Yale Awards Calvin Hill An Honorary Doctorate

Calvin Hill, one of our best- known classmates, was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters at the 2016 commencement in New Haven.

At Yale Calvin was a football and track star who led us to many victories.  He and teammate Brian Dowling allowed us to feel briefly what it would be like to be an athletic powerhouse.

President Salovey’s Presentation

President Salovey highlighted Calvin’s “leadership, character and service” to the nation and to Yale.  He also celebrated Calvin as an athlete and a humanitarian:

CALVIN HILL

Doctor of Humane Letters

“You are a Yale legend. Your dazzling running led Yale football to two Ivy League championships, and with speed, agility, strength, and an intuitive sense of the game, you went on to twelve NFL seasons, a victory in Super Bowl VI, and two NFC titles. On the field and off, leadership, character, and service have been the hallmarks of your life. A first-round draft pick in 1969—the first from the Ivy League—and the first running back in franchise history to surpass the 1000-yard mark, you are also first-round for us, as an athlete and humanitarian, and we are delighted to award you your second Yale degree: Doctor of Humane Letters.”

Calvin’s Post-Football Career

But does even such a stellar football career explain Yale’s decision to award an honorary doctorate?   A closer look at other aspects of Calvin’s career, especially after his retirement from football, provides an additional basis for this honor.

In an informal interview for this post, Calvin recounted that after he retired from Cleveland, he had intended to work with his wife as a consultant in Washington when he got a call from the Cleveland Browns.  They wanted to talk to him about a problem they had, namely 8 or 9 players with serious substance abuse problems. This was the era of “just say no” and the primary response to substance abuse was punishment and incarceration.  Calvin realized that this was a failed strategy, and he enlisted experts in various fields of medicine and public health to develop approaches that addressed the specific needs of professional athletes for treatment and confidentiality and that recognized the incidence of physical trauma and chronic pain that required medication.  Calvin’s efforts in this arena were a significant part of a national effort to develop more effective, less punitive strategies for treating addiction.

This decision opened a path for the rest of Calvin’s career.  He worked for five years with Cleveland to develop effective and confidential programs to help players deal with addiction.  He recounted the story of one prominent player who suffered from cocaine addiction but didn’t seek help because of the publicity that would follow.  Calvin solicited leading experts on addiction to help address the unique needs of athlete addicts.

After Cleveland, he worked with the Rand Corporation, the Baltimore Orioles and Dallas Cowboys on this issue.  He became a prominent public speaker on issues of addiction and other issues linking athletics to broader social issues. Overall his efforts were a significant part of the national effort to develop an effective, non-punitive, therapeutic approach to addiction.  He commented that this addiction issue has now intersected with the growing awareness of other health issues faced by football players, especially effects related to concussions.

Consider this impressive list of accomplishments: Board memberships with the Baltimore Orioles and several non-profit organizations; roles with the Peace Corps & Senator John Glenn; graduate work at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology (having won the Jordan Oliver Award and the Chester P. LaRoche Scholarship for graduate study while a senior at Yale); Development Director for a Jarvis Christian College; Labor Relations Representative for Bethlehem Steel Company; and a myriad of other honors and appointments is too extensive to profile here.  The depth and breadth of such involvements are impressive indeed.

 While At Yale

Calvin’s work to help addicted athletes and others was not his first venture into socially useful activities.  As an undergraduate Calvin had been a deacon for Rev William Sloane Coffin.  Also, after Yale employees went on strike in our senior year, Calvin and others sought ways to support these employees.  To this end he helped develop child care services that in 1971 became the Calvin Hill Daycare Center which has lasted to the present.  That effort was joined by another football player, Kurt Schmoke, of the Class of 1971 (who went on to become mayor of Baltimore).  The two also later worked together on addiction issues.

Calvin has also been involved with Yale since graduation.  He was a member of the Yale University Council, the Executive Committee of the Yale University Development Board and on the Board of the Yale Club of Washington, D.C. Additionally, he is an Associate Fellow of Pierson College.  In his work with Yale he has emphasized the relationship between athletics and academia.

More than a decade of football prowess is a momentous accomplishment, but Calvin Hill has also made significant contributions to public health and well-being through his efforts both at Yale and after his football career.  Congratulations, Calvin, on a well-deserved honorary doctorate from our alma mater!