William Joy (American football)

Joy was born in Boston and attended South Boston High School.[1][2] He was a member of the school's football, track, and basketball teams. He went on to attend the College of the Holy Cross, where he was a member of the member of the varsity relay team for four years and was captain of the Holy Cross Crusaders football and basketball teams during his senior year.[2]

Joy was hired as Boston College's head coach months after graduating college. In his second season as head coach, he led BC to their first winning season of the 20th century. On December 14, 1914, Joy was named faculty coach at Hyde Park High School in Hyde Park, Massachusetts.[3] He left Hyde Park following the outbreak of World War I to join the United States Army Air Service. After the war, Joy scouted for the Princeton Tigers football team.[1] He returned to Boston College in 1921 as an assistant to Frank Cavanaugh.[4] When Cavanaugh left BC in 1927, Joy followed him to Fordham where he remained as an assistant until 1932. From 1933 to 1938, Joy was the head coach at Canisius College.

In 1939, Joy retired from sports and returned to Massachusetts, where he worked as an insurance broker and was a trustee of the Boston Elevated Railway. Joy was appointed to the Boston Elevated Railway trusteeship by Governor Charles F. Hurley, who had played football at Boston College while Joy was an assistant coach there.[1] In 1943, RKO Radio Pictures hired Joy as a technical advisor for football sequences in The Iron Major, a biographical film about Frank Cavanaugh.[5] Joy died on September 13, 1969 at his home in Milton, Massachusetts. He was 81 years old.[1]