Willie Wood

Willie Wood, who was overlooked in the N.F.L. draft but forged a Hall of Fame career as one of pro football’s greatest defensive backs, playing on five Green Bay Packers championship teams of the 1960s, died on Monday at an assisted living facility in Washington. He was 83. His death was announced by the Packers. Wood was found to have dementia in 2006 and had received financial assistance from a joint N.F.L.-players’ union fund aiding former players with that condition. He had also undergone several orthopedic operations. In March 2012, when his native Washington named a block of N Street where he once lived as “Willie Wood Way,” he attended the ceremony in a wheelchair. Playing for the Packers from 1960 to 1971, Wood did not have much speed and he was only 5 feet 10 inches and 180 pounds at best. A key figure in the Packers’ dynasty built by Coach Vince Lombardi, Wood was a first-team All-Pro five times and was selected for eight Pro Bowl games. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1989 and selected to its all-decade team of the 1960s. William Verrell Wood was born on Dec. 23, 1936, in Washington and became a high school football star. He was recruited for US.C. by Al Davis, the future owner and coach of the Oakland Raiders, who was an assistant with the Trojans at the time. He played at U.S.C. for three seasons and was a co-captain as a senior. Wood was later an assistant coach for the San Diego Chargers, then was hired by the Philadelphia Bell of the World Football League in 1975 as the first black head coach in modern pro football. The W.F.L. soon folded, but Wood became a head coach again with the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts in 1980 and ’81. He later owned a Washington construction firm. His survivors include two sons and a daughter, the Packers said.