Hall of Famer Bill Dudley of Lynchburg dies at 88

They called him Bullet Bill, because he was fast.

He had to be. Bill Dudley, who died Thursday at the age of 88, never weighed more than 175 pounds during a football career that earned him All-American, All-Military and All-Pro honors. His elusive running style was less about flash than it was about survival.

“He was such a competitor,” said Jim Candler of Candler Oil in Lynchburg, who was a guard on the University of Virginia football team when Dudley served his alma mater as an assistant coach. “Virginia used to have an exhibition game every year between the varsity and an alumni team, and in, I believe it was 1958, Dudley announced that he was finally through playing in it.

“So he stood on the sideline in street clothes during the first half. But when the second half started, he was back there receiving the kickoff. He ran about 40 yards, zigzagging back and forth across the field until his legs gave way under him. I was amazed that he could still make tacklers miss like that.”

At the time, Dudley was close to 40 — still fit, but playing on balky knees that had ended his professional career five years earlier.

He grew up in Bluefield, where he starred at Graham High School and accepted a scholarship to UVa at age 16. The Cavaliers thought they had recruited a placekicker and punter. What they got was the most versatile and dramatic running back in UVa football history, as well as a ferocious tackler on the defensive side of the ball.

Lynchburg was first introduced to Dudley in 1942, when the movie “The Vanishing Virginian” — a biopic about former city Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Yancey — staged its premier here. The publicity people for Ruth Hussey, the lead actress, decided to ask Dudley to be her escort at the event, hoping to gain a little extra buzz from the appearance of the nation’s top football player (Dudley had won the Maxwell Award, emblematic of that status).

“They were all staying at the Virginian hotel,” recalled Max Feinman, “and we snuck up to the floor where he was. I can’t remember specifically what he said, but he was very cordial. It was a thrill for us.

“I remember the first time I met him, I was 10 years old, lived on Memorial Avenue and there was a good-looking blonde-headed senior named Dot Davis who lived three houses down from me. Us kids were walking from Fort Hill school, which is now closed, and walking by Davis’ house there was a convertible with two or three college students, typical old Saturday Evening Post college guys, V-sweaters, a couple of girls, and of course we all knew who Bill Dudley was, it was roughly 1941. We flipped over it and got excited he spoke to us.”

Eventually, it was also a woman who brought Dudley back to the Hill City for good. In 1947, he married Elizabeth Leininger of Lynchburg, moved to her hometown, and never left, except for his fall jobs with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Detroit Lions and Washington Redskins.

Dudley settled in quickly and seamlessly. Although Lynchburg was always proud of him, he became a success in the insurance business — and, by extension, politics — while rarely if ever flaunting his former athletic prowess.

“He didn’t have to,” said retired Lynchburg physician John Risher, a longtime acquaintance. “Everybody knew what he’d done.”

Still, those who came to know Dudley from the 1970s on found it hard to connect this slender, bespectacled businessman with the only man ever to lead both college and pro football in four different categories. Had Dudley not left the game for three years of wartime military service (he was a pilot who flew supply missions for the Army Air Corps and a star player for the Army’s football team), he would have put up record numbers for later NFL ball-carriers to shoot at.

“In 1942, I was just getting out of Walter Reed Army Hospital,” said Risher, “and the Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Washington Redskins. I think I was the only person there rooting for the Steelers.

“Washington had Sammy Baugh, who was a great quarterback, and I told some Redskins’ fans that the Steelers had a pretty good ball player, too, Bill Dudley. They said ‘Never heard of him.’ Bill had hurt his ankle in the first half, but he took the second half kickoff back all the way for a touchdown.”

It galled his competitive nature that Dudley played for two of the worst teams in the NFL at the time.

“I consider the years I spent playing pro football as among the best years of my life,” he said in a 1978 interview, “but playing on a championship team would have topped it all off.”

After that, he turned his knack for victory into other arenas, being elected to the Equitable Insurance Hall of Fame and serving four terms in the House of Delegates — two as a Democrat, two as a Republican.

“Everything he did, he approached it like a contest,” said Feinman.

Bill Dudley died four days after suffering a major stroke. A visitation is set for the Duiguid Funeral Home in Lynchburg on Sunday (3 to 5 p.m.), with a memorial service Monday at Holy Cross Catholic Church (11 a.m.).

EARLIER

Bill Dudley of Lynchburg , who became a football giant despite his slight frame and modest origins, died Thursday after suffering a severe stroke on Saturday morning. He was 88.

Dudley, who is survived by his wife Libba, two daughters and a son, retired from football in 1952 and coached for several years on the college and professional levels before giving full attention to the Lynchburg insurance agency he established in 1951. He also spent eight years in the state’s House of Delegates from 1966-74 and was a member of U.Va.’s Board of Visitors as well as a fixture on Saturdays in Scott Stadium. An annual award to the state’s best college player is named in his honor.

Nicknamed "Bullet Bill," the 5-10 Dudley was neither exceedingly fast nor very large. But he was instinctive, elusive and fearless, and those qualities translated into a legendary career at the University of Virginia, nine highly-successful seasons as a running back in the NFL and election to both the college and professional halls of fame.

"The good Lord gave me a brain, and I think I was able to use it," Mr. Dudley said a few years ago. "And I could cut. I never tried to run all out. I tried to keep my faculties. I felt I might have to cut back, do something to set up my blockers. I wasn’t big enough to run over anybody."

Born on Christmas Eve in 1921 in Depression-era Bluefield, William McGarvey Dudley was only 16 when he graduated from Graham High and entered U.Va. He weighed 150 pounds at the time and never topped 175 during his NFL days. His competitive fire — honed on the sandlot fields of Bluefield — more than compensated for his lack of bulk or height.

"Every time I went on the football field," he said, "I felt I had something to prove."

At Virginia, Dudley became a starter as a sophomore and played well enough during a loss at Tennessee his junior year to earn praise from famed Vols coach Bob Neyland. It wasn’t until his senior year, however, that he became a national figure.

U.Va. had an 8-1 record in 1941, and Dudley was the unqualified star. He led the country in scoring and all-purpose yardage that season, was a consensus All-America, won the Maxwell Award and finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy vote. He put an exclamation point on his college career by running for three touchdowns and passing for another in a 28-7 win over North Carolina that ended an eight-year losing streak against the Tar Heels.

For the year, Dudley ran for 968 yards and passed for 856, was responsible for 29 touchdowns, had six receptions, averaged 17.2 yards on 28 punt returns, intercepted four passes, kicked 23 extra points and a field goal and averaged 35.8 yards per punt.

Dudley graduated from Virginia in 1942 and was the first player selected that year — by the Pittsburgh Steelers — in the NFL draft. He led the league in rushing as a rookie with 696 yards and also passed, punted and place-kicked for the team and played defense. He then missed nearly three seasons while serving during World War II with the Army Air Corps but returned to become the league’s MVP in 1946, when he again was the NFL’s leading rusher.

"Oh, Bill Dudley was a hell of a great player," said the late Sammy Baugh, once a rival and later a teammate on the Washington Redskins. "We always wondered how in the hell he gained as much yardage as he did. But he had that instinct. He would do things that always amazed me — how he could get out of trouble. I admired him when we played against him. I was happy as hell when we got him."

When he was 78 years old, Dudley said, "You know, I’ve often wondered how I took up football . I only know I’ve loved the game ever since I started playing. It’s a great game. I wish to hell I could still play it."

- Media General News Service

Bill Dudley spoke in December at the presentation of the annual football awards named in his honor. Photo by P. KEVIN MORLEY/TIMES-DISPATCH