By Jason Vondersmith
The Tribune
When he heard the bad news, Rodney Woods walked around stunned and dazed, in disbelief that his older brother Michael had been killed in an automobile accident. It was June 24, and Woods’ family tragedy had become the latest of several involving the loved ones of University of Oregon football players in an 18-month period.
David Williford saw Woods and wrapped his arm around the defensive back, trying to comfort him. Williford struggled, like many do, for the right words to say to somebody in mourning, before simply letting Woods know that he could understand the feeling.
A month earlier, Williford had felt the same shock.
“I asked him if he had heard about my wife,” says Williford, Oregon’s longtime sports information director. “And he said, ‘Yeah.’ ”
In the past year, Williford had never felt closer to his wife, Susan. His family life had become the most important thing to him again, after years of working hour upon dedicated hour as the primary spokesman and source of information for the Oregon athletic department. When he and Susan took a two-week cruise in May, Williford actually missed the UO spring football game — and not once did he feel like calling the office to check on things.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” he says. “No remorse. Two years ago, I would have never missed the spring game. Can’t remember the last time I took 14 days off uninterrupted. But it was totally my idea. The older you get, the more you realize there’s more to life than work.”
For 12 days, on the cruise taking them from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., through the Panama Canal and up the Mexican coast, the Willifords relaxed. They were having the time of their lives. “It was great,” says Williford, beaming.
On May 10, they went snorkeling in the Mexican waters outside Cabo San Lucas. Aboard the transport boat after the venture, Susan said she just didn’t feel right and rubbed her chest. Hadn’t felt right in two hours, she said.
Once back on the cruise ship, Susan took some antacids and rested. Still didn’t feel right. Indigestion, they thought. “She had no sharp pain that would indicate anything other than indigestion,” Williford says, and Susan had no history of heart trouble.
The couple readied themselves to go eat. Walking toward the dining hall, Susan complained that she felt like passing out. “And then she did,” Williford says, slowly reliving the moment, “and never regained consciousness.”
Airlifted to California
Medical personnel treated Susan on the boat, and the next day, an emergency helicopter took her to Scripps Memorial Hospital in suburban San Diego. There was no room on the helicopter, so Williford had to stay on the cruise ship, which disembarked May 12 in Los Angeles. He rented a car to drive to San Diego.
Susan, on life support, never recovered. She died May 23 from the heart attack. Son Bryan, daughter Diann and her husband of 26 years — her high school sweetheart from Olathe, Kan. — were at her bedside at the end. She was 49.
All surreal, it is. Williford, also 49, calls the closeness he and his wife felt in recent times and then her passing on their vacation “pre-destiny.” Loving each other, being together for 12 solid days, until the last moments.
A photo of the couple hangs on Williford’s office wall. The two dined together alone that night, away from other couples on the cruise. It’s the most cherished memory for Williford. The stop outside Cabo came the next day.
“Probably the best one ever of both of us,” he says of the photo, gazing at it through teary eyes. “She never got to see it.”
Only nine other people have more tenure in the Oregon athletic department than Williford, who joined the staff in 1985 and became sports information director in 1997. It’s a classic behind-the-scenes job, with Williford overseeing sports publications and information and serving as communications counsel for athletes, coaches and administrators. If football coach Mike Bellotti or Athletic Director Bill Moos has a trusty right-hand man, it is Williford.
It’s a thankless job, especially from early August until after the bowl game in late December or early January, when Williford puts in 80-hour weeks — just like the coaches, except for much less pay. But it’s his job, and he would much rather see coaches and players get the glory than himself.
“I like to make other people look good,” says Williford, who often works until 10 p.m. or into the morning.
Work becomes therapy
On June 3, an outpouring of affection greeted Williford and family for Susan’s memorial, in the Casanova Center’s Pittman Room. Remembrances were of a loving mother and supportive wife who worked as a dental hygienist while Williford worked all those hours and who enjoyed singing in a church choir. She worked at UO football games just to be with her husband.
Williford’s son lives with him in Eugene. His daughter moved to Phoenix to attend Arizona State University, but she and her father talk often. It isn’t easy to simply let go for any of them.
He tries to spend time with friends, and needs time alone. But “the toughest time is when you’re by yourself,” Williford says. “Work, and being back among familiar surroundings and faces, has been good therapy. I needed my job more than it needed me.”
Then, on the first day Williford could say things felt back to normal — June 23 — he, Bellotti and Moos had to announce that the NCAA had put the athletic department on two years’ probation for a recruiting violation. The next day, Williford met Woods in the hallway, and memories of Susan flashed back.
The hardest times have been spending Father’s Day and Fourth of July without her.
“We were fortunate: You have to like who you are married to, and not just love them. No doubt we were best friends,” Williford says. “The fact that we liked each other and respected each other … the tough times make the great times even better.”