A brief overview: A Cherokee Indian and Mormon, Saunooke attends Brigham Young University on a football scholarship. Stars alongside future NFL greats Steve Young and Ty Detmer, but misses out on BYU’s only national championship. Saves the lives of 11 schoolchildren by tackling two runaway horses during a July 4th parade. Works his way through Washington and Lee School of Law with odd jobs and by coaching football at Virginia Military Institute. Briefly practices with a Florida firm before striking out on his own. Runs for chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Loses. Gets into and out of a Southern barbecue restaurant called Big Daddy’s. Represents clients in a wide field of law, including baseball player José Canseco, Seminole Chief James Billie, Donald Trump, World’s Strongest Man competitors and victims of domestic abuse. His classmate Eric Nelson ’92, now an attorney with Smith, Curry and Hancock in Atlanta, recalled how he was flipping through the TV channels one night. “I saw [José] Canseco on some talk show, so I stopped and watched it. All of a sudden the screen flips over, and it’s Saunooke. I thought, ‘Wait, I know that guy!’ ” Bob Doyle ’92, a partner at Lewis, Johs, Avallone and Aviles, had a similar experience while watching Saunooke represent Canseco before Congress. The former major league baseball player was there to testify about steroid use in the sport. “I called Rob and said, ‘What do you know about representing an internationally known athlete at a congressional hearing?’ And he said, ‘Nothing, but I talked to a couple of guys and got some advice. Then I went out and bought a new suit.’ ”
Saunooke, now 43 and a father of three—Jacob, 17, Emily, 13, and Seth, 8—applies that same
bemused air of detachment to most situations in his life. He ruefully reminisced about missing BYU’s national championship run in 1984 while he was on a Mormon mission. “If there’s a piggy bank you can deposit good deeds into....” He lets the thought trail off. “I was serving my fellow man and God. If there’s a heaven, I hope that some of my good deeds overcome my mistakes.” He played three more years as a center at BYU, then entered law school. He was accepted at Georgetown, University of California at Los Angeles and U.C. at Santa Clara, and waitlisted at Harvard. For a smalltown kid from the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, W&L and Lexington were perfect fits. “W&L was like coming home,” he said. “I liked the campus, the honesty and the small-town flavor. We had an honor code at BYU, so having one at W&L felt natural to me. I loved law school. Some of the best relationships and my best friends in the world I made Robert Saunooke during his days as a football player for Brigham Young while in law school.” University. He stays fit these days working out Saunooke was already married with former World’s Strongest Men Magnus ver Magnusson and Phil Phister.
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