Life University Founder Sid Williams Dies

Dr. Sid Williams, the founder of Marietta's Life University, has died.

The Marietta Daily Journal reported Thursday that Williams, who suffered a stroke late last year, passed away this morning, and that in lieu of flowers, donations should be made to The B. J. Palmer Historic Home Foundation.

Funeral arrangements were to be announced.

Williams, who was 84, transformed the institution he founded as Life Chiropractic School on Barclay Drive in Marietta into the fully-fledged Life University, enrolling at its peak nearly 3,500 students in the 1990s.

While it remains the largest chiropractic school in the world, offering a doctorate degree in the field, Life also offers a master's degrees in health sciences, as well as undergraduate programs in the sciences, business administration and computer information management.

Life also had a well-rounded varsity athletics program, and was best-known for its men's rugby, track and field and cross country teams.

But major operational problems at Life in 2002 led to the disbanding of most sports and a temporary loss of its academic accreditation by the Council on Chiropractic Education, events which led to Williams' retirement. 

East Cobb Patch contributor Tim Langley, a chiropractor who attended Life, called Williams "a warrior and a lover of people and humanity."

Williams grew up in Atlanta and played football for the legendary coach Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech.

A member of the Georgia Tech Athletic Hall of Fame, Williams hired former Yellow Jackets basketball standout Roger Kaiser to be a coach and athletic director at Life, positions he held until the athletics program was discontinued.

Kaiser is now the athletic director at Mt. Bethel Christian Academy in East Cobb.

A donors' profile on the Georgia Tech athletic website said Williams was inspired to study chiropractic care because of spinal injuries he suffered playing football.

He and his wife Nell studied chiropractic at the Palmer Chiropractic College in Davenport, Iowa. They moved back to the Atlanta area and began Life in 1974.