robert Hill loved sports as a boy, but had little reason to think they’d take him anywhere beyond the bathroom sink where his grandma, Lillie Vance, patched up his bloody knees and elbows. Besides, most of his time was devoted to picking cotton in the family fields—his all-butguaranteed future occupation. “I could pick three hundred pounds of cotton easily, and people admired that,” said Hill, who was born out of wedlock and raised by Lillie. “We didn’t have a school bus, and barely had a school. We had schools in churches in different areas, but you only went until eighth grade. Then, if you wanted to go to high school, you moved in with a relative or friend who had one nearby. Otherwise, you started your long life as a worker.”

Come September 1949, young Bob, age fourteen, followed the annual late-summer routine of plucking thick white clumps of cotton. He was one of hundreds of Tippo blacks working the field; one of hundreds of Tippo blacks who loathed the bleakness of the task but knew no alternative. “I didn’t particularly mind picking the cotton,” he said, “but the chopping it, and picking the grass out, and spacing it—just terrible. You had to make sure you didn’t cut too much of it down, and if you did you might get a whuppin’.” That October, in what would become a life-altering decision, his grandma Lillie insisted he move to nearby Charleston to live with his other grandmother, Janie Hill, and attend Tallahatchie Agricultural High School, an all-black facility that guided its students toward blue-collar careers. “Boy, was I ever happy,” he said. “When we started picking cotton the weather was good and the cotton was opening. But it began raining mid-October, and I guess my grandma figured enough was enough—let’s get this kid doing something more meaningful.”

Bigger, stronger, and rougher than most of his peers, Bob immediately caught the eye of Joe Allen, the school’s principal and head football coach. Until that point, he had never seen a football. “They insisted I come out for the team, so I did,” he said. “They gave me a jersey, and I finally figured out how to put the jersey on. Then I jogged out to practice with my helmet on. Everyone started laughing and teasing, because I had the helmet on backward.”

Hill struggled to learn the game, and caught his fair share of beatings from Allen, an impatient man who kicked and punched those who failed to execute. The following year a new coach, David Alford, held the job, and moved Hill from wide receiver to running back. He immediately took to the position. “It was the contact,” he said. “I grew up on a farm, herding the cows, working with the cattle, riding horses, and I liked physical activity.” Hill’s grandmothers, however, feared for his life, and demanded “Junior” (as they called him) drop sports to focus on schoolwork. “I had to slip out and play,” he said. “My aunt Bessie was a schoolteacher, and she came up for one of the games. The other team kicked off, and I was back receiving. And I got the kickoff. It was an old dusty field. I got tackled by five or six people, and the dust is all over my face. She ran out on the field screaming, ‘Junior! Junior! Junior! Come on! You see why I don’t want you to play!’ She didn’t know anything about the game, because she lived out in rural parts and we didn’t know anything about football. All the guys laughed.”

His family acquiesced, and by his senior year Bob was one of the best fullbacks around, a punishing ball carrier who lowered his sizeable head, squared his broad shoulders, and demolished opposing defenders. He was the type of kid Mississippi’s black schools—Jackson State, Alcorn College, and Mississippi Vocational College (later to be known as Mississippi Valley State)—craved, yet he was a football ghost. “Nobody came to see me,” he said. “Ever.” Thankfully, a Tallahatchie Agricultural High teacher named Sally Williams had attended Jackson State, and knew the college’s head coach and athletic director,