William John Vohaska (May 17, 1929 – December 24, 2004) was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

player. Vohaska was born in 1929 in

Riverside, Illinois Riverside is a suburban village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. A significant portion of the village is in the Riverside Historic District (Riverside, Illinois), Riverside Landscape Architecture District, designated a National Historic La ...

. He attended Morton High School in Cicero. He played

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

for the

Illinois Fighting Illini football The Illinois Fighting Illini football program represents the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) level. The Fighting Illini are a founding member of ...

team at the

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

position from 1948 to 1950. He was seleced as captain of the

1950 Illinois Fighting Illini football team The 1950 Illinois Fighting Illini football team was an American football team that represented the University of Illinois during the 1950 Big Nine Conference football season. In their ninth year under head coach Ray Eliot, the Illini compiled a ...

that was ranked No. 11 in the final UPI poll. He was selected by the

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as the first-team

on its

1950 College Football All-America Team The 1950 College Football All-America team is composed of college football players who were selected as All-Americans by various organizations and writers that chose College Football All-America Teams in 1950. The eight selectors recognized by the ...

. Illinois head coach

Ray Eliot Raymond Eliot "Butch" Nusspickel (June 13, 1905 – February 24, 1980) was an American football and baseball player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Illinois College from 1934 to 1936 and at th ...

called Vohaska a "hustler and a perfectionist" and "the finest player I have ever worked with". Vohaska also competed for the Illinois wrestling team, but he forfeited his senior year of wrestling eligibility to participate in an all-star bowl game in Hawaii. Vohaska later worked as a coach and teacher. He taught at Morton High School beginning in 1954 and later at Morton College. He also founded and operated the Riverside Day Camp in Riverside, Illinois. Vohaska died in 2000 at a hospice home in

Venice, Florida Venice is a city in Sarasota County, Florida, United States. The city includes what locals call "Venice Island", a portion of the mainland that is accessed via bridges over the artificially created Intracoastal Waterway. The city is located in Sou ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vohaska, Bill 1929 births American football centers 2004 deaths Illinois Fighting Illini football players People from Riverside, Illinois Players of American football from Cook County, Illinois