At first glance, Dan Williams’ Johnson Hall office seems simple. He’s never been a big fan of clutter or walls plastered with pictures. He doesn’t see the need for expensive furniture or exquisite office supplies. The items he does have, however, tell a story. Many stories.
Family photos line a shelf above his desk. A map of his hometown, Astoria, hangs on the wall next to a picture of a scene from the 1996 Cotton Bowl. Nearby are two large windows that look out onto East 13th Avenue, windows that give him a perfect view of a campus
he fell in love with in 1958, his first year as an undergraduate.
Williams retires from his position as the University’s vice president for administration July 1, and although he will work in the Athletics Department as a liaison for about two years, he knows his days of full schedules and heavy responsibility are over.
Is he scared? Of course not. Is he nervous? Perhaps. But more than anything, Williams is curious. Curious as to what the next years of his life will bring, when he is away from the structure of administrative work and constant interaction with people of all different backgrounds.
“I’m not even particularly anxious about it really,” Williams said. “I’m just kind of curious as to what life will be like when there’s less structure.”
People who know him best say they can’t see him ever leaving the University. He loves it too much. He loves the people; he loves the responsibility; he loves the job.
“It’s obvious to me that it’s going to be hard for him to retire because he’s loved the University for as long as I’ve known him,” said Pam Forrester, who first met Williams when he worked in Depoe Bay his first summer after high school graduation.
Williams, who has worked
full-time at the University for
28 years, said his favorite thing about the school is the same as his favorite thing about life in general: the people.
“I’ve always been much more interested in other people than I have myself,” Williams said. “I’m 64 — I have been working since I was 14; I’ve either been working or going to school for 50 years. I think some of that responsibility that I’ve been given over time
or sought out is driven
in part by my interest in other people.”
Maybe it’s his small-town upbringing, but friends say Williams just seems to have a knack for remembering names. Not only does Williams want to know everyone’s name, Forrester said, but he insists on remembering a specific thing about each person, something that sets him or her apart from everyone else.
“One of the things about him that’s so interesting to me is how he keeps up with people, ” Forrester said.
Williams said it comes with the nature of his position. After all, anyone who works at an alma mater for as long as he has will know a good share of people.
“When you live here as many years as I have, and you have the kind of work that brings you in contact with lots people, you just tend to, over time, know a lot of people,” Williams said.
But Williams’ friends say it’s always been that way.
“Once you are his friend, you’re his friend forever, and I think that’s served him well at the University of Oregon,” Forrester said.
Williams’ involvement in leadership roles and administrative work began as a child, when he served as student body president of his grade school and high school before attending the University and being elected ASUO president for the 1961-62 academic year.
“Danny never lost an election, all the way from the time he was a first grader,” Williams’ younger brother, Rick, said.
Eugene resident Jim Cloutier, who served as ASUO vice president in Williams’ administration and spent a great deal of time with Williams and his fraternity brothers, said he and Williams took their positions in student government seriously and that it was obvious Williams had a talent for administrative work.
“One of the things that impressed me about Dan was he did have this innate ability to administrate,” Cloutier said.
Forrester still recalls the first time she met Williams. He stayed in the fish cannery’s office located across the street from a restaurant her parents owned.
“I was washing my dad’s convertible, and he came over with a coffee can and asked if he could have some water,” Forrester said.
The office Williams stayed in
didn’t have running water, and Forrester said he was simply looking for someone kind enough to fill the small container. She was struck by his politeness and said she’ll never forget the question he asked her after
receiving his water.
“He asked me: ‘Is your hair really red?’” Forrester said with a laugh, commenting on how that small incident so well exemplifies Williams’ engaging personality and curiosity.
Williams said Forrester fills his memories of Depoe Bay because she and her family were always there and treated him like one of their own.
Forrester said Williams was a beloved addition to the tiny coastal town.
“He just fit right in,” Forrester said. “The whole town loved him.”
Forrester, who named her first son Daniel after Williams, said Williams played a big brother role to her and strongly influenced her decision to come to the University. Once she arrived, Williams continued to act as a mentor, seeing to it that she kept up with her studies and that the guys she spent time with “were the right kind of guys.”
Williams started working at the University as an undergraduate, serving as a resident assistant, assistant complex director and complex director.
After graduating with a political science degree, he took a job as assistant director of housing in 1965, a job he held for a little more than two years before moving to California to work in the residence halls and the Office of Student Life at Stanford University.
Williams met his wife, Maureen, who lived in Los Angeles and worked for the Irish government. The couple married in 1974.
Williams said he and his wife decided to relocate after the first two of their three children were born, and the need to buy a house in a family-friendly area became more pressing.
After earning a master’s degree in public administration from the University of San Francisco, he returned to the University in 1980 as director of housing and was selected vice president for administration in 1983, a position he said he accepted with a bit of surprise.
“To be real frank and honest about it, I had no expectation of being appointed to the position at the time,” Williams said. “It came earlier in my professional career than I would have expected, and that’s probably why I’ve been in the job for so long.”
But friends say Williams’ leadership skills always set him apart from the rest.
Dick Romm, a former University Housing director of residence life who worked under Williams from 1965-67 and again from 1980-83, recalled a trip to Europe the two took with friends in 1971.
“We were walking in Zurich, and somebody came up to him that he knew from Astoria,” Romm said. “I was always joking to him that it seemed like wherever we would go, like to a conference or something out of town, he would
always seem to come
up and meet somebody from Astoria.”
Forrester remembers when she and Williams were walking on campus once during their undergraduate years, he commented that he probably knew more people at the University by their first name than anyone else.
“At the tim
e I thought, ‘Oh, you big bragger,’” Forrester said. “But now I know it’s because he has this real interest in people. He could remember everything he’s ever known about them.”
Williams said it’s essential for any administrator to love people, understand their differences and
have a great deal of self-confidence.
“I think people in my business make bad decisions when they’re insecure about themselves,” Williams said. “I’m not talking about arrogance now — I’m talking about feeling good about yourself.”
The nature of Williams’ job makes it inevitable that he will be involved in controversial issues from time to time, but that doesn’t bother him.
“I think to be effective at my work you have to be open to doing things and thinking about things differently, because your students do and your faculty do,” Williams said. “If you’re not willing to do that, you don’t do your work very well.”
In 1990, Williams made the controversial decision to ban the Grateful Dead from performing at Autzen Stadium, a decision that was overturned a few years later after a great deal of public outcry and one that Williams said he can now look back on and call a learning experience.
“I think at the time I probably had the right reasons, but with time I began
to think that there was a better answer than ‘no,’” Williams said. “‘No’ is a very easy answer.”
The band played at Autzen a few years later, something Williams credits to teamwork within the administration and to his ability to step back and incorporate other points of view.
Romm said Williams is a skillful listener who takes into consideration all viewpoints, although his decision may not always satisfy every quarter.
“I always felt that he truly did get influenced by input,” Romm said. “That doesn’t mean he always agreed or that the decisions were always what they wanted, but we really felt that it wasn’t just lip service.”
Williams said such a characteristic is a necessary one to have when doing administrative work.
“If you trust people and you feel good about yourself and you’re not afraid to say ‘I don’t know,’ you can be pretty good in this business,” Williams said. “But if you see your work as an extension of your ego, it’s just nothing but trouble.”
Williams has received a great deal of media attention over the years for his involvement with the Athletics Department, something he said he doesn’t mind but doesn’t believe is totally representative of his career.
He said his appreciation of sports and his work with the department is often the center of publicity because of the prominent nature of the business.
“My responsibilities with athletics have been the most visible part of my work, but it’s not what I feel best about, ” Williams said. “Athletics is part of what I feel good about. “
Springfield attorney Joe Leahy, who grew up across the street from Williams, said he and others from Astoria who knew Williams as a boy couldn’t help but laugh when he was appointed the University’s acting athletic director for the 1994-95 academic year.
Williams said he received a note from Leahy after the announcement telling him how hysterical his boyhood friends found the news.
“To think of me being the athletic director of a Pac-10 Division I school when eight-tenths of my own athletic career was as a
third-base coach for the Astoria High School baseball team was a great irony,” Williams said.
Raw athleticism was not Williams’ prominent characteristic, friends say, but his leadership skills always ensured him a place on the team.
“When you were putting together a team, he was always selected because he was a good person, he worked hard and he brought to the team a concept of team rather than self,” Leahy said.
Romm said his time with Williams in University Housing never gave him the impression that Williams was dominated by sports, as Romm said he is sometimes portrayed.
“I think as soon as he got that athletic job, that’s where he got all his publicity,” Romm said. “I never thought of Dan as like a rabid fan where that was just overshadowing everything; I didn’t think of him like that at all.”
Williams indeed has a deep love for University sports, but it is no different than his love for all things Duck. Williams and his family even had two ducks living in their yard for a couple years in the early 1980s.
Forrester said Williams’ love for the University was exemplified one night when he called her at her Portland residence to inquire about something he had just seen on the news. Forrester, who worked in former Oregon Gov. Neil Goldschmidt’s cabinet and understands the intricacies of the state legislature, said Williams was upset that a state congressman had said something negative about the
University and its need
for funding.
“He was on his high horse and just wanted to know who this guy was and who did he think he was, criticizing the University of Oregon,” Forrester said with a laugh.
Former Oregon State University President John Byrne, who first met Williams in the early 1980s and considers him a close friend, said Williams’ love for the University is something that will likely keep him from ever fully removing himself from University work.
“Of all the Ducks I know, I like Dan the best,” Byrne said.
When Williams thinks about his history and reflects on his accomplishments, he said there isn’t anything he would do differently.
“I’ve always been quite happy with myself and my situation, so I’ve never aspired to be like anybody besides myself,” Williams said. “I think if you work to try to be a nice person in your relationships with
other people, life kind of takes care
of you.”
