Bill Carr, former Florida Gators AD, player and assistant dies
Bill Carr, who not only had a great playing career for the Florida Gators but later became the school’s athletics director, has died.
He was 78.
The Gators on Sunday Tweeted the following about Carr on X, the app formerly known as Twitter: “Our hearts are saddened to hear the passing of Bill Carr. Forever remembering him in Orange & Blue. Forever a Gator.”
The post also included a quote from Gators legend Steve Spurrier. Carr played center when Spurrier was the team’s starting quarterback from 1964-66. Both players were All-Americans.
Carr is a member of the UF Athletic Hall of Fame.
“All of us Gators are saddened to hear about the passing of Bill Carr. He was my roommate and starting center when I was quarterback, and went on to become athletic director at Florida. He is an all-time great Gator and tremendous friend to me and so many others,” Spurrier said in the Tweet. “I was fortunate to see him just a couple of weeks ago and he was battling some health issues. He told me he was prepared to go to Heaven and when the Good Lord called his number he would be ready to go. His teammates called him Willie C and he loved his school and everyone around him. We loved him back and all of us have so many wonderful memories of Bill.
Per Edgar Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel, “Spurrier said he visited with Carr during past month after he returned home from rehabilitation for a fall that had previously hospitalized him for several weeks.”
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Bill Carr was born in Gainesville, Fla., on Nov. 29, 1945 and was raised in Pensacola, Fla. After his stellar college football career ended, he served in the Army.
Carr then returned to Gainesville and was a graduate assistant for then-coach Doug Dickey.
Per his Wikipedia page, Carr became an assistant to athletics director Ray Graves in 1974 and took over as AD in 1979. He held that position through some of the most tumultuous times in Florida athletics history as the football program was hammered for rules violations by the NCAA. Carr resigned in 1986 and was succeeded by Bill Arnsparger, who had been LSU’s football coach.
According to Wikipedia, “Carr served as the executive director of a youth advocacy group and a vice-president at Raycom Sports before returning to sports administration as the athletic director at the University of Houston from 1993 to 1997. After leaving Houston, Carr founded and led an intercollegiate athletics consulting group for several years before semi-retiring to serve as an executive coach in 2020.”
