Daniel Lee "Deacon" Towler (March 6, 1928 – August 1, 2001) 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. He played in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) as a

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

for the

Los Angeles Rams The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division. The Rams play ...

from 1950 through 1955. He was the NFL leading rusher in 1952 and ranked among the top four rushers each year from 1951 to 1954. He graduated from

Washington & Jefferson College Washington & Jefferson College (W&J College or W&J) is a private liberal arts college in Washington, Pennsylvania. The college traces its origin to three log cabin colleges in Washington County established by three Presbyterian missionaries to ...

. The football statistics website ''Football Nation'' calls Towler "the greatest running back you don't know," and "a bright, shining star who lit up the NFL for an oh-so-brief but spectacular three-year period unlike any before or since."Terrible Towler: the greatest RB you don't know
/ref> " r a three-year period in the early 1950s," says ''Football Nation'', "Towler was the closest thing the NFL has ever produced to an unstoppable ball carrier." The

Professional Football Researchers Association The Professional Football Researchers Association (PFRA) is an organization of researchers whose mission is to preserve and, in some cases, reconstruct professional football history. It was founded on June 22, 1979 in Canton, Ohio by writer/hist ...

named Towler to the PFRA Hall of Very Good Class of 2006 After retiring from football, Towler was named

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

of the Lincoln Avenue Methodist Church in

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

. He was also a

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a Minister (Christianity), minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a laity, lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secularity, secular institution (such as a hosp ...

California State University, Los Angeles California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) is a public university in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system. Cal State LA offers 142 bachelor's degrees, 122 master's degrees, ...

and president of the

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

Board of Education A board of education, school committee or school board is the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or an equivalent institution. The elected council determines the educational policy in a small regional are ...

References

External links

* Deacon Dan Towler Official website
/span> 1928 births 2001 deaths African-American Methodist clergy American Methodist clergy American football fullbacks California State University, Los Angeles people Los Angeles Rams players University and college chaplains in America Washington & Jefferson Presidents football players Western Conference Pro Bowl players People from Donora, Pennsylvania Players of American football from Pennsylvania African-American players of American football School board members in California 20th-century American clergy 20th-century African-American sportspeople {{runningback-1920s-stub