By NATHAN WARTERS for the Daily Telegraph
LYNCHBURG, Va. — Bill Dudley’s achievements on the gridiron hardly defined him as a man.
He was a dedicated husband, father and grandfather, a loyal friend. That’s the life his loved ones celebrated Monday at Holy Cross Catholic Church.
Dudley died Thursday. He was 88.
His football reputation was far reaching, as evidenced by his obituaries in national newspapers like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.
He was the best in the college game as a senior running back at University of Virginia in 1941 and enjoyed a Hall of Fame career in the NFL in the 1940s and ’50s.
He was a Hall of Fame family man as well.
“On the familial level, I can attest that his achievements are unmatched and indeed unsurpassed. ... And Willie, as I liked to call him, wanted it that way,” Jim Dudley, Bill’s son, said in a moving eulogy delivered during Monday’s memorial service.
“God, family, country, community and service to each were important to him all his life. A lot of folks talk about that, but it is very seldom a reality in this world.”
Family friend Steve Rein-hardt, a Lynchburg native, said after the service that Dudley played his celebrity “very close to the vest.”
But Reinhardt saw firsthand just how famous Dudley was.
Reinhardt joined Jim Dudley in San Diego for the Super Bowl back in 1988. Bill Dudley was the president of the NFL Alumni Association at the time, a position that came with its perks.
“Because of his involvement, we got to go to all the parties,” Reinhardt said. “We were at (former NFL commissioner) Pete Rozelle’s party in the hangar at the Coronado Naval Air Station the night before the game.
“Jim and I always laughed that there were 4,000 somebodys there and two nobodys. It was Jim and I. … The (team) owners were coming up to speak to Bill. We were walking around later on, and we saw an older couple sitting with the Dudleys.
“There was a long line of people coming up to say hello to them. It was Jimmy Stewart and his wife. I met Jimmy Stewart. I didn’t know what to say.”
Back in Lynchburg, Dudley was just Bill. Approachable, friendly, loyal to those he knew and loved.
Family was very important to him.
Jim Dudley said his father always thought his greatest achievement was his marriage of 63 years to Elizabeth Leininger “Libba” Dudley.
“He saw her once, had to meet her and never stopped going after her until he won her. … He loved her the first day he met her, and he still did when he passed right there in her arms,” Jim said.
“I can remember asking him years ago a hypothetical question, ‘If you had to pick between us, all of your children, and momma …?’ He didn’t waver in his answer. He said, ‘I can make more of you all. I can’t make another of her.’”
All joking aside, Dudley’s children, son Jim and daughters Jarrett Millard and Rebecca Stinson, knew how much he loved them.
“As a boy and throughout my life, I was asked how it was to be the son of a famous man,” Jim said. “He was always Dad to us. There was nothing fancy about him. He went to work every day, came home and gave us love, gave us spankings. He was a dad.”
Dudley maintained several close friendships. He had a way of making everyone he knew feel like his best friend.
“A relationship with him in life is unbelievably close,” said attorney Robert G. Butcher of Richmond, a UVa grad and former president of the Virginia Athletics Foundation who struck up a friendship with Dudley in the early ‘60s.
“I knew him to be an unbelievable competitor and unbelievably loyal to the University of Virginia and a great friend.”
Many of Dudley’s friends from UVa attended the memorial service. Cavaliers football coach Mike London was in attendance with assistants Shawn Moore and Anthony Poindexter.
Moore, a former quarterback at UVa, was the first recipient in 1990 of the Dudley Award, which is named for Bill Dudley and presented annually to the top Division I football player in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Poindexter, who starred at Virginia, won the award in 1997.
Former Cavalier basketball star Barry Parkhill, who was named one of the 50 greatest players in ACC basketball history for his stellar career from 1969 to 1973, was also in attendance.
London, who was named UVa’s coach back in December, said the school plans to honor Dudley in some way in the coming season.
“He is the epitome of what a Virginia Cavalier is in all aspects,” London said. “When you talk about Virginia football, you talk about Bill Dudley.
“We look forward to doing something to honor him this season, because he’s meant so much to the program from a national standpoint and also locally and regionally with what he’s done.”
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Warters writes for the Lynchburg News & Advance.
