Wilson Whitley

Wilson Whitley (May 28, 1955 – October 27, 1992) was a consensus All-American defensive tackle at the

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

from 1972–1976 under defensive coordinator Don Todd. He led the Cougars to the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma an ...

championship in football during Houston's first season as a conference member and won the 1976

Lombardi Award The Rotary Lombardi Award is an award for college football in the United States. Awarded by the Rotary Club of Houston, Texas annually to the college football player "who best embodies the values and spirit of NFL's legendary coach Vince Lomba ...

as the nation's top lineman. Former President

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...

presented him the award at a ceremony in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. Whitley was drafted in the first round by the

Cincinnati Bengals The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The c ...

and started alongside another

winner,

Ross Browner Ross Dean Browner (March 22, 1954 – January 4, 2022) was an American professional football player who was a defensive end for ten seasons in the National Football League (NFL), mainly for the Cincinnati Bengals. Browner was named to the Bengal ...

, for 6 seasons. He was later named to the Southwest Conference "All Decade Team" for the 1970s. Whitley died at the age of 37, due to a heart condition. He is a 1998 inductee into University of Houston's Hall of Honor and was a perennial candidate for the National

College Football Hall of Fame The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and interactive attraction devoted to college football. The National Football Foundation (NFF) founded the Hall in 1951 to immortalize the players and coaches of college football that were vote ...

until his selection in 2007. 1955 births 1992 deaths All-American college football players American football defensive tackles Cincinnati Bengals players Houston Cougars football players College Football Hall of Fame inductees {{Texas-bio-stub