William S. Eberly
William S. Eberly passed away on Sunday, March 21, 2004, at the age of 82. A 1944 graduate of the University of Toledo, he served the University in many capacities including a presidency of the Alumni Association and as a member of the Catharine S. Eberly Center for Women Advisory Board for more than 25 years. Catharine Sloan Eberly was Bill’s first wife and in her role as the first female member of the Board of Trustees, Katy led campus and community women in the creation of the Center for Women in the mid 1970s. After her untimely death in 1979, Bill took on Katy’s commitment to women in higher education as one of his many causes. He established an endowment in her name. This endowment has allowed the Center to provide services and programming to the community for decades. Bill’s commitment did not end there. He left a gift of $10,000 in his will, which has been used to establish the William S. Eberly Project Succeed Endowment at the Catharine S. Eberly Center for Women. This gift will allow the Center to move the Project Succeed program toward economic self-sufficiency.
Before his life as a stockbroker and service to the University of Toledo, Bill was hired by Branch Rickey in the 1940s as the General Manager of the minor league teams of the Brooklyn Dodgers. From 1953 to 1965, he was employed as a business manager of the Milwaukee Braves. Among Bill’s proudest possessions was his world series rings and other baseball memorabilia, but he reported his best moment in baseball as the entrance of the first African American man to play major league baseball, Jackie Robinson. Bill was also a member of the Society of American Baseball Research.
Bill was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of seven. His activism in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is well known in the Toledo community and he frequently spoke to groups about managing the disease.
Bill is survived by his wife of 23 years, Elizabeth Sheperd Eberly, his sons, Michael and Stephen, a platoon of grandchildren and step grandchildren and his many fans and friends at the University of Toledo and in the Toledo community.