Bill Willis

William Karnet Willis (October 5, 1921 – November 27, 2007) was an American football middle guard and guard who played for eight seasons with the Cleveland Browns of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and the National Football League (NFL).

William Karnet Willis was born in Georgia on October 5, 1921, the son of Clement and Williana "Anna" Willis.

The family moved to Columbus, Ohio, about 1922.

His father died of pneumonia on April 10, 1923, and he was raised by his grandfather and mother amid the financial hardships of the Great Depression.

He ran dashes and threw the shot put on the track team and played on the football team at Columbus East High School.

He worried about being compared to his older brother Claude, who had been an All-State fullback at the same school a few years earlier, Willis eschewed the backfield to play tackle and end.

He had a successful three years on the high school team, winning Honorable Mention All-State honors as a senior.

After graduating from high school, Willis took a year off and worked.

Willis's high school coach wrote to Paul Brown, the Ohio State University football coach, saying the school should recruit him because he matched the type of player Brown liked: large, but more importantly, quick.

Known for his quickness and strength despite his small stature, Willis was one of the dominant defensive football players of the 1940s and early 1950s.

He was named an All-Pro in every season of his career and reached the NFL's Pro Bowl in three of the four seasons he played in the league.

His techniques and style of play were emulated by other teams, and his versatility as a pass-rusher and coverage man influenced the development of the modern-day linebacker position.

When he retired, Cleveland coach Paul Brown called him "one of the outstanding linemen in the history of professional football".

He enrolled at Ohio State in 1941.

Willis was small for a lineman at 202 pounds, and despite signing up to play for Brown he was initially expected to focus on track and the 60-yard and 100-yard dashes.

He was part of a Buckeyes football team that won the school's first national championship in 1942.

Brown, however, brought him onto the football team as a sophomore in 1942.

Willis played middle guard, a defensive position opposite the center.

That year, the Buckeyes posted a 9–1 record and won the Big Ten Conference.

The team was voted national champion by the Associated Press, a first for the school.

Before the following season, scores of Ohio State players left the school to join the military as American involvement in World War II intensified.

Willis volunteered for the U.S. Army, but was classified as 4-F, or only available for service in case of a national emergency, due to varicose veins.

With many stars gone, however, Brown fielded a team composed mostly of 17-year-olds who were not yet eligible for military service.

The "Baby Bucks", as they were called, fell to 3–6, although Willis was named a first-team All Conference selection in the Big Ten.

After graduating in 1944, Willis heard about a new AAFC club in Cleveland led by his old Ohio State coach, Paul Brown.

He got a tryout and made the team.

By the 1944 season, Brown had joined the military and was coaching a team at Great Lakes Naval Training Station outside Chicago.

Under his substitute, coach Carroll Widdoes, the Buckeyes completed an undefeated season.

Willis was named to the United Press International and Look magazine All-America teams.

He played in the 1944 College All-Star Game at Chicago, and was named the game's outstanding player.

A professional football career was unlikely for Willis when he graduated from Ohio State in 1945.

Willis was one of the first two African Americans to play professional football in the modern era, signing with the Browns and playing a game in September 1946 along with Marion Motley, a contest which took place months before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Willis attended Ohio State University, where he joined the track and football teams.

With Willis as a defensive anchor, the Browns won all four AAFC championships between 1946 and 1949, when the league dissolved.

The Browns were then absorbed by the NFL, where Willis continued to succeed.

Cleveland won the NFL championship in 1950.

Willis retired in 1954 to focus on helping troubled youth, first as Cleveland's assistant recreation commissioner and later as the chairman of the Ohio Youth Commission.

Willis was inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame in the 1970s.

He married Odessa Porter and had three sons, William Jr., Clement and Dan.

He remained in that position until his death in 2007.