Williams to leave Grambling for NFL
From Wire and Internet Reports
The dust has settled and former Grambling State and NFL quarterback and current GSU Head Football Coach Doug Williams has resigned his position to take a front office position with the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the team that drafted him 26 years ago.
Williams, the most successful coach in black college football over the
last four years, denied rumors that surfaced saying that he had changed his
mind about the move and confirmed that he will indeed be joining the Bucs for
the NFL Combine in Indianapolis on Wednesday.
"I'm going to Tampa," Williams told the Shreveport Sun Times on Monday. "I spoke with (Bucs General Manager) Bruce Allen first thing this morning and I told him I would see him Wednesday.
"I'm ready to get started."
A press release from the NFL club before his introduction Thursday said, "After 21 years, Doug Williams is finally back with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers."
"This is certainly a great day," said Williams. "I look at it a little differently than some people might. They may say this is a great day for the Buccaneers, but I look it as a great day for Doug Williams to be able to come back to where he started.
"I started my career professionally in Tampa, a place that I've never forgotten. Even the bad times you remember, but there were so many good times. Coming back now just puts icing on the cake for me, as far as all the good times. I just want to take my hat off to the Glazer family, (Bucs Head Coach) Jon Gruden and Bruce Allen for having the insight to give me an opportunity to be a part of something that I think is great.
"To come back says it all, I think. I don't look at it as a 'healing wounds' situation; I look at it as an opportunity for me to be involved with something great."
Williams, a first round draft pick by Tampa Bay in the 1978 National Football League Draft (17th overall) after a stellar career at Grambling, has spent the last six seasons resurrecting the program at his alma mater compiling a 52-18 record as the successor to the legendary Eddie Robinson. As only Grambling's second coach ever, Williams restored the program to prominence winning three straight Southwestern Athletic Conference championships (2000-02) and two straight national titles (2001-02). He was named the SWAC Coach-of-the-Year three straight seasons along with being honored as Street and Smith's Magazine Black College Coach-of-the-Year in 2000. He was a two-time finalist for The Sports Network's Eddie Robinson (Division I-AA) National Coach-of-the-Year.
During his time as a starter at Tampa Bay from 1978 to 1982, Williams led the Buccaneers to their first three playoff appearances in team history (1979, 1981, 1982), including an appearance in the 1979 NFC Championship Game in just their fourth year of existence.
He helped to guide the team to three winning seasons (10-6 in 1979, 9-7 in 1981 and 5-4 in 1982) the only campaigns in franchise history with a winning record until the 1997 season. Williams also guided Tampa Bay to its first NFC Central title in 1981.
Bitter contract negotiations between Williams and then Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse led to Williams leaving the NFL to play for the Oklahoma Outlaws of the United States Football League for two seasons.
In 1986, Tampa Bay traded the NFL rights to Williams to the Washington Redskins for a 1987 fifth-round pick. Williams led the Redskins to a 42-10 victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII following the 1987 season and was named the game's Most Valuable Player after he set or tied several Super Bowl passing records. He was the first black quarterback to ever start in a Super Bowl. Williams ended his professional career following the 1989 season with the Redskins.
"Obviously, I was hurt when I left (Tampa Bay) because I thought I would always be a Buccaneer," he said. "But things happen, and if you look at the whole picture of the situation, I was able to leave here and do something that every athlete in professional football would like to do which Tampa did a year ago and that's win the Super Bowl."
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