Doug Williams Goes On Record About Being Fired From Grambling

By Roscoe Nance
BCSP Correspondent

Nearly a month has passed since Grambling State terminated Doug Williams as football coach, and Williams says he is still uncertain why his alma mater let him go.

Williams, 58, was surprisingly dismissed on Sept. 11, two games into the third season of his second tenure coaching the Tigers. The MVP of the Washington Redskins’ Super Bowl XXII victory had another year remaining on his $250,000-year contract, which he will be paid.

“I wish I knew why I was let go,” says Williams, who hasn’t talked to media since he was fired. “I hadn’t talked about it because nobody has told me what led to it.”

Williams, an All-American quarterback at Grambling in the mid 1970s, says school president Frank Pogue called him into his office, handed him a letter and informed him that the University was going in a different direction.

Williams is taking the high road about his dismissal and says he wishes Grambling well. He continues to live in Ruston, La., six miles from the Grambling campus. Williams’ son D.J. is the Tigers’ starting quarterback, and he says his short-term plans are to watch all of his games. Williams says he hasn’t thought about his future, which could include getting back into coaching or returning to the NFL as a personnel executive.

In the meantime, the question still lingers. Why did the most widely known black college football program fire such a successful coach, who has the name recognition that Williams has and is also an alumnus?

Read the full story – http://thenewjournalandguide.com/en/sports/sports-news/item/3567-firing-leaves-williams-puzzled