{"id":21606,"date":"2013-05-27T14:51:29","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T18:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21606"},"modified":"2013-05-27T14:51:29","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T18:51:29","slug":"fan-circulates-petition-for-doug-williams-wall-of-fame-honor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=21606","title":{"rendered":"Fan Circulates Petition For Doug Williams Wall Of Fame Honor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY LEON B. CREWS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sentinel Staff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When the Tampa Bay area was awarded an NFL franchise in 1976, no one was happier than <strong>Albert Perry<\/strong>. He automatically became a Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan, and rarely missed a game.<\/p>\n<p>In 1978, when the Bucs reached out to Grambling State University and brought in quarterback <strong>Doug Williams (pictured), Perry<\/strong> was full of pride and admiration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere weren\u2019t many Black quarterbacks around in the 1970s. We were lucky to get <strong>Doug<\/strong> to come to Tampa, and it didn\u2019t take long for him to reward us.<\/p>\n<p>In the five seasons <strong>Williams <\/strong>played for the Buccaneers, he led the team to three playoff seasons, and two division titles. He also set records, and was voted as the team\u2019s MVP two straight years.<\/p>\n<p>In 1982, <strong>Williams<\/strong> played his last season with the Bucs, but for the fans, he left an everlasting image as a winner.<\/p>\n<p>The Bucs have started putting former players in the stadium\u2019s Ring of Honor for the contributions they\u2019ve made to the franchise.<\/p>\n<p>In the ring are the late <strong>Lee Roy Selmon, Paul Gruber, Jimmie Giles<\/strong>, and <strong>Warren Sapp<\/strong>. But no <strong>Doug Williams<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Perry<\/strong> wants to change that. He\u2019s started circulating a petition demanding <strong>Williams<\/strong> be put in the Ring of Honor, and he plans on submitting it to the NFL, the <strong>Glazers<\/strong>, Tampa Sports Authority, and anyone else who has a say in who gets enshrined.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think ignoring the things <strong>Doug<\/strong> did for this team is disrespectful. There\u2019s no excuse for it. He\u2019s done as much for this franchise as the people they have put in the Ring of Honor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<strong>Williams<\/strong> was supposed to finish his career in Tampa, but the ownership at the time had different ideas, so he went to the USFL, then later to the Washington Redskins, where he not only won a Super Bowl, but was the game\u2019s MVP.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Perry <\/strong>said he\u2019d like to enlist the help of others in petitioning for <strong>Doug Williams<\/strong> to be in the Ring of Honor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer When the Tampa Bay area was awarded an NFL franchise in 1976, no one was happier than Albert Perry. He automatically became a Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan, and rarely missed a game. In 1978, when the Bucs reached out to Grambling State University and brought in quarterback Doug [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}