To write about such a legend is not such an easy thing so that is why I’ve decided to continue of this amazing athlete from our area. I promise you that as you read of his exploits you may think this is stuff made up by someone with a vivid imagination.
Everything you read here is the unadulterated truth.
The other day while sitting in Billy’s great friend’s towing company Sheehan’s Towing on Lawrence Street I was talking to LHS Hall of Famer and now a softball and football official Steve Misserville and after reading my last story he brought up that when I was inducted into the Methuen Hall of Fame he sat at a table with Big Bill and how #83 had everyone in stitches with stories of his college and pro career.
Sometimes when he was in the mood he could talk of athletes that we’ve only read about.
For instance did anyone of us know that the great tough running back Jim Taylor was one of the cheapest guys he’d ever met, and Taylor would bet any of the new rookies 50 bucks he could walk further on his hands than any of them. He always won and gladly took their dough. The rookies didn’t know Taylor could walk the whole 100 yards on his hands and would snooker the newcomers.
Can you imagine calling Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Bobby Layne, Sam Huff your pals? Bill would say, “We players weren’t into drugs but a lot of us were big time drunks.” Some of the names would shock you!
In the football draft, the Browns drafted the great Jim Brown #1 and Michigan States, Quinlan #2.
I have to tell you this story about Bill being the catcher in a big rivalry baseball game against the CCHS nine. It was played at the old O’Sullivan Park on Water St. where the Boys’ Club stands today.
LHS is winning late in the game 1-0 when Billy Sawyer a Water St “rat” on a slide into 2nd base. The next hitter out and the next batter hits a line drive to short left field and Sawyer at about 120 pounds of toughness starts from 2nd base and rounds third with his head down and his only thought was to score and tie the game. Throw from left field was at least 15 feet of the waiting catcher Quinlan, here comes Sawyer head down arms and legs churning and he doesn’t see the big catcher coming up the line not even trying to chase the wayward throw down and he hits Sawyer with a big 10 football block, as Sawyer now semi-conscious and arms still flailing towards home plate Big Bill walks over to the ball and then to the still groggy runner and tags him. The umpire yells to Sawyer, “You’re safe” and to Quinlan, “You’re out, out of the game.”
I was at that game and a few nights ago the former boxer and Water St. rat Paul Despres and I had a long talk about that game.
Stories about Quinlan continue to grow many are mixed with fabrications and are myths.
He had many challenges from people who wanted to test him, even pipsqueaks who weighed 140/150 pounds. Bill would accommodate one and all comers.
He’d be at Sheehan’s and jump up to open the door for an elderly person and would also walk them to and into their cars.
As he got sick and stopped driving, his high school sweetheart and now wife was his driver.
She told me laughingly how she had to take him to Salisbury to check their cottage every day. She’d take him to Tommy Markey’s and sometimes to Heav’nly Doughnuts in Methuen.
Betty was a nurse and at the end she used all her medical years of training to keep her man going. It was like the old movie Love Story these two together again. The one thing that was different was that his wake and funeral showed that she had to share his love with many of us.
Bill Quinlan #83 on your scorecard was a living legend who roamed around us mere mortals.
