Bill Michael
Class of 2005
Bill Michael’s athletic footprint stretched across two decades and nearly every field in Huntsville. A multi-sport natural, he ran the ball for Huntsville High’s 1946 state championship football team, then two years later helped topple previously unbeaten Athens, 13–6. In 1948 he was All-TVC, a co-captain, and “Most Athletic,” later chosen by coach Buck Hughes for the school’s all-time squad at right halfback.
Baseball, though, opened the widest door. After graduation he signed with the Washington Senators and, as a first-year pro in the Alabama–Florida League, was the only rookie selected for the all-star team. Army service at Fort Campbell followed, where Michael continued to play for the 101st Airborne baseball team.
When he returned home, he anchored center field for the Huntsville Parkers. The 1955 Parkers became state and regional champions, reached the National Baseball Congress World Series in Wichita, and finished fourth nationally after beating the tournament’s top two teams. Local “Mr. Baseball” Jim Talley later named Michael his all-time Huntsville center fielder.
Michael never stopped competing. He starred in the city’s industrial softball league—MVP in 1960—and, remarkably, at age thirty-four played cornerback for Huntsville’s first professional football team, the Rockets, intercepting fourteen passes in 1965.
He credited parents who encouraged everything and a brother, Jim, who never stopped tossing another round of practice. Coaching came naturally in retirement; Michael guided men’s and women’s softball teams to multiple city and regional titles, highlighted by his women’s slow-pitch state championship in 1974.
Born May 3, 1931, he remained a lifelong resident who seemed happiest with a glove nearby and dust on his shoes. With his wife, Val, he raised daughters Tammy Findley and Debbie Lawing, and a son, Tim, now deceased. Huntsville remembers Michael as the rarest kind of throwback—fast, fearless, and forever game.
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