Bill Winneshiek
| No. 3, 8 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Center / Guard | ||
| Personal information | |||
| Date of birth: | December 24, 1894 | ||
| Place of birth: | Winnebago County, Iowa | ||
| Date of death: | September 15, 1949 (aged 56) | ||
| Place of death: | Wilmington, Delaware | ||
| Height: | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) | ||
| Weight: | 180 lb (82 kg) | ||
| Career information | |||
| College: | Carlisle Indian | ||
| Career history | |||
| Oorang Indians (1922) | |||
| Career NFL statistics | |||
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| Player stats at PFR | |||
William Phineus Winneshiek, also spelled Winneshick and referred to as NahiSonwahika (December 24, 1892 – September 15, 1949), was a professional football player who played in the National Football League during the 1922 season, at age 37. That season he joined the NFL's Oorang Indians. The Indians were a team based in LaRue, Ohio, composed only of Native Americans, and coached by Jim Thorpe. Bill was a member of the Ho-Chunk or Winnebago tribe.[1]
He attended Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania where he befriended Jim Thorpe. In addition to playing with the NFL, Bill was an Assistant Football Coach at Lebanon Valley College , a professional musician in Chief Winneshiek's All Indian Band, and traveled to the Antarctic with Admiral Byrd. He later married Marie Marguerite Zerbe, an elementary school teacher. The two had a son, named William Sherwood Winneshiek, who would later fly 49 B-17 missions over Germany during World War II and culminating his military as Director of Communications at NORAD in Colorado Springs, CO.[2] They also had a daughter, Doris Winona Winneshiek who became a nurse and writer.
References
External links
- Whitman, Robert L. (1984). Jim Thorpe and the Oorang Indians: The N.F.L.'s Most Colorful Franchise. [Mount Gilead, OH]: Marion County Historical Society. OCLC 717439558.
- Uniform Numbers of the NFL