Bill Austin, Pro Bowl Guard, Dies at 84

Bill Austin, a Pro Bowl guard who played for the Giants’ 1956 N.F.L. champions, coached the Green Bay Packers’ offensive linemen for Vince Lombardi’s power sweep and was twice an N.F.L. head coach, died on May 22 in Las Vegas. He was 84.

His death was announced by the Giants.

The Giants waited until the 13th round to select Austin out of Oregon State in the 1949 N.F.L. draft, but he became a mainstay of their offensive line for seven seasons. He teamed with Roosevelt Brown and Dick Yelvington at tackle, Ray Wietecha at center and Jack Stroud at the other guard on the 1956 champions. With Lombardi running the offense under Coach Jim Lee Howell, the pulling guards led the way for halfback Frank Gifford’s runs in an early version of the power sweep.

Austin, 6 feet 1 inches and 225 pounds or so, threw a block that sprang fullback Mel Triplett for a 17-yard touchdown run in the first period of the Giants’ 47-7 rout of the Chicago Bears in the ’56 league championship game at Yankee Stadium.

He had been selected for the Pro Bowl in 1954 and was named by United Press International as a first-team All-Pro in 1955.

When Lombardi became the Packers’ head coach in 1959, he named Austin to coach an offensive line that included Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston as the pulling guards, with halfback Paul Hornung and fullback Jim Taylor running the power sweep.

“Bill was not very big, but he was real smart,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted Lombardi as saying in recalling when Austin played for him with the Giants. Kramer told the newspaper upon Austin’s death that Austin was adept at making adjustments at halftime and “understood the overall game and the small parts of the game.”

The Packers won two N.F.L. championships, defeating the Giants each time, in Austin’s six seasons as line coach.

Austin coached the Los Angeles Rams’ linemen in 1965, then was hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers as their head coach on Lombardi’s recommendation. But his teams went 11-28-3 in the next three seasons, and he was replaced by Chuck Noll.

When Lombardi became the Washington Redskins’ head coach in 1969, he again selected Austin to oversee his offensive line.

Austin became the head coach in the summer of 1970 while Lombardi was battling the cancer that took his life in September. Austin’s Redskins went 6-8 that season, and he was succeeded by George Allen.

William Lee Austin was born on Oct. 18, 1928, in San Pedro, Calif., and grew up in Oregon.

He became an all-Pacific Coast Conference tackle at Oregon State. After two seasons with the Giants, Austin spent two years in military service, then played for them from 1953 to ’57.

After coaching the Redskins, he had stints as an assistant with the Chicago Bears, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Redskins, the Giants, the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League and finally the Jets in 1985.

Austin is survived by his wife, Goodrun; his daughters Barbara, Deborah, Pamela and Marietta; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Austin could be gruff in the mold of Lombardi. When he succeeded Lombardi as the Redskins’ coach, Austin told The New York Times, “At least I can yell as loud as he can.”

The former Steeler running back Dick Hoak recalled that he flourished in the I-formation that Austin put in as Pittsburgh’s head coach. But Austin could exhaust players with drills and calisthenics, Hoak said. “Like all the guys who came from Lombardi’s staff, they weren’t themselves,” he told Bloomberg News. “They tried to be like Lombardi.”