Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an American sprinter and professional football player. After winning gold medals at the 1964 Summer Olympics, he played as a split end in the National Football League (NFL) for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. He was a two-sport standout in college in both track and field and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe.
Hayes formerly held the Olympic and world record for the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.0 seconds, and was part of the team that held the 4 × 100 meters world record with a time of 39.0 seconds, both set at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He also held the world record in the 60-yard, 70-yard, 100-yard, and 220-yard dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later when they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
A highly recruited athlete, Hayes accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
In 1962, the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1 seconds, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974. The same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an 8 mph (3.6 m/s) wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. Hayes' running form was considered unusual for a sprinter due to his long strides and large frame.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962 to 1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes won the 100 m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.0 seconds. Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second; fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, but the times were recorded as "hand-timed" by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second. Officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, but his automatically-timed 10.06 seconds was converted to 10.0 seconds. Hayes ran in lane 1 which had been used for the 20 km racewalk the previous day and this badly damaged the cinder track, and ran in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there.
Hayes won another gold medal in the 4 × 100-meter relay, setting a new world record at 39.06 seconds with team-mates Paul Drayton, Gerry Ashworth, and Richard Stebbins. Hayes ran the anchor leg in a come-from-behind win for the US team. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is one of the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break the ten-second barrier for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 with a wind-legal 9.95s which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. Hayes' low-altitude record was equaled by Hasely Crawford in 1976 and broken by Carl Lewis in 1984.
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL draft as a future selection. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also known for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967 against the Green Bay Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).