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Former OU football player Steve 'Dr. Death' Williams dies

Posted: Jan 1st 2010 By: mikeiles

Two-sport OU star, professional wrestler loses bout with cancer.

Steve Williams, better known as "Dr. Death" during his time as a two-sport University of Oklahoma star and later as a professional wrestler, died early Wednesday after a long bout with throat cancer. He was 49.

"It happened around 1 (Wednesday morning)," said wrestling legend Bill Watts, a longtime friend who referred to Williams as his protege. "He was home in Littleton, Colo. The emergency medical team resuscitated him three times, but the third time his heart gave out.

"He fought that fight against cancer like 'Doc' fought everything that challenged him — with the heart of a champion."

Williams came to prominence in football and wrestling at OU from 1979-82. He was a guard on Barry Switzer's Big Eight and Orange Bowl championship teams in '79 and '80, becoming an all-conference lineman as a senior in '82.

On the mat, Williams was a four-time All-American under coach Stan Abel. He placed sixth, fifth and third in the heavyweight division at the NCAA championships his first three seasons. In '82, Williams knocked off defending champion Lou Banach of Iowa in the semifinals before losing to Indiana State's Bruce Baumgartner, a future two-time Olympic gold medalist, in the finals.

With a catchy nickname earned in high school when he wore a hockey mask while wrestling (he had broken his nose), and a mountain-man's build and beard, Williams set his sights on pro wrestling. He embarked on a successful 20-year career both in the U.S. and abroad, before cancer set in.

"He thought he had overcome it," Watts said. "When he went back to MD Anderson (the noted cancer center in Houston) at the five-year anniversary for what he felt would be his last check-up, he was instead told it was back. And he set out to beat it again."

Tags: Steve Williams, Bill Watts