About Inductee

While registering one of his daughters at Huntsvilles Butler High School one summer day in the mid-1980s, Dr. William A. Richards bumped into Leonard Rabbit Thomas, the Rebels head football coach at the time. Noting that the Butler team was in the midst of preseason practice, Richards one of the Tennessee Valleys foremost chiropractors told Thomas: If you have any injured or hurt players, bring them around to my clinic and well check them out. To Dr. Richards surprise, Thomas showed up at his clinic the next morning with a station wagon filled with several players. Come on in, the doctor said, and lets have a look. The story should come as no surprise to those familiar with Dr. Richards practice, which now spans more than 52 years. Richards was the team doctor at Butler for three years, at Madison Academy for four years and at Lee High for 15 years. Dr. Richards is an outstanding Huntsville citizen who has helped multitudes of patients regain their spinal health, wrote longtime friend Judy Harbin Byrom, who nominated Richards for the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame. He has also donated his time to helping many area athletes. The state honored him (in 1986) with Resolution No. 86, which was adopted by the Senate of Alabama. I think its fitting that our city and community should also honor him by placing his name in our own athletic hall of fame. Richards, born May 20, 1936 in Manning, Iowa, attended Buena Vista College and Iowa Pre-Professional College and received his Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine in 1959 from Logan Chiropractic College in St. Louis. He later continued his studies at the Texas Chiropractic College in Houston and the Parker Chiropractic Research Foundation in Fort Worth. Earlier in his career, he completed 120 hours in post-graduate education in Industrial Consulting, 300 hours in X-ray Analysis and 300 hours in Orthopedics. He opened his Huntsville practice in 1959. Richards was in the inaugural group inducted into the Alabama Chiropractic Hall of Fame, and in 2005 he received the Alabama State Chiropractic Associations Lifetime Achievement Award. He has been active in the North Alabama Chiropractic Society, variously serving as president, delegate, treasurer and secretary. He has also been a member of the Space City Lions Club since 1969 and served as its president in 1981-82 and 2007-08. He is a member of Trinity United Methodist Church and is an Honorary Paratrooper and member of the 319th Military Intelligence Battalion. Dr. Richards and his wife Jackie, who were married 37 years before her death in 2003, have three children: Billie, who played volleyball at UAH for four years; Jacqueline, who played volleyball for two years at Snead Junior College; and Holly, who played one year at Wallace State and three years at Alabama, setting records that still stand. Holly is now the volleyball coach at Westminster Academy.