In more than a century of football, Williams never had a perfect season. Then you came along and had five. Your teams, in fact, won nearly eighty-five percent of their games, a record that earned you induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Records, however, show just the surface of your coaching; we here also know its depth. Your seemingly gruff exterior could never hide your large, soft heart, as the striving to win was for you the way to develop life skills in your students. As one of them has said, “He showed all of us how to make the tough decisions, both on and off the field, and how to compete with honor.” You have been for Williams a triple threat, not only leading football, but coaching track and field, and directing the college’s expansive program of club and intramural sports. Not even Knute Rockne did that. You have been known also as a master coiner of terse descriptions and homespun wisdom. Your name will now be enshrined on the very field on which future generations of players will learn and grow and gain their own wisdom, and where the sons and daughters of Williams will gather for the sheer pleasure of doing what you so often did—beating Amherst.
I hereby declare you Assistant Professor of Physical Education, Emeritus, entitled to all the rights, honors, and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 8, 2014