Yale wide receiver Bo Hines is finally healthy, with much to look forward to this year and beyond.
“I’m so happy for him,” Bulldogs coach Tony Reno said. “He’s a superstar kid.”
Hines missed all of last season with a broken left collarbone. In 2015 he only played in four games with a right shoulder injury that required surgery.
Hines, who transferred to Yale after a 2014 season in which he led North Carolina State with 45 receptions, was a freshman All-American on the field and an ACC all-academic member off the field.
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“He’s had unbelievably bad luck since he’s been here, on the field,” Reno said. “I’m really happy for us because I can’t wait. We’ve been missing him for sure. He’s a weapon. He had a great spring. He got hit. He got tackled. He had a really good spring.”
The senior political science major from Charlotte, N.C., had a pretty good offseason, too. He got married June 3. His wife, Olivia, graduated from North Carolina this year and has applied to medical schools.
“She is a sweetheart,” Reno said. ‘And I’ll tell you what: Bo is a very smart and intelligent kid, but she’s no second. She graduated with high honors. They’re like a power couple, those two.”
Olivia will be taking a gap year and moving in with her husband in September. Among their discussions over the next year will be the possibility of attending law and medical school together. Hines, 6-foot-1, 205 pounds, could shift course for a while, though, if he gets a shot at the NFL. He is set to graduate but would also have another year of college football eligibility remaining if he chose to go that route.
“We’ll have to see what happens with the football career,” Hines said.
Before he was injured, Hines caught 11 passes for 134 yards in 2015. He’s ready for more.
“I feel great. I’m weighing what I want to weigh. I’m in shape,” Hines said. “I’ve never felt this good. This is probably the first time in a long time I felt 100 percent going into a season.”
Before coming to Yale, Hines had battled through an a separation in his right shoulder but still led N.C. State in receiving.
“I played with the pain, got injections before the games,” he said. “It’s not that Yale isn’t high-level football but there’s a different expectation, different pressure on the coaching staff there [at N.C. State]. They want to make sure the best players are on the field. I wanted to be able to perform and make sure I fulfilled my obligation.”
Hines went to Yale for reasons beyond football.
“I loved the school and staff and it was close to home,” Hines said of N.C. State. “But ultimately I knew I wanted to have a political career and I felt like Yale would give me the best opportunity to do that one day.”
Yale, of course, has produced many politicians. And five of the 45 U.S. presidents, William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, George Bush and his son George W., attended Yale.
“In this position I’m so fortunate to deal with some really, really incredible kids and Bo is as driven, as organized and as mature as anyone I’ve been part of at any school,” Reno said.
Hines is quite passionate about politics. He is a Republican who would like to start off as a representative of the 9th congressional district of North Carolina.
“I’d run as a republican, but I’m not a social conservative,” Hines said. “I call myself a social libertarian, I guess. I’m a lot more liberal on certain social issues. I think it’s part of our generation. I’m hoping the Republican Party in the future will not be so bogged down by the 80-year olds sitting in congress who want to regulate how people live their lives.”
Hines talked about the events in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.
“The events in Charlottesville were disgraceful,” Hines said. “It is saddening to see that racism and bigotry still exists in our society. I’m hopeful the next generation of Americans can unite in an effort to end any racism that still exits.”
For now, Hines’ political aspirations must wait. There is a football season ahead.
Last season he was hurt on the first play of practice, running a corner route. He caught the ball, landed on his left shoulder, broke his collarbone, and missed the entire season.
In 2015, his first at Yale, Hines caught six passes for 68 yards in his first game, against Colgate. In the second quarter he was running a corner route, caught the ball and fell on his right shoulder. Hines thought he had re-separated the shoulder. He tried to come back against Penn five weeks later only to feel his shoulder moving in and out of the socket only to learn later he had a Grade 4 shoulder separation that needed repairing.
Not surprisingly Hines’ added to his game by observing.
“The players are a lot smarter in my opinion, so you’re not going to have blown coverages, busted coverages, you have to be on top of your game and really know what route you’re running and when to be there,” he said of the Ivy League defensive backs. “Timing is very important because what they might not have in speed they make up for in intelligence. They can read the play before it happens, which is a pretty fun challenge to play with because it’s different and unique.”
