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AP PhotoRoger Staubach reflects on the 50-year anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy.
The former Cowboys Hall of Fame quarterback and Naval Academy Heisman Trophy winner reflects on the 50-year anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy:
“We had a very good connection. We met him [President Kennedy] when he would go up to Nantucket. We used to train at Quonset Point and he would come up in the helicopter, and he was a Navy guy, PT 109, so I think he liked us better than Army. But he couldn’t say that. He switched sides.
JFK Remembered Current and former NFL players, coaches and executives reflect on John F. Kennedy's assassination after 50 years.
• Gil Brandt
• Tom Coughlin
• Tom Flores
• Rosey Grier
• Lee Roy Jordan
• Tom Moore
• Joe Namath
• Tom Pratt
• Roger Staubach
• Fred Zamberletti
• McManamon: 50 Years Later
"He was at the ’62 Army-Navy game. That was one game I played and it was a really great Army-Navy game for Navy, and he was there and he was going to be at the ’63 game. Obviously, the game was played on his behalf, and it was very emotional -- heck of a game actually. The Army quarterback, Rollie Stichweh, was fantastic. We’ve become good friends. Rollie and I talked about that game and what it meant to the country, just to see the servicemen and women at the game. Honoring the president at our game is what took place. That’s why it was such a big deal, the ’63 game. The family asked the game to be played on his behalf, so it was a special game.
“My mother heard I was going to be on the cover of Life that week. They destroyed most of them and brought them back and redid the whole cover. I was getting ready to go to class, a thermal dynamics class, and when I got to class, I found out he was killed. The game was supposed to be a week from that Saturday, but it was delayed another week. It was just a lot of circumstances that are related to that football game and the president’s death. It’s hard to believe it’s been 50 years. Time flies.”
-- Staubach, 71, as told to ESPN.com Cowboys reporter Todd Archer and ESPNDallas.com reporter Calvin Watkins
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