Billy Atkins
Lamar County native Billy Atkins (1934-1991) was a multipurpose football player for the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (present-day Auburn University) Tigers and four professional football teams: the San Francisco 49ers, the Buffalo Bills, the New York Titans and Jets, and the Denver Broncos. He also enjoyed success as the head coach of the Troy State University Red Wave (present-day Troy University Trojans) football team. At the time of his retirement from coaching, Atkins held the record for most victories by a Troy University football coach. He was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame (2005) and the Troy University Hall of Fame (2012).
William “Billy” Ellis Atkins was born on November 19, 1934, in Millport, Lamar County, to Samuel and Linnia Fields Atkins. Atkins graduated from Millport High School in 1954. In his high school years, Atkins played football, baseball, and basketball. As a senior, he was chosen as a first-team All-State member for his excellence in football.
After graduating from high school, Atkins enrolled at Auburn University, where Ralph “Shug” Jordan was the university’s head football coach. After playing sparingly in his first two years, Atkins abruptly blossomed into a star fullback in 1957, his senior year. In the first game of the season, Atkins scored Auburn's lone touchdown in the team’s 7-0 victory over the University of Tennessee. That year, Atkins was the leading scorer of the team and in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) as a whole, scoring 11 of Auburn’s 14 rushing touchdowns; he scored a total of 83 points, including his touchdowns and the points he scored as a placekicker. He had 90 carries for a total of 359 yards. Atkins also punted and played defensive back. In the 1957 Iron Bowl game, Auburn defeated Alabama 40-0, with Atkins scoring two touchdowns on a one-yard run and a six-yard run. He was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Auburn team that was voted the national champion in the 1957 Associated Press (AP) poll. Despite winning the national championship, the team did not play in a bowl game that year because it was on probation. Nonetheless, Atkins played in the Senior Bowl and was named Second-Team All-SEC.
The San Francisco 49ers selected Atkins in the fifth round, 59th selection, of the 1958 NFL draft; he played for San Francisco for two years. The Buffalo Bills, a team in the brand-new American Football League (AFL), signed Atkins in 1960. He played defensive back while also handling punting and placekicking duties. In both 1960 and 1961, he led the AFL in total punting yardage (3,468 and 3,783, respectively), and, in 1961, he led the AFL in average yards per punt, 44.5. He intercepted ten passes in 1961, the most in the AFL that year. Atkins was selected to play in the AFL’s All-Star Game in 1961. In 1962, Atkins joined the New York Titans (who changed their name to the Jets in 1963). In 1963, Atkins played football for both the Jets and Bills before ending his career in 1964 with the Denver Broncos.
After retiring as a player, Atkins briefly served as head football coach and athletic director for Jordan High School in Columbus, Georgia, before returning to Alabama. Coming off a dismal 1-8 record in 1965, Troy hired Atkins, then 31 years old, in 1966 to turn around their football program. With Atkins as head coach, Troy finished first in the Alabama Collegiate Conference (ACC) from 1967 to 1969 and tied for first in 1971, Atkins’s last year. In 1968, Atkins led the Red Wave to an impressive 10-1 regular season record and to its first national championship. The Trojans defeated Texas A&I (present-day Texas A&M University–Kingsville) 43-35 at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Montgomery County, in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) National Championship. Because of Troy’s national championship title and the team’s outstanding 10-1 record, Atkins was voted the NAIA National Coach of the Year.
Atkins left his coaching position at Troy after the 1971 season, with an impressive 44-16-2 record. At 44 wins, he held the record for most wins by a Troy football coach until Birmingham-native Larry Blakeney surpassed him. After leaving Troy, Atkins became a defensive back coach for the Buffalo Bills (1972-75), San Francisco 49ers (1976), Detroit Lions (1978-79), and the St. Louis Cardinals (1980-81). In early November 1991, Atkins was scouting football players in El Paso, Texas, when he suffered a heart attack. He died on November 5, 1991, in El Paso, Texas, at the age of 56.
Atkins and his wife Doris were married in Birmingham in 1960 and had two children, a daughter and a son. Their son, William “Ace” Atkins Jr., is a crime fiction novelist who, like his father, played football for the Auburn Tigers and was a member of Auburn’s undefeated team (11-0) in 1993.
Atkins was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2012, he was inducted into the Troy University Sports Hall of Fame.
