Sen. Hawley ran 40 yard dash in 7.2 seconds through Capitol on Jan. 6, says sports writer

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley went viral on Thursday night after the January 6 commission aired footage of him running through the U.S. Capitol complex moments after saluting the crowd outside.

The audience audibly laughed at the Republican senator’s lithe, “gazelle-like” gait across the corridor in the recording.

After watching the clip of Hawley running “over 100 times,” sports writer James Dator determined “using science” that the member of Congress would have run the 40-yard-dash in 7.2 seconds.

The SB Nation senior staff writer recalled seeing the clip and wondering: could the senator run the 40 faster than Rich Eisen?

Eisen is an NFL Network reporter and sportstalk TV/radio host who runs the 40-yard-dash at the NFL Scouting Combine in a suit every year to raise funds for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

After scrutinizing the video for anything that would help him determine the distance Hawley had covered in the brief moment he was in view before zeroing in on the wet umbrella bags.

Dator determined that the bags’s stand was a “Tatco 57029 54 1/2” Brass Wet Umbrella Bag Stand” with a discontinued burnished brass base with a diameter of 16 inches.

“The fine people at Tatco say their umbrella stand is ‘Perfect for museums, high-end hotels, retail stores, or office buildings.’ Well, the Capitol is basically a museum and an office building rolled into one — so this seems ideal,” he joked.

He then slowed down the video for a frame-by-frame analysis and found that the senator crossed the Capitol hallway, which was six Tatco 57029 54 1/2” Brass Wet Umbrella Bag Stands wide, in 19 frames.

“In other words, he traveled 96 [inches] in 19 frames, or 5 inches per frame. A distance of 40 yards is 1,440 inches. Therefore, we now know how many frames it would take Hawley to run the 40: 288,” wrote Tabor.

“Twitter video is capped at 40 frames-per-second, so we now have it: Josh Hawley ran a 7.2 in the 40 at the Capitol Building on January 6th, 2021.”

Tabor defended Hawley’s “atrocious” time, pointing out that the senator was in dress shoes on a tile floor, not on astroturf in football cleats.

“Furthermore, it’s unclear where in his stride he was when he crossed the hall. Maybe he was really winded before he got there?” he said.

He also noted that the 42-year-old senator was not faster that Rich Eisen, who ran the 40 in 6.16 seconds in 2022 at age 53.