Roberson Helped Raiders Offense Go--Fast

Wide receiver/kick returner Bo Roberson might be the best all-around athlete in the Oakland-Los Angeles-Las Vegas Raiders franchise history.

Roberson played only four seasons with the Silver and Black and didn’t put up huge numbers, but what he did with his speed was open up the field for quarterback Tom Flores and the rest of the Raiders’ offense.

The 6-1, 200-pound Roberson excelled in three sports at Cornell University, running for more than 100 yards per game in football in his only season on the football team, averaging 15 points and 17 rebounds per game at center during his only season on the basketball team, and breaking the school record in the long jump. He even returned home to Philadelphia after leaving Cornell near the end of his senior year to help the Big Red tie the meet record in the 880-yard relay in the Penn Relays.

Roberson, perhaps the fastest player to ever wear the Silver and Black, won the Silver Medal for the United States in the long jump with a leap of 27-6½ inches in the 1960 Olympic Games at Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy.

"My dad always contended that Bo Jackson was the greatest athlete he ever saw," ESPN's Jeremy Schaap said. "But he was convinced that Bo Roberson was the best natural athlete ever in the Ivy League. He could do anything."

In February of 1960, Roberson broke Jesse Owens' 25-year-old world indoor record in the long jump when he leaped at 25 feet, 9½ inches, at the National AAU Track and Field Championships.

Roberson spent a year with the San Diego Chargers in 1961 before signing as a free agent with the Raiders in 1962, where he spent three seasons as a wide receiver and a kick returner with the Silver and Black.

“I don’t think there is a faster or more dangerous player in the NFL than Bo Roberson,” said Al Davis, who was an assistant coach with the Chargers before becoming a coach and general manager of the Raiders in 1963. “He can beat you from anywhere on the field.”

Roberson played in 48 games for Oakland. He caught 113 passes for 1,834 yards and seven touchdowns, a 16.2-yard average, carried the ball 110 times for 309 yards and three scores, returned three punts for 54 yards, and returned 113 kickoffs for 2,791 yards and a touchdown. He is the second-leading kickoff returner in Raiders history.

Roberson was acquired by the Buffalo Bills during the 1965 season and finished his AFL career with a season with Miami.

In the 1965 American Football League Championship game, Roberson caught three passes for 88 yards in the Bills' 23–0 defeat of the San Diego 1964, and he was named to the AFL All-Star Game in 1965.

Roberson is the only man to graduate from an Ivy League university, play professional football, win an Olympic medal, and earn a doctorate degree. You’ll have to search long and hard to find anyone more of a personification of a sound mind and a sound body–or who dropped more completely out of public view after he retired from athletics.

“Bo was a super all-around person, athlete or otherwise,” Olympic hero Ralph Boston said. “He was one of the heaviest—brainiest—guys I ever met and he used to wear those dress whites. Bo Roberson from Cornell. I’ll never forget him."

Legendary Philadelphia basketball player and expert Sonny Hill saw Roberson in action during his career and said: “Bo Roberson belongs in the conversation with any athlete from the City of
Philadelphia because he was so successful in three arenas. Obviously Wilt Chamberlain was a great athlete, but his resume was that of two sports. Add in that Bo Roberson was a
standout student and he becomes a story that needs to be told.”

Roberson passed away far too young, at 65, on April 21, 2001, in Pasadena, Calif.

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The 2023 NFL Draft will go from April 27-29 and be held at Union Station in Kansas City, Mo. The 2023 NFL Year and Free Agency period began at 4 p.m. EDT on March 15.

The Raiders are expected to be significant players in the free-agent market this offseason.

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