Upon his graduation from the University of Colorado in 1922, Lee Willard signed a contract with the Chicago White Sox.
A newspaper report of Willard’s deal referred to him as “the greatest star ever developed in the Rocky Mountain conference.”
At the time, it was tough to argue that claim, and nearly a century later, he will take his rightful place among the all-time greats in CU history. Willard is one of nine members of the CU Athletic Hall of Fame 2021 class. The class will be inducted during a ceremony the first week of November. This summer, BuffZone.com is profiling each member of the class.
Willard, who died in 1974 at the age of 73, is one of the great all-around athletes in CU’s history and was selected to the hall of fame by the veterans’ committee. While good enough to get a tryout with the White Sox, he was also a star in football, basketball and track and field.
“There is a lot of history at CU with our family, and it all started with him,” Steve Willard, Lee’s nephew, said in a CU press release this spring. “Back in the day, (the late) Fred Casotti took me as a young kid into the Flatirons Club, where there was art work of Lee. What was cool is that we had seats in the Flatirons Club section, but you needed a special badge to get into the club where the food and beverage was. I had never been back to the club room before, it was always, ‘What’s behind that curtain?’ Fred eventually gave me the picture as he thought it should be with our family.
“That’s when I started researching everything I could about him. I came to realize the depth of what he accomplished here, and why our family had always been so involved with CU, even including some relatives that didn’t go to school here.”
Steve Willard is a CU graduate and was CU’s head athletic trainer at one point. But, as he said, the family tradition started with Lee — and he was a sensational athlete for the Silver & Gold (CU wasn’t known as the Buffaloes until the mid-1930s).
Willard earned 16 varsity letters, which is believed to be the most ever by a CU athlete.
A graduate of West High School in Denver, Willard came to CU in the fall of 1918. He was not able to join the Navy because of a suspected medical condition. At the time, freshmen typically were not allowed to play on varsity. However, because of World War I, a ruling was passed to allow freshmen to compete.
Willard did not only play four sports; he excelled in all of them. He earned All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference honors 10 times between his four sports. He also served as team captain in all four sports.
In baseball, he led CU in hitting three times. Mostly a centerfielder, Willard batted .546 with a conference-record seven home runs in 1921. As a senior in 1922, he batted .525.
While playing baseball in the spring, he also ran track, and there were many days when the newspapers would contain results from his baseball games and track and field meets on the same day. Willard ran a career-best time of 9.8 seconds in the 100-yard dash, while also running relays and competing in the broad jump and javelin. He was a conference champion multiple times.
On the basketball court, he was a forward that led CU in scoring three times and helped them to three consecutive RMAC titles for coach Joe Mills from 1919-21. Twice he led the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference in scoring.
Following his junior season, when he was named first-team all-conference, a newspaper account read that, “Willard is beyond a doubt the best scoring forward in the conference … notwithstanding the fact that almost every team has guarded Willard closely because of his reputation as a scorer.”
In football, Willard played defense and mostly halfback on offense. But he was the starting quarterback as a senior.
Willard was first-team all-conference each of his final three seasons on the gridiron, including as a senior in 1921, when a newspaper report said of him, “Lee Willard has shown the brightest of any star in the conference football firmament this season. … At quarter he showed his mastery of football tactics in the games in which he directed State’s attack, by utilizing the right play at the right time. His handling of the ball is almost irreproachable. He seldom fumbles. He is extremely agile and his ‘ten seconds flat’ record has made him the most spectacular open-field runner on the eleven.”
Off the field, he was an honors student in civil engineering and class president as a sophomore and senior. He went on to become a top executive for a major petroleum corporation.
