Cy Williams (American football)

Cy Williams

Williams at Florida, 1923
Position:	Tackle
Personal information
Date of birth:	(1903-10-12)October 12, 1903
Place of birth:	Canoe, Alabama
Date of death:	September 28, 1965(1965-09-28) (aged 61)
Place of death:	Alameda, California
Height:	6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Weight:	200 lb (91 kg)
Career information
College:	Florida
Career history
Newark Bears (1926) Staten Island Stapletons (1929–1930) Brooklyn Dodgers (1932)
Career AFL / NFL statistics
Games played: 28 Games started: 26 Player stats at NFL.com
Player stats at PFR

Burton Caswell "Cy" Williams (October 12, 1903 – September 28, 1965) was an American college and professional football player who was a tackle for three different professional teams in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) during the 1920s and early 1930s.

Burton was born on October 12, 1903 in Canoe, Alabama to Benjamin Collis Williams and Maria Prescott. His father Benjamin was a long-time turpentine operator at Sopchoppy, Florida. His father died of pellagra in 1913.

Williams attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach James Van Fleet and coach Harold Sebring's Florida Gators football teams from 1923 to 1925. In his first season on the freshman team, the team won the southern crown for freshmen squads. He was remembered as a versatile athlete and a key Gator lineman, blocking the way for such notable Gators backs as Ark Newton and Edgar Jones. During his three-year college career, the Gators had the best three-year streak in the history of the first 20 years of the Florida football program, during which the team compiled a win-loss-tie record of 25–5–4 and finished 8–2 in 1925.

One account before the start of his sophomore season at Florida reads: "Big Cy Williams, star Freshman tackle of last year and probably the Varsity tackle of this year, was the immediate cause of the 'dummy's' downfall for when he dove into the lifeless foe, it collapsed and Cy was deluged with sawdust. A new 'dummy' was brought out but it is predicted that it will not last long under the fierce tackling of the Gators gridders."