Browns Hall of Famers Marion Motley, Bill Willis to be honored for breaking color barrier
May 28—It's taken a while, but two all-time great Browns players are properly getting recognition by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August.
In this instance, it's not for what they did as players. Marion Motley and Bill Willis are already in the Hall. Motley was a 1968 inductee and Willis was enshrined in 1977. The pair are getting their due in a different respect.
Motley and Willis — alone with two others — were hugely important breaking pro football's color barrier in 1946, and now they are sharing the Hall's Ralph Hay Pioneer Award.
Joining Motley and Willis are Kenny Washington and Woody Strode, who signed with the NFL's Los Angeles Rams in 1946. That same season, Motley, a bruising fullback, and Willis, a lineman from Ohio State, signed with the Browns of the then-All-America Football Conference.
"Their pioneering role not only opened the door to opportunity for generations of NFL players to come, but it also changed the game forever," said Hall president Jim Porter said in announcing the award.
A year after the foursome broke through in pro football in 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier when the Brooklyn Dodgers signed him.
Motley, Willis, Washington and Strode will be honored during the Hall's enshrinement week in August.
The award is named for the former owner of the Canton Bulldogs. It was established in 1972 and is presented in recognition of "significant contributions to professional football."
Motley and Willis played their first game with the Browns in September 1946, and each said they faced plenty of racism during their playing days. That included — among others things — players stepping on them during games and calling them racist names during competition. Meanwhile, officials, according to Motley, would do nothing.
"They'd see those guys stepping on us and heard them saying things and just turn their backs," said Motley. "That kind of crap went on for two or three years until they found out what kind of players we were."
Motley passed away in 1999. He grew up in Canton and played in high school at Canton McKinley then at South Carolina State and Nevada before enlisting in the military during World War II. While training for the U.S. Navy in 1944, he played for a service team coached by future Browns coach Paul Brown. That eventually led to him getting a tryout with the Browns and earning a spot on the roster.
At 6-foot-1, 232 pounds, Motley was ahead of his time playing fullback at that size. He punished opposing players, and was the AAFC's leading rusher in 1948 with 964 yards in 14 games, and the NFL's leader in 1950 with 810 in 12 games. His 5.7-yard-per-attempt average ranks No. 1 in NFL history among running backs and fullbacks.
With Motley, quarterback Otto Graham, receivers Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie and offensive lineman/kicker Lou Groza, the Browns had a potent offense.
Willis — a Columbus native who died in 2007 — was a bit smaller than Motley at 6-1, 210 pounds but his speed and quickness made him a relentless defensive lineman. He was named All-Pro in all eight of his seasons in the AAFC and NFL.
When he retired in 1954, Willis' focus was on helping troubled youth. He served as Cleveland's assistant recreation commissioner and then as a chairman of the Ohio Youth Commission.