University of Arizona Athletics

WILLIAMS was a Wildcat trail blazer as the first black head coach in major college sports history when he was hired as Arizona's track & field head coach in 1969. His coaching experience included Vance Johnson and Meg Ritchie winning NCAA national championships just months after his death. Throughout his tenure as head coach, Williams guided student-athletes to All-American honors on two dozen different occasions. He spent his decade and a half as head coach elevating the Arizona Track & Field program from humble roots to a program of championships and elite Wildcat student-athletes. He is the namesake of the program's long-running home meet, the Willie Williams Classic, that began in shortly after his passing in the mid 1980's.