Positivity: Willis’ death is a history lesson for today’s football players
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Sean Taylor wasn’t the only football player who died Tuesday.
Bill Willis passed away, too.Yet unlike the tragic death of Taylor, the 24-year-old Washington Redskins safety who lost his life to a gunshot wound after intruder stormed into his bedroom, it is apparent that the passing of Willis, who was 86, barely registers with players in the NFL.
It should strike a nerve.
Willis was one of four men who broke pro football’s color barrier in 1946 — a year before Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Willis and Marion Motley broke in with the Cleveland Browns under Paul Brown in the All-America Football Conference that eventually merged with the NFL. Kenny Washington and Woodie Strode joined the Rams the same year, the franchise’s first in Los Angeles.
Before that, the NFL was lily-white for 12 years with an “unwritten” policy, urged by then-Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, that barred players of color.
Now, more than 70% of the NFL’s players are black. And the Redskins’ owner, Dan Snyder, rushed to Miami and showed tremendous respect to Taylor’s family.
Times have changed in many regards.
But it’s also a shame that you could walk into the Baltimore Ravens’ locker room on Thursday and one player after another had no clue about Willis’ significance.
Willis, honored with a U.S. Senate resolution last year, was the last survivor of the four pioneering black players who reintegrated pro football. He went to the emergency room after suffering a massive cerebral stroke on Thanksgiving, then expired Tuesday afternoon with his family at his bedside.
“I saw something on ESPN the other day, where they said he passed,” said Ravens receiver Derrick Mason. “Did he play for Buffalo?”
Not quite. Willis played both ways, but the former Ohio State All-American was best known as an outstanding middle guard. He was so quick off the snap that during his first day at the Browns’ training camp at Bowling Green, the legendary coach Brown got on his hands and knees along the line of scrimmage to see if Willis was jumping offside.
No, Willis was fair and square, smacking Otto Graham before the quarterback could get set on his dropback. It forced the Browns to change their blocking schemes — and later wreaked havoc for opponents as Cleveland won all four AAFC titles.
This much I know because Mo Scarry, a onetime Don Shula assistant, told me.
Scarry was one of the Browns’ centers the day Willis showed up to play for Brown, his old coach at Ohio State.
Eventually, Willis’ position morphed into today’s middle linebacker. ….
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