CANTON, Ohio — Billy Shaw, an all-time AFL nice guard who powered the Buffalo Payments’ famed speeding assault of the Sixties, died Friday. He was 85.
The Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame mentioned Shaw died at his dwelling in Toccoa, Georgia. Shaw’s spouse, Patsy, and their three daughters had been at his bedside. The household cited hyponatremia as the reason for his demise, the Corridor mentioned. Hyponatremia is a situation the place there may be an abnormally low stage of sodium in a single’s blood, relative to the quantity of water within the physique.
A second-round draft select of Georgia Tech, the place he was a two-way participant and All-American, Shaw made eight American Soccer League All-Star video games in his 9 seasons. He was an All-AFL choice 5 occasions and a two-time AFL champion.
He additionally was named to the All-Time AFL workforce and to professional soccer’s All-Decade workforce of the Sixties.
“Billy Shaw holds the excellence of being the one member of the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame to play his whole profession within the American Soccer League, however whereas that reality is worthy of noting and good to recite, it comes nowhere close to offering the explanation he was elected as a member of the Class of 1999,” Corridor of Fame president Jim Porter mentioned.
“Billy’s all-around athleticism introduced a brand new dimension to the guard place and made the Sixties Buffalo Payments a formidable opponent able to bruising opponents with a punishing speeding assault,” Porter mentioned. “And whereas Billy might be unforgiving to anybody in his approach on the soccer subject, he was the traditional instance of the ‘Southern gents’ off the sector to everybody he encountered.”
Shaw was drafted in 1961 by each the Payments and the Dallas Cowboys of the then-rival NFL. Shaw felt his dimension — 6-foot-2 and 258 kilos — and velocity made him higher suited to play left guard than linebacker, so he selected to play within the AFL, which might merge with the NFL in 1970, the yr after he retired.
Though the AFL was often known as a league the place quarterbacks aired it out, that was not the case in upstate New York, the place the Payments featured an influence operating assault and a stout protection.
Shaw was such a pressure as a pulling guard that he typically stayed in entrance of the ballcarriers to make blocks far downfield. He was significantly adept in short-yardage conditions, pulling from his left guard spot to create lanes for operating backs Cookie Gilchrist and Wray Carlton. Oftentimes, quarterback Jack Kemp or his backup, Daryle Lamonica, would observe the highly effective trio of blockers into the top zone untouched.
Former Buffalo offensive line coach Jerry Smith known as Shaw “the driving pressure of the offensive unit” that led the Payments to back-to-back titles in 1964-65.
