Doug Williams

Douglas Lee Williams (born August 9, 1955) is an American football executive and former quarterback and coach.

Williams is best known for his performance with the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XXII against the Denver Broncos, making him the first black quarterback to both start and win a Super Bowl.

He was named Super Bowl MVP after breaking two Super Bowl passing records: 340 yards total, and being the first to throw four touchdowns in a single quarter.

Following his playing career, Williams began coaching, most notably serving as the head coach of the Grambling State Tigers.

Following that, Williams has been a team executive for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Virginia Destroyers, and Washington Redskins.

Williams attended Grambling State University where he played under head coach Eddie Robinson.

In his first two seasons, he played on the same team as future NFL receiver Sammy White.

Williams guided the Tigers to a 36–7 (.837 winning percentage) record as a four-year starter, and led the Tigers to three Southwestern Athletic Conference Championships.

Williams was named Black College Player of the Year twice.

In 1977, Williams led the NCAA in several categories, including total yards from scrimmage (3,249), passing yards (3,286), touchdown passes (38), and yards per play (8.6).

Williams finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting, behind Earl Campbell, Terry Miller, and Ken MacAfee.

Williams graduated from Grambling with a bachelor's degree in education, and he began work on his master's degree before the 1978 NFL Draft.

Despite the success that he enjoyed on the field, Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Joe Gibbs was the only NFL coach who visited Williams to work him out and scout him.

Gibbs spent two days with the 6 ft, 220 lb quarterback, reviewing play books, film, and going through passing drills.

Impressed by his poise, work ethic, and studious nature, Gibbs rated Williams as the best quarterback in the draft, writing in his scouting report that Williams had “a big-time arm with perfect passing mechanics” and was “a natural leader...very academic and extremely prepared...football smart,” and recommended that the Buccaneers select Williams with their first-round draft choice.

Following the recommendation of Gibbs, Tampa Bay drafted Williams in the first round (17th overall) of the 1978 NFL Draft.

Williams became the first African-American quarterback taken in the first round of an NFL draft.

His first preseason pass, a 75-yard incompletion that sailed 10 yards past receiver Isaac Hagins, drew a standing ovation from the Tampa Stadium crowd.

He was the first quarterback in Buccaneer history capable of throwing long passes downfield.

In his book Rise of the Black QB, author Jason Reid cited an incident in the 1978 Tampa Bay training camp, in which quarterbacks coach Bill Nelsen began berating Williams in what was described as going beyond coaching and becoming a personal attack.

"I think Coach Gibbs knew that it wasn't a matter of being coached hard," recalled Williams.

"I mean, I played for Eddie Robinson at Grambling, so he knew I could handle that. But he (Gibbs) immediately sensed that something else was going on."

Just a position coach at the time, Gibbs, who was at the opposite end of the field, sprinted over to Nelsen and confronted him.

Gibbs threw his clipboard down, pointed his finger in Nelsen's face and said, "Don't you ever talk to him like that again! Is that clear?"

According to Williams, Nelsen never confronted Williams in that manner again.

During his tenure with the Buccaneers, Williams was paid $120,000 a year, the lowest salary for a starting quarterback in the league and less than the salary of 12 backups.

In a 1979 game against the Chicago Bears, Williams and Bears quarterback Vince Evans made history by making it the first NFL game ever to have a black starting quarterback on both teams.

Tampa Bay, which had won just two games in the first two years of the franchise, went to the playoffs three times in five seasons with Williams as starter and played in the 1979 NFC Championship game.

During his time in Tampa Bay, Williams improved his completion percentage each season.

Williams was the only starting African-American quarterback in the NFL at that time, and dealt with racism from the fans, and even his own coaching staff.

After the 1982 season, Williams asked for a $600,000 contract.

Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse refused to budge from his initial offer of $400,000 despite protests from coach John McKay.

Feeling that Culverhouse was not paying him what a starter should earn, Williams sat out the 1983 season.

Tampa Bay lost ten games in every season but one in that stretch, including 12 in a row from 1983 to 1984.

Culverhouse's willingness to let Williams walk away over such a relatively small amount of money was seen as insensitive, especially as it came only months after Williams’ wife Janice died of an aneurysm.

After a year away from football, Williams signed with the Oklahoma Outlaws of the upstart United States Football League.

The Outlaws briefly called Hall of Fame coach and quarterback guru Sid Gillman out of retirement as director of football operations, and Williams was Gillman's highest-profile signing.

Williams signed a $3 million contract with a $1 million signing bonus, making him easily one of the highest-paid players in all of football.

Years later, he recalled that he was won over when Outlaws owners William Tatham Sr. and Bill Tatham Jr. "treated me as a human," rather than "a piece of cattle in a stockyard."

That year, the Bucs went 2–14, and did not make the playoffs again until the 1997 season 14 years later.