Life moved too fast for 'Road Runner'
By MARTIN HENDRICKS
Special to Packer Plus
Posted: Feb. 14, 2007
The Road Runner.
The moniker fit Travis Williams, both professionally and personally.
As a Green Bay Packer running back and return specialist from 1967-'70, Williams was known for his blazing 9.3 speed in the 100-yard dash. His four kickoff returns for touchdowns and remarkable 41.1-yard return average as a rookie, still National Football League records. His vast potential that was only partially realized.
Off the football field, Williams' life was mostly a blur.
After his professional football career, his family life in his hometown of Richmond, Calif., was riddled with tragedy. His battle with alcohol and drugs, which resulted in the disintegration of his family and hindered steady employment. His premature death as a homeless and penniless man at age 45.
"He was one of the great and tragic stories in Packer history," said Lee Remmel, team historian. "He had a spectacular rookie year, but later developed drug and alcohol problems that led to an early end to his career, and ultimately his life."
Williams' Packer career began with so much promise.
An unheralded fourth-round draft choice out of Arizona State, Williams and his rare combination of size - 6-foot-1, 215 pounds - and speed were brought into Green Bay's training camp to bolster the running back group that was in transition following the departure of former stars Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung.
Donny Anderson and Jim Grabowski - talented and handsomely paid rookies nicknamed the "Million Dollar Babies" - were signed by head coach Vince Lombardi as heirs apparent to the starting backfield positions.
"Travis was such a great talent," said Jerry Kramer, Packer guard from 1958-'68. "Taylor and Hornung were thunder and lightning, but we hadn't had that dimension of blazing speed until Travis came along. It dramatically changed things."
The change did not occur right away, as Williams had troubles hanging onto the ball, which put him at the end of the team bench.
"Travis had a little problem with fumble-itis, something Vince Lombardi did not have much patience for," Remmel said. "During training camp, after he fumbled in a pre-season game, Lombardi made him carry the ball everywhere, from the bathroom to the dining hall to bed. He learned how to hang onto the football."
Kramer recalled in his book, "Instant Replay," how backup quarterback Zeke Bratkowski taped a handle on the football to assist Williams.
"I think Vince is just about running out of patience with Travis," Kramer wrote in his August 24, 1967, entry. "His speed is so impressive that a lot of us are hoping he'll learn to hold the ball and make the club. . .
"Zeke gave Travis a football with a handle made of tape. The kid accepted the needling good-naturedly, but you can tell from looking at him how scared he is. He's got a wife and two kids, and a third on the way, and while we're in training camp he's earning only $70 a week. That's what everybody gets, and it doesn't go very far."
Williams paid his dues through the first six games of the season, not receiving any playing time as he earned back the confidence of his coach.
In the seventh regular-season game against the Cardinals in St. Louis, Travis Williams finally got his chance. The Packers trailed, 23-17, in the fourth quarter and Lombardi thought his team needed a spark.
Enter Williams, who gathered in the kickoff at the 7-yard line and returned it for a touchdown to erase the deficit and ignite Green Bay to a 31-23 victory.
"That's when I felt I'd finally made the club," Williams said in the 1968 Green Bay Packer Yearbook. "I'd contributed something. I'd gotten started."
It was a sign of things to come.
Two weeks after his fourth-quarter heroics against St. Louis, Williams returned kickoffs of 87 and 85 yards for scores in the first quarter of the Cleveland game in Milwaukee - the first time that feat had been accomplished in a single quarter in league history.
The Packers never looked back and pounded the Browns, 55-7.
Due to injuries to Anderson and Grabowski, Williams saw extensive action in the final two games of the season, leading the Packers in rushing in losses to Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. Against the Rams, he returned a kickoff for his fourth touchdown of the season.
In the Western Conference Championship Game against the favored Rams in Milwaukee, Williams had a breakout performance.
He gained 88 yards and had scoring runs of 46 and 2 yards facing Los Angeles' "Fearsome Foursome" defensive line, propelling the Packers to 28 unanswered points and a 28-7 upset victory.
It was a superb performance in one of the greatest games ever played at County Stadium, and Packer fans gave a wide-eyed and grinning Williams a post-game victory ride on their shoulders.
"Travis had such a great game that day, and then doesn't hardly play in the Ice Bowl," Kramer said. "It was always fascinating and interesting to me how Coach Lombardi shifted backs like that. He plays Chuck Mercein, who didn't play much against the Rams, but goes out and does so well against the Cowboys."
Williams saw limited action in Green Bay's 33-14 victory over Oakland in Super Bowl II, rushing eight times for 36 yards and returning one kickoff for 18 yards. The Green Bay Packers were NFL champions for a third consecutive year, and it occurred on Williams' 23rd birthday.
Williams set four NFL kickoff return records and accounted for 1,007 total yards in 1967, his rookie season.
He returned 18 kickoffs for 739 yards and four touchdowns, a 41.1-yard average. (The four TDs and his average per return are records for a single season for a rookie.) He also rushed 35 times for 188 yards (5.4 average) and one touchdown, and caught five passes for 80 yards and a score.
Williams' production declined in 1968 due to injury. He appeared in only seven games under new coach Phil Bengtson, who replaced the legendary Lombardi.
Lombardi retired from coaching, but remained as the Packers' general manager.
Williams had 599 yards on 28 kickoff returns for a 21.4-yard average with no touchdowns in 1968. He rushed for just 63 yards on 33 attempts for a meager 1.9-yard average and no touchdowns, and caught five passes for 48 yards and no scores.
Williams returned to his old form in 1969, earning a starting halfback job and leading the team in rushing with 536 yards and four touchdowns and returning 21 kickoffs for 517 yards and a score - a 96-yarder. He scored three more touchdowns while catching 27 passes for 275 yards as the Packers finished 8-6 for their only winning season under Bengtson.
With his personal demons mounting, he again experienced a significant drop in production in 1970, rushing for 276 yards and one touchdown and catching 12 passes for 127 yards and one score. He returned 10 kickoffs for 203 yards and no touchdowns.
Williams was traded to Los Angeles before the 1971 season and again led the NFL in kickoff returns with a 29.7-yard average and one touchdown. He retired from professional football after suffering a major knee injury in a 1972 exhibition game.
The abrupt end to his career didn't help his turbulent personal life. Having never planned financially for life after football, he bounced from job to job (junk collector, security guard, bouncer, and truck driver) to provide for his wife and eight children in Richmond, Calif.
After his family lost their house, Williams drank heavily and was arrested in 1979 for assaulting a man he found with his wife. He served a one-year sentence in the county jail. His wife hit and killed a man while driving drunk later that year and was also jailed, forcing the Williams' children to live with grandparents.
In 1985, his wife, Arie Lee, died from a drug overdose and his mother died from colon cancer. His sister, who had moved in to help raise his children, passed away a few months later. Amid all this tragedy, Williams ended up homeless for the last several years of his life, living out of his car or on the streets.
His Super Bowl ring was even stolen.
An alcoholic, depressed, and in poor health, he died at age 45 of heart failure on Feb. 18, 1991, in Martinez, Calif., near Richmond, with just a dollar bill hidden in his shoe.
"Life was never fair to Travis Williams," Packer Plus columnist Bud Lea wrote after attending Williams' induction into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in March 1997.
"He got caught in a downward spiral of financial setbacks and personal tragedies. . . almost six years after he died, Travis Williams had his real farewell in the city where he performed as a legitimate National Football League star."
Three of Williams' children attended the induction banquet, and learned first-hand of the kind of football player their father was from former teammates and coaches. It was a moving tribute to a man whose career and life were cut short.
As Lea aptly put it, "No one who saw Williams in 1967 will forget him. . .
"They (his children) had the time of their lives, posing in front of the Super Bowl trophy for pictures, watching film clips of their father running back kickoffs, and talking to fans who truly appreciated what their father meant to the Packers. On this night, the focus on Travis Williams was where it should be."
Travis Williams
College: Arizona State University.
Packer years: 1967-'70.
Other Teams: Los Angeles Rams, 1971.
Jersey No.: 23.
Born: January 14, 1946, in El Dorado, Ark.
Died: February 18, 1991, in Martinez, Calif.
Packer highlights: Set NFL records with four kickoff returns for touchdowns with a 41.1-yard average per return in rookie season. . . Led team in kickoff return yardage in 1967 (739 yards) and 1968 (599 yards). . . Packers' top rusher (536 yards) and scorer (54 points/9 TDS) in 1969. . . Played in 48 games in Green Bay career. . . Holds five career team records, including highest kickoff return average, season (41.1 yards); most seasons leading league in kickoff returns (1); most touchdowns, career (5); most touchdowns, season (4); most touchdowns, rookie season (4); and most touchdowns, game (2). . . Inducted into Packer Hall of Fame, 1997.
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