From ball boy to bow-tied owner, BillBidwill spent more than eight decades working in the NFL, a private man who loved a very public business.
Bidwill and football were as intertwined as strands of DNA, but the sport didn’t define the man, who died on Wednesday at the age of 88.
Bidwill is survived by five children and 10grandchildren and one great-grandchild. His wife, Nancy, died in 2016.
"Our dad passed away today the same way he lived his life: peacefully, with grace, dignity and surrounded by family and loved ones,” Cardinals President Michael Bidwill said in a statement. “We are overwhelmed by the support our family has received, not only now but throughout the latest chapter of his life. We are especially grateful to the nurses, doctors and other caregivers whose endless kindness and compassion in recent years have made our dad’s life so meaningful.
"Above all else, we will remember him as a man devoted to the three central pillars of his life – his immense faith, his love for his family and his life-long passion for the Cardinals and the sport of football.”
It's unclear who will replace Bidwill as owner, because the family has declined comment on the subject for years. It’s likely to be Michael Bidwill, the second oldest of the Bidwill children, who has been team president since 2007
William V. Bidwill loved military history, cars, coffee, food and football, and he could tell you stories that involved all of them. He drove everything from a Mercedes to a Volkswagen Beetle, and if criticism ever bothered him, he never showed it.
WhenThe Arizona Republicpoked fun at him in editorial cartoons, Bidwill often asked for a print autographed by the cartoonist.
Bidwill loved a good joke, and a bad one. While he only occasionally talked on the record with reporters, he regularly visited the pressroom at the team facility to tell jokes or stories on what the NFL was like decades ago.
While Bidwill's NFL career was long, it was not glorious when measured by his team’s wins and losses. The Cardinals’ lack of success made him an icon of bad ownership. At times, Bidwill was accused of being cheap, greedy and disinterested in winning.
That image changed somewhat beginning in 2008, when the team won the first of two consecutive NFC West titles. With Ken Whisenhunt as coach and Kurt Warner as quarterback, the Cardinals won the NFC title in the 2008 season, advancing to the first Super Bowl in team history.
The Cardinals lost to the Steelers in the final seconds.
Bidwill’s reputation for being a frugal owner was earned. Former St. Louis Cardinals quarterback Jim Hart once made an appointment with Bidwill with the goal of getting a raise.
Hart gathered the necessary information, such as statistics and the salaries of some of the game’s other top quarterbacks. When Hart entered Bidwill’s office, Bidwill turned on an egg timer and said, ‘You’ve got three minutes.”
It was one of Bidwill’s many contradictions. He had a unique fashion style that never conformed to what was in style. He wore bow ties when everyone else was in leisure suits and seemed to enjoy being a non-conformist.
While Bidwill could be tight with the Cardinals’ dollars, he was generous outside of football.
He contributed to many causes around the Valley, usually quietly and anonymously. Bidwill was a major donor to the St. Peter Indian Mission School in Bapchule, south of Chandler, and every year at Halloween, a busload of kids in costumes would visit a Cardinals practice.
Bidwill usually attended those practices.
Inside team headquarters, however, he was difficult for many people to get to know. Past players tell stories of Bidwill saying hello to them one day and looking past them the next, leaving them to wonder what they had done wrong.
Others, such as Hall of Fame tackle Dan Dierdorf and receiver Larry Fitzgerald, became close to Bidwill.
“I always had a good relationship with Bill,” Dierdorf said in 2016. “He had some social-skill problems, OK, but no one who ever knew him would question that the man had a deep love of the National Football League. He was very proud of the fact the Bidwill family was one of the founding families of the NFL.”
Charles Bidwill, Bidwill’s father, bought the Chicago Cardinals in 1932 for $50,000.
Bill worked as a ball boy for the team and as a teenager celebrated when the club won the NFL title in 1947. He was named a vice president while an undergraduate at Georgetown University.
It is the only league title in team history, and the club didn't win another playoff game until 1998, 10 years after Bidwill moved it from St. Louis to Arizona.
After serving in the Navy, Bidwill rejoined the family business in 1956, helping his mother and brother, Charles Jr. (Stormy), run the team.
The team moved from Chicago to St. Louis, and upon their mother's death, Bill and Stormy took over the team, but not without a fight and a surprising revelation.
Their stepfather filed a petition challenging the adoption of Bill and Stormy. Only Bill and Stormy didn’t know they had been adopted, according to court documents.
The Bidwill brothers prevailed and guided the franchise's fortunes together until 1972.
Bill became sole owner then, buying out his brother.
The Cardinals remain a family-run business. Four of the five children have worked in the organization, with Michael joining the club in 1996 as vice president/general counsel and becoming president in 2007.
Michael has been in charge of the team for the last several years, but his father visited the team’s facility often after Michael took over. In his later years, Bidwill dealt with health problems and spent most of his time at home.
While success on the field proved elusive for Bidwill, he enjoyed triumphs off it. As an owner, he hired minorities in important front-office roles long before diversity became a national issue.
In 2010, he was honored by a national organization for “extraordinary contributions towards NFL diversity.”
Quiet and unassuming, Bidwill was regarded in the NFL as a “league man,” willing to compromise for the good of the entire organization. That earned him a considerable amount of good will among his fellow owners, and his stature was a big reason the Valley has played host to three Super Bowls.
Much of Bidwill’s professional career was spent in a quest for stadium that would make his team economically competitive with other NFL clubs. Bidwill never got the stadium in St. Louis, and it took a long, arduous journey to get one in the Valley.
Today, the Cardinals are on sound financial footing, largely because of money produced by its games at State Farm Stadium.
But there have been many trying times, too. The team has struggled throughout its first two decades in Arizona history. Whisenhunt, who coached the team for six years, was the longest-tenured coach in the team’s history in the desert.
Bidwill tried giving a coach tremendous power (Buddy Ryan) and severely restricting his input on personnel (Vince Tobin). In a league defined by parity, the Cardinals struggled to even reach mediocrity.
They had 17 losing seasons out of their first 20 in Arizona. They lost at least 10 games in 13 of those seasons. Fans turned apathetic and it wasn't unusual for the Cardinals to attract crowds of fewer than 30,000 for their games at Sun Devil Stadium, where they played until 2006.
From 1988 to 1998, the Cardinals have had just one winning season in Arizona. They went 9-7 in 1998, clinching a playoff berth in the final game.
Bidwill watched the final seconds in tears, holding a game ball.
“I think I'm going to have to see it, or read about it, and then pinch myself to know that it happened,” he said at the time.
The Cardinals reverted to their losing ways, however, and again started cycling through coaches and players.
The one constant, however, was their stadium situation. From its inception on the south side of Chicago, the Cardinals Football Club played at parks and stadiums owned by someone else.
The Bidwills, especially Michael, knew that had to change for the Cardinals to become competitive. After several failed efforts, they were able to get a stadium proposal approved by voters.
State Farm Stadium opened in 2006, and every game there has sold out. From 2006 through 2018, the team finished .500 or better seven times.
It is the most successful stretch in franchise history, and the stadium played a central role in it.
The day after the vote, Michael Bidwill met with reporters at the team’s Tempe facility. His father walked in, surveyed the situation and quipped, “Children are highly over-rated.”
