Bob Hayes Family Saga Hopefully Will Be Resolved Soon

Pending

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Some are interested in the facts and evidence involved in Bob Hayes’ family saga. Others are upset with the focus on it, since his induction should be about him and not about the family feud. It is really a bizarre mess, but the reason it is so bizarre is because all signs point to a carpetbagger who has tried to take glory away from those who deserve it and for her herself.

Today, Mike Fisher at DallasBasketball.com posted a rather amusing list of reasons suggesting that Lucille Hester is at the least a liar and and the worst a complete con.

Shortly after that article was written, Dallas Morning News reporter Brad Townsend posted a story noting that the letter that Hester read at the Hall of Fame press conference on Saturday appeared in Calibri font, which was not available to the public until the release of Microsoft Office 2007.

Coupled with some other facts– Hayes’ signature is obviously forged, Roger Staubach’s name is misspelled, the San Francisco 49ers’ name is spelled “49rs,” the letter was written before his induction to the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor– and it is beyond reasonable doubt that this letter is a fake.

Fisher conducted a great interview with Bob Hayes Jr., the 30-year-old son of the sports icon. Bob Jr.’s reasons for the family not stopping or not being able to stop Hester are very believable. It seems pretty obvious that he’s the one who should be representing his father, not the alleged sister. According to Fisher’s interview, and perhaps according to the Dallas Morning News interview that will appear tomorrow, Hayes Jr. is going to try to put an end to the mess this week.

There are some more statements from Bob Hayes’ 1990 autobiography, Run, Bullet, Run, which are relevant to this discussion:

On older brother Ernest:

. . . I’ve looked up to him all my life.

On older sister Lena Mae and mother Mary:

Lena and my mom sacrificed a lot to make sure that I would have opportunities they never had.

On family in general:

We were a close-knit family . . .

On Bob Hayes Jr.:

I may be prejudiced, but I think Bob Jr. has the makings of a better athlete than his old man was. I know he has at least one advantage I never had: a father who adores him.

The stories in 2001 show that his family was still close to him when they set up a 24-hour vigil, thinking he was going to die. Hayes does not sound like a person who would give his prized possessions (Super Bowl ring, Olympic gold medal) to one of his alleged sisters and not to his son or at least to one of his other children. Hayes certainly doesn’t sound like the type who would want one sibling to take all of the glory and to exclude everyone else from this great moment.

Hester’s Possible Motivation for the Alleged Fraud

What may turn out to be really interesting is to find out about Hester’s work for the Bob Hayes Foundation. Hayes’ own son told Fisher he knows nothing about this nonprofit entity (first established in 2005), except that quite a bit of Hester’s focus has been on raising money. If this turns out to be little more than a scheme, it will really be a sad story.

There is even more to this bizarre story. Hester is the president of the Pigskin Club of Washington, D.C. When she became president of this club, the Washington Informer ran a short piece on her. The story mentions this about her:

Hester became the first female member of the club when she joined about six years ago. Then, Brig Owens, one of the 70 all-time greats for the Washington Redskins and a former quarterback for the University of Cincinnati, was president. Hester said she joined to enjoy the benefits and to offer the club another benefit.

Every sports legend had come through the Pigskins club, and I wanted the history of those legends and the organization to be presented by them so the story would be accurate,” Hester said. “I really wanted history to treat them with so much respect, because every opportunity today had to come from someone making that history years ago.”

She’s in the process of writing a book. She has four and a half decades worth of history in sports.

The Pigskins Club, based in Washington, D.C., is the oldest African American sports organization in the country. This year the club also honored its great Hall-of-Famers, including the first African American player for the Washington Redskins, Bobby Mitchell, Brig Owens, Larry Brown, an outstanding running back for the Redskins, Johnny Grier, the first African American referee in the NFL, and Dr. Thomas Hart, a former coach in the Washington area.

The story doesn’t mention she is Bob Hayes’ sister, nor does it mention that she runs the Bob Hayes Foundation, which according to Hester herself, is active enough to have its own attorney.

She is active with American Youth Football and Cheer, but a short bio on that site doesn’t mention anything about Bob Hayes or the Bob Hayes Foundation. She is also featured on the website for Black Women in Sport Foundation, but it also does not mention the connection to Hayes.

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