Willie Columbus Ponder (born February 14, 1980 in

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

) is a former professional

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 wi ...

player who played wide receiver for 3 seasons for the New York Giants and one season with Seattle Seahawks and

St. Louis Rams The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis from 1995 to the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994. The arr ...

. He has 2 older daughters Kaia and McKenzie Ponder and 4 younger children . Willow , Wille Ponder iii , Emma and Columbus ....

Professional career

Ponder played college football at Southeast Missouri State University and was drafted in the sixth round (199th pick overall) of the

2003 NFL Draft The 2003 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League (NFL) teams selected amateur college football players. The draft is known officially as the "NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting" and has been conducted annually since 1936. T ...

by the New York Giants. He has contributed as

kickoff returner A return specialist or kick returner is a player on the special teams unit of a gridiron football team who specializes in returning punts and kickoffs. There are few players who are exclusively return specialists; most also play another positio ...

in 2004, when he led the NFL with a kickoff return average of 26.9 yards, the first Giant to lead the NFL in average kickoff return yardage since

Clarence Childs Clarence Chester Childs (July 24, 1883 – September 16, 1960) was an American athlete who competed mainly in the hammer throw. He served as the head football coach at Indiana University from 1914 to 1915, compiling a record of 6–7–1. Biog ...

in 1964 ( David Meggett led the NFC in 1990). For New York, he returned two kickoffs for touchdowns, the first coming against the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2004 and second coming in the 2005 season opener against Arizona. Ponder was benched ten games into the 2005 season despite a kickoff return average of 25.9 yards, in favor of

Chad Morton Chad Akio Morton (born April 4, 1977) is a former American football running back and kick/ punt returner in the National Football League. He was drafted from USC late in the fifth round of the 2000 NFL Draft by the New Orleans Saints. After a s ...

. This led to a decline in the success of Giants special teams. He has lost two fumbles in his career to date, and scored two

touchdowns A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Amer ...

on kick returns as well. He was released on September 2, 2006. He was signed by the Seattle Seahawks on September 5, 2006 and released on October 24, 2006. He was on the St. Louis Rams for the 2006 season but was not signed for 2007. He is also the cousin of former NFL players Jewerl and Ken Thomas.

Semi-Pro career

Ponder plays for the Oklahoma Thunder in the

Gridiron Developmental Football League The Gridiron Developmental Football League (GDFL) is a low-level american football minor league based in Memphis, Tennessee, using the franchise model. , the league has 63 teams. The GDFL plays a playoff format similar to NCAA tournament, as 16 ...

References

1980 births American football return specialists American football wide receivers Coffeyville Red Ravens football players Living people New York Giants players Sportspeople from Tulsa, Oklahoma Seattle Seahawks players Southeast Missouri State Redhawks football players St. Louis Rams players {{widereceiver-1980s-stub