- was the first black player to don a Washington Redskins uniform?
"The Redskins owned the Atlantic seaboard at the time...there were no other teams at the time. Their white fans, particularly in North and South Carolina, Alabama and Florida, weren't used to having a black player on their team. My first year was rather difficult...the comments we had to listen to. And there was a lot of pressure on me to perform. So many blacks were counting on me; they wanted me to be a Superman. It was difficult to play and make everybody happy," Mitchell recalled.
- earned first-team All-Big Ten football honors in 1955 and second-team status in 1957? The next summer, he earned Co-MVP honors at the College All-Star game in Chicago.
- averaged 8.3 yards per carry as a sophomore at Illinois, a Big Ten record at the time?
- with his wife, Gwen, an attorney, still live in Washington, D.C.? The have two children, Robert, Jr., who graduated from Stanford University and Georgetown Law School and Terri, who graduated from Illinois in 1981 and later earned a master's degree from Howard University.
- has given back to his community and to his University in many ways over the years? Bobby has worked outside of his profession in many efforts and organizations, including: the White House Task Force on Drugs, the United Negro College Fund, the Howard University Cancer Research Advisory Committee, the Washington Board of Trade, the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Area Leadership Council, the American Lung Association of D.C., the Martin Luther King Holiday Commission, the Boys Club of Washington, the Urban League, the NAACP, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the University of Illinois Presidents Council and the University of Illinois Foundation.
- has received special honors from a diverse group of entities? Bobby was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983; he is also a member of the RFK Stadium Hall of Stars.
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It was a guy named J.C. Caroline that was largely responsible for keeping Mitchell at Illinois. Caroline, an All-American running back, was a mentor to Mitchell and many of the other young black athletes on the UI campus.
"J.C. was kind of a forerunner for most of us, because he was such a great athlete at Illinois," Mitchell explained. "He helped us to hang in there and fight, because those were not the most happy days for black athletes. There were places we couldn't go and things we couldn't do. J.C. knew where everything was and what we would have to be careful of. He was a great inspiration."
Mitchell took full advantage of his first opportunity for significant playing time as a sophomore, although it didn't come right away. He was behind his roommate, junior Harry Jefferson, on the depth chart when the season started. Seven games into the nine-game campaign, Jefferson, who was second in the Big Ten in rushing at the time, went down with an injury, and Mitchell took over at one of the halfback spots in the third quarter. Mitchell ran wild, gaining 173 yards in 10 carries, helping the Fighting Illini upset third-ranked Michigan, 25-6. It turned out to be the signature college game for Mitchell, who went on to gain more than 100 yards in each of the two games that remained in 1955. He also saw some playing time as a defensive back.
As a junior, Mitchell didn't see the field much due to a knee injury, and his senior season was rather ordinary. His interest shifted to track, due in large part to the relationship he developed with that sport's head coach at Illinois, Leo Johnson.
"He was like a father figure to me," said Mitchell.
Johnson apparently was also quite the coach. He led the Fighting Illini track team from a last-place finish in 1957 to a Big Ten indoor championship in 1958. Illinois also won the outdoor title in 1958. It was in February, 1958, that Mitchell set an indoor world record of 7.7 seconds in the 70-yard low hurdles. He had his sights set on a possible spot on the 1960 Olympic team, as a sprinter, hurdler and/or broad (long) jumper, since he was accomplished in all of those events.
"I remember we ran at an indoor track meet in Cleveland, and Paul Brown and all of his coaches came to watch me run, and I did quite well. They were impressed with that, and Paul wanted that speed. Later, I was still shocked when they drafted me. They thought I was better than I thought I was. When you're broke, it doesn't take much...they convinced me to play football."
Months later, Mitchell returned to Cleveland, this time as a Browns rookie.
"To walk into a dressing room and see, sitting there, Jim Brown, possibly the best runner the game had ever seen, was fantastic. It was quite an opportunity to try out for their team. Paul Brown had a tremendous number of running backs that he was looking at. He brought a number of veterans in from other teams, and as I looked at them, I couldn't picture myself making the Browns roster," Mitchell recalled.
But he did. Paul Brown was impressed with his speed and cutting ability, and with the fact that he got along well with Jim Brown.
"We had four great years together," Mitchell said. "It was a thrill to be a part of Jim's career."
In 1962, Mitchell's pro football career took an important turn. He explained that Vince Lombardi was having great success at Green Bay with two big backs, Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, and that Paul Brown wanted to have two big backs as well. To make a long story short, Brown traded Mitchell to the Washington Redskins for the rights to Ernie Davis, who, like Jim Brown, was big and fast and had played at Syracuse. Ironically, Davis contracted leukemia and died before ever playing for Cleveland.
"The trade kind of shook me up," said Mitchell. "I thought, 'how can you play as well as I played and get traded?' Later on, I understood the business aspect of the game."
Did he ever.
After seven seasons playing at a new position, wide receiver, boosting his career total yardage to 14,078 and his touchdown total to 91, and playing in four Pro Bowls, Mitchell began to experience, on a day-to-day basis, the business side of the game.
"As I neared retirement as a player, Vince Lombardi moved from Green Bay to become our coach. He said, 'you're the kind of person we're looking for as a coach or to work in the front office.' He had to convince me to take the front office job, because when you're a ball player, you really don't think in terms of someday becoming a general manager.
"Unfortunately, the next year he died, but encouraging me in the business was really commendable," said Mitchell, who went on to serve as a Redskins scout and assistant general manager. "My career took off from there. Over the years I've had great owners and great general managers. I was able to stay around the game for a long, long time."
