Dave Williams obit

Dave Williams, multisport star at UW and Tacoma’s Lincoln High, dies at 78

 

He was not on the list.

Dave Williams, the former Washington and Lincoln High School of Tacoma wide receiver who went on to become the first player ever signed by the Seahawks, died on Wednesday in Amelia Island, Fla., after a prolonged illness, his son Steve Williams said. He was 78 years old.

“He was a man of integrity, he had morals,” Steve Williams said. “Morals and integrity were huge to dad — how you carry yourself on and off the athletic field, how you present the person that you are, how you represent your family, how you represent the University of Washington.”

Williams arrived on Montlake after a stellar high-school athletic career in Tacoma, where he played football, basketball, ran track and participated in decathlon. He won the 1963 state championship in hurdles. Williams is a member of the Tacoma-Pierce County Sports Hall of Fame.

He was a wide receiver for 10 years in the National Football League (NFL) and the World Football League (WFL). He was the first player signed by the Seattle Seahawks in 1975.

Williams was an All-American for the Washington Huskies in football and track, as a decathlete. He was inducted into the Husky Hall of Fame in 2014.

Following his pro football career, Williams has been an executive working in property management for more than four decades. He helped to establish a church on Kauai in 2001, which met in a tent until the North Shore Christian Church building was completed in 2014.

Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Williams was the fourth of seven children of Joseph Laverne Williams and Cleo Maye (née Hill) Williams. His family moved in the winter of 1951–1952 to Tacoma, Washington, where they lived near his paternal grandparents.

Williams traces his interest in football to 1955, when his family acquired a television and began to watch NFL football on Sundays. His older brothers Joe and Jerry played football, and they introduced him to playing the game in their front yard. Williams recounts how Jerry played catch with him and taught him ball drills: "We would be ten yards away from each other and begin by throwing the ball to each other from many angles and positions. He would find my weakest positions and work on those even more." At the end of the drill, they did ten pushups for every dropped ball.

In Tacoma, Williams attended the former Hawthorne Elementary School, Gault Junior High School, and Lincoln High School, where he graduated in 1963. He earned a total of twelve high school varsity letters: three in football, three in basketball, three in decathlon, and three in track and field. He also played on the 1962 Connie Mack Cheney Studs baseball team.

Williams earned six varsity letters at the University of Washington, three in football, where he played tight end, and three in track, in an era when freshmen were not eligible for varsity teams. Coaches of the PAC-8 named Williams to the 1965 All-Pacific Athletic Conference team.

As a freshman, in his first decathlon in 1965 he qualified for the National AAU Decathlon Championships, and placed 14th among 30 competitors in the Olympic tryouts.

Williams received his baccalaureate degree in 1973 at the University of Washington. He was named to the Washington's Husky Hall of Fame 2014 class.

 

Career history

St. Louis Cardinals (1967–1971)

San Diego Chargers (1972–1973)

Pittsburgh Steelers (1973)

Southern California Sun (1974–1975)

Seattle Seahawks (1976)*

 * Offseason and/or practice squad member only

 

Career highlights and awards

Second-team All-American (1965)

First-team All-PCC (1965)

Second-team All-Pac-8 (1966)