Ex-Ram Quarterback Munson Is Dead at 58

Bill Munson, a first-round draft choice of the Los Angeles Rams who spent 16 years in the NFL, was found dead in his swimming pool Monday night at his home in Lodi, Calif.

Munson, 58, apparently had drowned.

He was found by his nephew Monday evening. Relatives had become concerned when they hadn’t heard from him since early Sunday, said Lodi police officer Gary Fauth.

“It seems to be an accidental drowning,” Fauth said. “We won’t know until the coroner investigates.”

Munsonplayed in the NFLfor the Rams, who picked him first in the 1964 draft, the Detroit Lions, Seattle Seahawks, San Diego Chargers and Buffalo Bills.

Munson, who played at Utah State, started for the Rams for two seasons, then was traded to the Lions in 1968. He spent eight seasons in Detroit, his longest tenure with any team.

“I really enjoyed my football career,” he said in a 1994 interview. “Every day was a challenge. There were highs and lows in each game, no in-betweens. I enjoyed the people in the game, especially the players, and the friendships I made.”

Munson was a key figure in one of the many Ram quarterback controversies, which dateto the 1950s with Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield. In his rookie season, Munson beat out Roman Gabriel, who had passed for nearly 2,000 yards the year before.

Harland Svare, coach of the Rams at the time, said it as a fairly straightforward decision.

“It was early in both their careers and they both had very promising attributes,” Svare said in a 1998 interview. “I am a very strong advocate of quickness and began to favor Munson because of it. It was really that simple. . . .

“Munson had one of the quickest releases I had ever seen. He was as quick with the ball as Dan Marino.”

But for whatever reason, Munson never developed into a star.

“I was never able to find out what kept Munson from blossoming in Detroit and have often wondered about him,” Svare said.

In eight seasons with the Lions, Munson’s best one was his first, 1968, when he played 12 games and completed 181 of 329 passes for 2,311 yards and 15 touchdowns, all career highs. By the end of his career, Munson had passed for 12,896 yards in 107 games. He retired after spending the 1979 season in Buffalo as a backup to Joe Ferguson.

Said Merlin Olsen, who played with Munson at Utah State as well as the Rams: “Bill was soft-spoken, sort of shy, but he always had a ready smile.

“He had a good sense of humor, and had a knack of telling a joke. He could always remember the punch line.”

Olsen, speaking from his home in Park City, Utah, said he had periodically seen Munson over the years, usually at charity golf tournaments.

Olsen’s former broadcast partner, Dick Enberg, who became the radio voice of the Rams in 1966, remembered Munson, then the backup to Gabriel, as “a quiet man, a good man.”

Jack Snow, a wide receiver with the Rams who now works for the team in St. Louis, remembered Munson’s serious side in the huddle.

“There was not a lot of goofing off when he was calling the plays,” Snow recalled. “When he got into game situations, he was stern. He just wanted to win football games.

“That was his nature. When you watched him, he was very unassuming, but he knew what he wanted to do.”

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Times staff writer Larry Stewart contributed to this story.