The Marble Palace Blog: Byron White, Supreme Court Justice and Basketball Star

Thank you for reading The Marble Palace Blog, which I hope will inform and surprise you about the Supreme Court of the United States. My name is Tony Mauro. I’ve covered the Supreme Court since 1979 and for ALM since 2000. I semiretired in 2019, but I am still fascinated by the high court. I’ll welcome any tips or suggestions for topics to write about. You can reach me at [email protected].

Sixty years after Byron White became a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he is remembered not just as an important jurist, but also as a top-notch athlete in college and professional football.

James Duff, currently the executive director of the Supreme Court Historical Society, recently featured White’s somewhat lesser-known expertise at basketball. Duff previously was twice director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, and he worked twice with chief justices (Warren Burger and William Rehnquist). Duff also was a friend of White.

“His best-known athletic achievements were in his football career,” Duff said in a “SCOTUS Scoop” article on the historical society’s website. “Few know, however, that the basketball team on which he starred at the University of Colorado played in the national championship game in the first National Invitational Tournament in Madison Square Garden in March of 1938, the predecessor to March Madness and the NCAA Tournament today.”

Duff added, “You wouldn’t learn this from Justice White. He was a very modest man. But he certainly deserved President John F. Kennedy’s praise upon nominating him to the Supreme Court: ‘He has excelled at everything.’”

“My memories involve the many friendships formed in that small gym that I enjoy to this day,” Duff wrote. “For me, and many others, none were more treasured than the time spent there with Justice Byron R. White.”

White often exercised his basketball prowess at the Supreme Court itself, where the so-called “Highest Court in the Land,” a small gym—formerly a storage room—resides above the court’s chamber. The gym was so near the courtroom that playing basketball and lifting weights was prohibited when the court was in session because of background noise. But before or after oral arguments, White often made himself known during his time at the Supreme Court from 1962 to 1993.

A 2018 Sports Illustrated article about the justices’ private basketball court affirmed that White “remained ferociously competitive as a justice and often joined clerks for games of two-on-two.” Richard Cordray, a former Justice Anthony Kennedy clerk, said that White liked nothing more than to give you an elbow if you were close to that wall and knock you into it, almost like a hockey check.”

Duff was kinder about White’s basketball prowess. “He enjoyed a physical game but I never thought it was excessive.” Duff, a University of Kentucky alum, added that, “It was pretty tame compared with our practices at Kentucky so I am not the most objective judge. I enjoyed playing with him. Even at an advanced age, his strength and skill levels were superior to most.”

White had similar strengths at the court other than the gym. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor once recalled the first time she shook hands with her colleagues before oral arguments when she joined the court in 1981, a long tradition among the justices. When it came to shaking hands with White, she said he “shook my hand in his with such force that I felt tears spring to my eyes from the pain.” After that day, O’Connor said she would grab White’s thumb instead of shaking his hand, as a preemptive measure.

On the first and only time I shook White’s hand, I can confirm that it was a handshake to remember.