ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Billy Shaw, a Bills legend and Pro Football Hall of Fame guard, died Friday after a brief illness of hyponatremia. He was 85.
Shaw's family announced his death, and tributes quickly followed from the Buffalo Bills and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was surrounded by his wife and three daughters in Toccoa, Ga., when he died, the team said in a statement.
"Billy Shaw holds the distinction of being the only member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame to play his entire career in the American Football League," Hall of Fame president Jim Porter said Friday in a statement.
"But while that fact is worthy of noting and nice to recite, it comes nowhere near providing the reason he was elected as a member of the Class of 1999."
Shaw spent his career with one team, the Bills, from 1961 to 1969. The team inducted him to the Bills Wall of Fame in 1988, 11 years before his enshrinement in Canton.
Shaw was a second-round draft pick of the Bills in 1961. He played 119 games over nine seasons.
"Billy's all-around athleticism brought a new dimension to the guard position and made the 1960s Buffalo Bills a formidable opponent capable of bruising opponents with a punishing rushing attack," Porter said.
"And while Billy could be unforgiving to anyone in his way on the football field, he was the classic example of the Southern gentlemen off the field to everyone he encountered."
Services for Shaw will be announced at a later date, the Bills said.