Willie Wood, Star Defensive Back With the Green Bay Packers, Dies at 83

Wood played on Packer teams that won N.F.L. championships in 1961, ’62 and ’65, defeating the Giants twice and the Cleveland Browns, and then captured the first two Super Bowls, beating the Chiefs and then defeating the Oakland Raiders, 33-14.

He had 48 career interceptions, including a league-leading nine in 1962. He was the N.F.L.’s leading punt returner in 1961, with an average of 16.1 yards per return, and ran back two punts for touchdowns that season.

Wood was later an assistant coach for the San Diego Chargers, then was hired by the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League in 1975 as the first black head coach in modern pro football. The W.F.L. soon folded, but Wood became a head coach again with the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts in 1980 and ’81. He later owned a Washington construction firm.

His survivors include two sons and a daughter, the Packers said.

Wood was a model of durability, playing in 166 consecutive games for the Packers. But as the years passed, he underwent knee and hip replacements, surgery to fuse vertebrae in his neck and a lower-back operation.

In October 2002, after four major operations in the previous few years, he was walking with a cane. As he told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Like a lot of other players, I was dealt a bad hand.”

Aimee Ortiz contributed reporting.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/sports/willie-wood-death.html?emc=rss&partner=rss