That's so sad
Billy was an original Atlanta Falcon also. My thoughts and Prayers go out to his family and friends
He was on the Vikings team that played the Chiefs in Super Bowl lV
I think we old timers referred to him as the jolly green giant
WOW, that's a nickname I had totally forgotten, but you are right. Thanks for the reminder.
Every player on the team was a "key player" in that 1962 Bama game. That was probably the greatest team effort I have ever seen, and the fans in the stands (especially us students) were a part of that effort as well. I don't know if it was the best football game I have ever seen, but it was definitely the most intense and most exciting.
It was a team effort for sure. This was the year after Darwin Holt elbowed our Chick Graning in the face after Chick was coming off the field after the play was over. Chick was my platoon leader in ROTC and spent days in the hospital. This game was humongus for us, and me personally. We kicked butts first half and led 7-0. They ran us all over the field in the 2nd half and scored TD late. They went for 2 and we stopped them at the gold line. Now my memory may be wrong, but I seem to remember that they ran off tackle and our end was a big factor in stopping the 2 point try. It was single platoon football and Billy could possibly have been in on that historical stop. The other end was Ted Davis. I will never forget that game!
The film of that hit is kind of fuzzy and grainy but it sure looks like Holt threw that elbow right at Graning's face. I read a piece just a couple of years ago that Graning, reacting now to the event and rejecting claims from Alabama that it had not happened that way, was quoted as saying "There's only two people in the world who know exactly what happened that way. I was there." Some folks familiar with Graning said he was "too nice a kid to be a truly great football player."
Well, I do know at the time there was NEVER any question about what Holt did. Or at least I never heard it and I knew several players.
Isn't that play the reason for the fall out between Dodd and Bryant?
At least partly, if not mainly. There was also a falling out because of Bear's liberal ideas of recruiting, which flew in the face of everything Dodd stood for.