Bob "Bones" Hamilton

Robert Alexander "Bones" Hamilton (September 8, 1912 – April 1, 1996) was an American gridiron football player, best known for playing college football for Stanford University. He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972.

Biography Hamilton was born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, and attended Sewickley High School. and arrived at Stanford University in the fall of 1932, along with Kiski classmate Jim "Monk" Moscrip. Hamilton, Moscrip, Bob "Horse" Reynolds, and Bobby Grayson played for Stanford's freshman football team during the 1932 season. After the 1932 Stanford varsity was soundly defeated by the USC Trojans, the freshmen players got together and decided that they would never lose to USC, with Hamilton calling it a vow

In the 1936 NFL draft, Hamilton was selected by the Brooklyn Dodgers, but he did not play professional football. He appeared in one movie, the 1936 film The Big Game, along with several other players of the era including Moscrip. When the winless 1939 Stanford team was losing at halftime in their final game of the season, Hamilton was asked to give a halftime pep talk—he told the downtrodden players, "You are by far and large the worst group of players who have ever worn the Stanford red." Hamilton served as an assistant coach at Stanford during 1940–1941.

During World War II, Hamilton served in the United States Navy, In early 1951, he acquired a Buick dealership in Van Nuys, California, which operated under his name into the mid-1970s. Hamilton was selected to the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame in 1954, and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972.

Hamilton wed Bernice Walters in October 1936 in Reno, Nevada. The end of their marriage is unclear. In July 1967, Hamilton married his second wife, Florence—the widow of W. Clarke Swanson, a son of Carl A. Swanson—she died in April 1988. Hamilton died in 1996, aged 83; he was survived by a son.