Redskins’ Great – Doug Williams

Washington Redskins:

Redskins Great - Doug Williams

by Robert Janis 05/02/06

For Doug Williams the operative word is "Opportunity!" He has said that being prepared is not enough. It's that phone call that provides you an opportunity to show what you can do that moves you on in life. Through the years he has gotten those phone calls and the opportunities that resulted from them include playing quarterback for a legendary coach, playing in two NFC title games, being named Most Valuable Player of a Super Bowl, coaching in the high school and college level, and now serving in the front office of a National Football League team.

Born on August 9, 1955 and raised in Zachary, Louisiana, about 20 minutes north of Baton Rouge, Doug Williams is the third youngest of six children (four boys and two girls). His dad was a construction worker and his mom was a cafeteria cook for an elementary school in Zachary for 20 years.

It is not surprising that Williams would get involved in sports. His dad played baseball on Sundays and his mom played softball. His oldest brother played baseball for Grambling University's 1961-'62 National Championship team. It was this brother who inspired him to play football. He was the head basketball coach and junior high football coach at the school Williams attended - Chaneyville. It was a K through 12th grade school.

"I didn't want to play football," said Williams. "Basketball and baseball were my love. I played third base and pitched for the school's baseball team. But my brother gave me an ultimatum. Either I whipped him or I had to play football. So I played football."

He started playing football when he was in eighth and ninth grade. He was always a quarterback. "I had a pretty good arm so QB made sense," he said. He also played middle linebacker. As a result of his sports career in school he was selected All-District in football and baseball and All-State in basketball. He also played Legionnaire baseball during the Summers.

He was given a football scholarship to attend Grambling University after graduating from Chaneyville in 1974. He was also offered a baseball scholarship to attend Louisiana State University but he had already signed with Grambling.

"Deciding to attend Grambling University was easy for me," explained Williams. "When I was growing up Grambling was all I knew. My oldest brother went there and a lot of people in the neighborhood were big Grambling supporters."
Williams played quarterback at Grambling for the winningest head coach in college football history - Eddie Robinson.

He played only football while at Grambling. "I couldn't play baseball because Coach Robinson said that the quarterback had to be at Spring practice," said Williams.

Williams noted that one had to have talent to make it at Grambling but it was also hard work. "We had our own system at Grambling - the Wing T. That offense was unlike any other team's offense in the conference. I had to learn the system and it wasn't easy to learn because there was a lot of footwork, play action, ball handling, and decision making. So for my first year and a half or so Coach Robinson called the plays. But I soon got to know how he thought and how the system worked. We did so many things off of one play. It was easy once you got into a groove to call the plays so I started calling plays my junior and senior years. A lot of times Coach Robinson would call a play and I would wave him off because I got to know how he thought."

In his first year as a starter Williams led Grambling to a 10-2 record, the
1974 SWAC Co-Championship and the National Black College Championship. In his sophomore year as a full time starter in 1975 Williams led the team to a 10-2 record and another National Black College Championship. In his senior year in
1977 he led the team to a 10-1 record and the SWAC and National Black College Championships. That season he was named SWAC Player of the Year. He was also the first player from an historically Black College to have been named to the Associated Press All-America team as a first team selection. He came in fourth in the voting for the Heisman Trophy, which was won by Earl Campbell, running back from the University of Texas. He graduated Grambling with a degree in Education. "The intent was that I would be a high school football coach," said Williams.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafted Williams in the first round of the 1978 NFL draft (the 17th player selected). In the past, NFL teams had drafted black quarterbacks out of college only to move them to another position. Williams was determined that he would play quarterback or he wouldn't play at all.

When he joined the Buccaneers a meeting took place that would prove to be very auspicious for the Washington Redskins some 10 years later. During Williams rookie season with the Buccaneers Joe Gibbs was the team's running backs coach. "We got to know each other very well," said Williams. He credits Gibbs and another Buccaneer assistant coach, Kenny Herock, with being instrumental in getting Williams to come to Tampa Bay. "Gibbs visited me at Grambling before the draft. The Buccaneers were looking for a franchise quarterback, Gibbs liked what I could do and gave the Bucs a good report on me. He made sure I was prepared and spent a lot of time with me." The head coach was John McKay.

Williams helped keep the Buccaneers competitive for five seasons. When he joined the Buccaneers, the franchise had won only two games in its entire history. Williams first year with the team it won five games. In his second year the Buccaneers made it to the NFC Title game losing to the Los Angeles Rams 9-0.
Then in 1983 Williams and the team were unable to negotiate a new contract and Williams was let go. The Buccaneers wouldn't trade him and at the time the cost for signing a free agent was a number one draft choice and most teams thought that was too expensive. So Williams didn't play football during the 1983 season. Instead, he worked as a substitute teacher at Mount Western Middle School back home in Zachary, Louisiana. One of his brothers was principal of the school at the time.

In 1984 Williams signed to play quarterback for the Oklahoma Outlaws of the United States Football League. Woody Widenhofer was head coach of the team at the time. He had been the defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
For the first half of the season the team achieved a 6-2 record. After passing for just 62 yards in the season opener, Williams threw for 1,613 yards over the next seven games and the Outlaws were in first place of the Central Division.
And over the course of just two weeks, Williams passed for nearly 700 yards combined in games against New Jersey and Tampa Bay. However, both games were losses and Williams suffered a knee injury the 15th week of the season. After its great 6-2 start the Outlaws lost the last 10 games and ended 6-12. For the entire season Williams threw for 3,084 yards and 15 touchdowns.

In 1985 the Oklahoma Outlaws were merged with the Arizona Wranglers to become the Arizona Outlaws. Frank Kush, formerly head coach at Arizona State University and later to be head coach of the Baltimore Colts, was the head coach of the Outlaws that season. He had a reputation of being a tough disciplinarian. However, Williams respected him a great deal. "What I liked about Coach Kush was if you did your job, you had no problem with him," said Williams. He also discovered that Kush would do what he asked his players to do. "The day after games Kush would lead the team on two mile runs," said Williams. Williams had a good season under Kush. He threw for 3,673 yards and 21 touchdowns. However, the Outlaws ended the season 8-10. The USFL didn't do much better. At the end of the season the league folded.

In 1986 Doug Williams joined the Washington Redskins. Since the Tampa Bay Buccaneers still had rights to him, the Skins had to trade a number five draft choice to Tampa Bay to get Williams. Joe Gibbs was head coach and Jay Schroeder was the team's starting quarterback. Williams was signed to back up Schroeder.
The two did not get along. "We didn't go to dinner together. We didn't drink coffee together. We didn't sit down and go to church together," quipped Williams.

Due to injuries to both players, Williams and Schroeder shared starting duties. Then in 1987 Williams replaced Schroeder in the second half of the season.
He led the team through the playoffs and into Super Bowl XXII against the Denver Broncos at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, California on January 31, 1988. That turned out to be a special day for Washington Redskins fans and Doug Williams. The Redskins fell behind quickly 10-0 after the Broncos scored on a long pass from John Elway on their first play from scrimmage and on a trick play when Elway became a receiver and caught a pass to set up a field goal. Later in the quarter Williams suffered a knee injury and he had to be replaced by Schroeder. Up until then and after, no team had ever come back from a 10 point or more deficit to win the Super Bowl.

Williams returned to the game at the start of the second quarter. And that's when the dam burst for the Broncos. Williams completed an 80 yard pass to Ricky Sanders for a touchdown and the Redskins went on to score a total of 35 points in that second quarter. By half time the game was over. The Redskins won with a final score of 42-10. Williams was the MVP. He had played the last three quarters of the game with a hyperextended knee which had to be repaired by surgery the following week. To add to his discomfort, Williams had to endure a root canal procedure the day before the game.

Williams and the rest of the team were not shaken by the Broncos fast start.
"We thought that was a small deficit to overcome," explained Williams. "Two weeks before in a playoff game against the Chicago Bears it was 13 below and we were down by 14 points and we came back to win. To come back from 10 points behind in 88 degree weather against a team that we thought we were much more physical than wasn't a big deal. We thought Chicago was a more physical team than Denver was.

"We had a veteran football team," continued Williams. "Collapse was not in our vocabulary. We didn't have to depend on young guys to carry the load. Most of those guys - Jake Jacoby, Russ Grimm, Mark May, Jeff Bostic, Art Monk - all those guys had been there before. It was more or less, 'Let's get this thing rolling.'

"Gibbs had a game plan. He had always been one of the most prepared and one of the best adjustment making coaches in the league. He knew what would work.
It was just a matter of execution. It was just a matter of calling the play.
The offensive line did what it had to do; Timmy Smith ran the football; the receivers were getting open and I got the ball off to them."

The following season Williams was designated as the starting quarterback; Jay Schroeder was shipped off to the Raiders; Mark Rypien became the back up QB; and Timmy Smith, who had rushed for more than 200 yards in the Super Bowl, was designated as the starting running back. However, just before the season started Williams had to endure surgery to repair a hernia. Rypien started the first four games of the regular season and Timmy Smith turned out to be a bust at running back. The Redskins didn't make the playoffs.

Williams retired after the 1989 season. He joined Black Entertainment Television (BET) as the analyst for black college football games in 1990. He was head football coach of Point Coupee High School at New Roads, Louisiana in 1991 and later worked for the Partnership for a Drug Free Louisiana. In 1993 he returned to Zachary, Louisiana to serve as head coach at Northeast High School. He coached the football team to a win over Payton Manning's high school team, a season record of 13-1 and a berth in the state's semifinals. In 1994 he joined the Navel Academy as the running backs coach and in 1995 went on to serve as the offensive coordinator for the Scottish Claymores of NFL Europe. He also spent two years as a college scout for the Jacksonville Jaguars, was head football coach for Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1997 and finally was named head coach of Grambling after the retirement of Eddie Robinson. He served as the Grambling head coach for six years.

When Williams became head coach of Grambling he changed the team's offensive scheme. He had been influenced by some of the greatest football coaches of all time - Eddie Robinson, John McKay, Woody Widenhofer, Frank Kush, and Joe Gibbs. He took a little of something from each one. "I was fortunate to play for a lot of good coaches," said Williams. "I took a little of something from each one put it all in a pot and cooked it up. I used some of what they used."

In his six years as head coach of Grambling Williams had a record of 52-18.
He won three straight conference championships and three straight National Black College championships.

In 2004 Williams joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers front office as Personnel Executive. He deals with free agents, does advance scouting of teams the Buccaneers play and also scouts college players.

He lives in Tampa with his wife, Raunda, who is an elementary school counselor, and his six children -- Ashley, Adrian, Doug III, Jasmine, Leta, and Laura.
His first wife, Janice, died in 1983. This is his fifth marriage.

He is open to offers of becoming a head coach or general manager for an NFL team.

"I got a lot of opportunities," concluded Williams. "There are an awful lot of people out there who are prepared but they didn't get the chance. I was fortunate enough to get the chance. I got the phone calls."

It would be to no one's surprise if there is another phone call in Doug Williams' future.

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