Bill Conkright

Bill Conkright

William Franklin "Bill" Conkright (April 17, 1914 – October 1, 1980), known more commonly by the nickname Red, was an American football center and end who played eight seasons in the National Football League (NFL) and was later the head coach of the Oakland Raiders for part of the 1962 season.

Conkright was born in Oklahoma and attended the University of Oklahoma, where he was a star center on the school's football team. He was the captain of the Sooners team in 1936 and was named to a first-team all-Big Six Conference squad. Conkright was drafted in 1937 by the NFL's Chicago Bears. He played two seasons for the Bears, serving mainly as a backup center and occasionally playing as an end. The Cleveland Rams bought the rights to Conkright in 1939, and he stayed with the team through the 1942 season. He played for the Washington Redskins and Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943 before returning to the Rams briefly in 1944.

Following his retirement as a player, Conkright began a career as a coach. He scouted and coached for the Rams in 1944 and 1945, and moved to the Cleveland Browns of the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC) in 1946. He worked as an assistant coach for two more AAFC teams in the late 1940s. Conkright was hired as an assistant at Mississippi State College in 1950, spending two seasons in the position. After a five-year hiatus from coaching, he returned as an assistant for the University of Houston's football team. He got his first head coaching job in 1959 at Stephen F. Austin State University. In 1962, Conkright was hired as an assistant coach and director of player personnel by the Oakland Raiders in the American Football League. The team's head coach, Marty Feldman, was fired in the middle of the season and Conkright replaced him. Conkright's Raiders, however, managed to win just one game that year, and he was replaced in 1963 by Al Davis. Conkright went on to work for two years as an assistant with the Houston Oilers.