By Odell Hall

How do you measure the greatness of man? Are we defined more by our allies or by our enemies? Are we measured more by our triumphs or our tragedies? By what we attain or what we lack? Whatever the answer is, by any real measure, we lost a great man when Jack Kemp left for the other side last week.

From early in life, Kemp was a natural born leader, from his time on the gridiron to his service in Congress; Kemp exhibited the ability to execute under pressure and to be resolute amid chaos.

Convention however was never among Jack’s strong points. He was one of the only athletes who served the entire 10 year run with the American Football League, most of which he served with distinction and two of those years he survived as a champion. While an athlete, he planted the seeds of a lifelong career of public service. While libertarian in sensibility, he aligned himself early with the Republican Party, volunteering for both Barry Goldwater’s Presidential Campaign(1964) and Ronald Reagan’s Gubernatorial run in California (1966) while a player for the San Diego Chargers.

Following his football career, Kemp decided to devote his life to public service and ran for Congress from Buffalo, where he played the latter half of his career for the Bills. Though New York is generally Democratic/Liberal in nature, Jack Kemp was voted in as Republican and served for 18 years.

Jack Kemp’s career was one of unwavering principle in the face of even friendly opposition. Kemp espoused many personal beliefs and ideas that ran counter to what had become established Republican convention. He supported the acknowledgement of gay rights, and espoused many programs that promoted the empowerment of minorities. Despite alignment with the party of conservatives, he believed in affirmative action and other liberal economic programs because he believed that for America to be productive, we as a country united, should all be productive and firing on all cylinders.

His time as an athlete gave him exposure to Black people that many of his contemporary republicans lacked. As such he had a greater understanding of the issues within that community and the real problems that the system was having with integrating them. Many of the empowerment zones that were later instituted during the Clinton administration were ideas espoused by Kemp decades earlier. Unlike so many politicians who vote along party lines with no regard to their own constituencies or personal beliefs, Kemp generally voted for what he believed. It was a trait that won him much respect and admiration and support from his constituencies but ultimately failed him in his attempts to curry the party’s nomination in a failed run for President.

I met Jack Kemp a few times during his later years. He was a career politician so there was a level of salesmanship and projection, but even in his advanced years he possessed that athlete’s assertiveness. He was at all times alert, honest and forward in his beliefs and genuinely sincere in trying to combat societal ills.

We didn’t agree on more than a few things, including his support of supply-side economics (he was one of the reasons that Reagan adopted those practices and even set them in motion with the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut of 1981. We disagreed on the nature of execution for empowerment zones and so-called empowerment programs but in the end, Kemp was always able to support his opinions credibly and willing to defend his principles.

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