CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Bill Groce

American football player and coach

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ63147992 ↗
Source-derived summary

Billy Thomas Groce (April 16, 1936 – March 15, 2012) was an American football player and coach. He was a three-time letter winner at the University of North Texas–then known as North Texas State College–from 1957 to 1959. He was drafted in the 25th round by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1958 NFL draft. Groce served as the head football coach at the University of Arkansas–Monticello from 1970 to 1974, compiling a record of 11–39.

He died in 2012 at the age of 75.

Editorial summary

“Bill Groce” enters the record as american football player and coach. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bill, Groce and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1936, 2012, 1957, 1959—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1936-04-16. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Bill, Groce and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Bill Groce” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Bill, Groce and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q63147992. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 2012, 1957 and 1959.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bill Groce”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bill Groce primary sources, Bill Groce archive and Bill research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bill Groce”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bill Groce” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.