So it was a great pleasure to have Jenise Bordatto, Chair of the Graduation Committee, walk up to the podium. announced: “I would like to announce our guest speaker, Mrs. Hill.”
Janet Hill, Grant’s mother and Calvin’s wife. died on saturday After a year-long battle with a brain tumor. She was 74 years old.
Duke University — Janet and Calvin’s only child earned a history degree just like his father, earned his own national championship honors, and led his team to two national championships — lowered the flag in her honorShe served as Duke’s trustee for 15 years until last year.
“She would say I inherited my athleticism from my father,” Grant told me by phone on Tuesday. She approached everything with such integrity and her pursuit of excellence. “
I’m not writing about Janet. because she was an athlete. she wasn’t. I’m not writing about her because she was a professional or college sports person. She was the mother of a seven-time NBA All-Star or the 52-year-old wife of a four-time NFL Pro Bowler, so I’m not writing about her.
I write about her because she epitomized what we are told is the best quality of the best coaches.
She was it for her Hall of Fame son. Elected to the Duke Commission Following his mother’s stint as evidenced by his intelligence, humility and distinction. To her son’s friends at Duke University, especially to the young black men she met through her life’s work, her husband’s travels, her son’s dominance. Derrick, Kareem, Mark, Rich, Mike and…
“Now say, ‘Janet won’t remember me, but dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot-dot Dot Dot Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do understand.”
Janet volunteered to other children the direction of success she got from her parents. She was born in segregated New Orleans and grew up on the side of only people of color. her mother, VivianJanet attended an all-black Catholic school until she graduated from high school in 1965. .
“My mother read an article about Wellesley … and she decided that Wellesley was where I should apply and go to get out of the segregated South.” , Janet said in a Wellesley video years ago.
“I never met any white people until I got to Wellesley,” she said. , I tried to bail out.”
But Janet remembered her mother pleading. you can compete with them. you haven’t gone home
So Janet graduated from Wellesley in a class that included five other black women and Hillary Clinton. She holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics Education from the University of Chicago. And she began what would become a lifelong mentor to young people, beginning as a math teacher in high school and college.Her role only intensified as she became Special Assistant and White House Liaison Secretary of War, the first black man to hold the position. He started a consulting company with his secretary, Clifford Alexander. First Black Chief of the Armybegan serving on the boards of Wendy’s Company, Carlyle Group, Dean Foods, Houghton Mifflin, Kennedy Center and many others.
I first met Janet in Dallas through her Wellesley classmate Alvia Wardlow, a leading curator of African-American art who worked at the Dallas Museum of Art. Janet returned to Dallas and she joined Calvin as a special counselor to players on the NFL team she drafted him. But getting to know Janet in Washington was her seemingly insane role. That was his role as the university’s sports watchdog and member of a policy group called the Knights Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. But nothing was beyond her Janet’s field of study.
“We were on the Wendy’s board when I was president of Ohio,” former Maryland premier William “Britt” Kirwan told me Wednesday. She was the only woman on the board…she was absolutely fearless.” When Kirwan became co-chair of the Knight Committee, he broke that mold by inviting Janet.
“Without exception, nearly everyone on the Knights Commission had professional experience related to college athletics,” Kirwan said. “I can’t think of anyone else like Citizen. But she lived [the collegiate athletic experience], a star athlete as a husband, a star athlete as a son, in a way that no other member has. She had a wise and rational idea of how intercollegiate athletics worked. College and education were her central focus. “
After all, Janet was a scholar because she had a degree in advanced mathematics and a foundation in teaching and research. She spent several years in Dallas, as did her husband, who earned a degree in theology from SMU. So did her son, who doubled his political science major, and Duke’s friend Janet was certified based on how seriously they took presents.
When Duke junior Derrick Hegans met new student Grant, he counseled Grant about college life. Instead, Grant introduced Hegans, who was interested in management, to his mother.
“I was thinking about doing my MBA at Duke University when Advantage called me and said, ‘We have an opening in the basketball department,’” Hegans told me Thursday. “Janet said, ‘Isn’t that what you want to do?’ She said, ‘She can always come back and she can get her MBA.'”
“That was the way she did it,” recalled PBS Newshour anchor and another Duke alum, Judy Woodruff. “She wanted to know everything that was going on in your life, and I’m sure she recognizes, with these young men, as her mother.
Hegans got a job at the legendary sports marketing firm founded by Washington, DC attorney Donald Dell. When Grant received his No. 3 pick in his 1994 NBA Draft, Janet and Calvin trusted his fellow alumni to represent him. Hegans eventually chose to pursue a law degree and, leaving Advantage, he moved into the NFL’s office of legal counsel.
“Janet was very altruistic,” said Hegans.
Wardlaw recalled the last time the ’69 Black Wellesley Alumni Quintet got together. They were sitting at Janet’s house in northern Virginia watching the news as Hurricane Katrina raged off the coast of New Orleans.
“I remember her telling me I had to get my mother to Dallas before the storm came, and she did,” Wardlow said. “It’s kind of a metaphor for how she’s dealt with her family and friends, to make sure everyone is okay so everyone can reach their potential. .”
Early August, Duke announced In 2022, he was awarded the highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal. Next month’s awards will go to Chairman Emeritus Richard H. Brodhead and Janet Hill.
