of pneumonia on April 10, 1923, and he was raised by his grandfather and mother amid the financial hardships of the Great Depression. He ran dashes and threw the shot put on the track team and played on the football team at Columbus East High School. He worried about being compared to his older brother Claude, who had been an All-State fullback at the same school a few years earlier, Willis eschewed the backfield to play tackle and end. He had a successful three years on the high school team, winning Honorable Mention All-State honors as a senior. After graduating from high school, Willis took a year off and worked. Willis's high school coach wrote to Paul Brown, the Ohio State University football coach, saying the school should recruit him because he matched the type of player Brown liked: large, but more importantly, quick. He enrolled at Ohio State in 1941. College career Willis was small for a lineman at 202 pounds, and despite signing up to play for Brown he was initially expected to focus on track and the 60-yard and 100-yard dashes. Brown, however, brought him onto the football team as a sophomore in 1942. Willis played middle guard, a defensive position opposite the center. That year, the Buckeyes posted a 9–1 record and won the Big Ten Conference. The team was voted national champion by the Associated Press, a first for the school. Before the following season, scores of Ohio State players left the school to join the military as American involvement in World War II intensified. Willis volunteered for the U.S. Army, but was classified as 4-F, or only available for service in case of a national emergency, due to varicose veins. With many stars gone, however, Brown fielded a team composed mostly of 17-year-olds who were not yet eligible for military service. The "Baby Bucks", as they were called, fell to 3–6, although Willis was named a first-team All Conference selection in the Big Ten. By the 1944 season, Brown had joined the military and was coaching a team at Great Lakes Naval Training Station outside Chicago. Under his substitute, coach Carroll Widdoes, the Buckeyes completed an undefeated season. Willis was named to the United Press International and Look magazine All-America teams. He played in the 1944 College All-Star Game at Chicago, and was named the game's outstanding player. Professional career A professional football career