Willard Harrell
American football player
Willard Harrell (born September 16, 1952) is an American former professional football player who was a running back and return specialist in the National Football League (NFL) for three seasons with the Green Bay Packers and seven years with the St. Louis Cardinals. He played college football for the Pacific Tigers and was selected by the Packers in the third round (58th overall) of the 1975 NFL draft.
Early life
He went to Edison High School, Stockton, California, in the late 1960s and early 1970s and played under its legendary coach, Charlie Washington.
College career
Harrell attended the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Known for his speed, San Diego State University head football coach Claude Gilbert said of Harrell, "When he's even, he's leavin'". He was named the co- MVP of the 1974 East-West Shrine Game, the first in the annual series to be held at Stanford Stadium. Pacific retired his number, 39, in May, 1986. This was the year after he announced his retirement from the NFL. As of 2021, he is one of only four Pacific football players to have his number retired. The others are Eddie LeBaron, Dick Bass and Eddie Macon.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Willard Harrell” as american football player. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american football player. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
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 Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8003418. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1975, 1974 and 1986.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Willard Harrell” 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.