William J. Noonan
By Patricia   Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 29, 2006
William Joseph Bill Noonan, 95, a retired District police officer and investigator for the Small Business Administration who was a well-known D.C. high school and college sports star in the 1930s, died of  congestive heart failure Sept. 21 at Virginia Hospital Center.
Born in Manchester, N.H., Mr. Noonan moved with his family to Washington  when he was a young boy. He was a graduate of Eastern High School and George Washington University, which he attended on a full athletic scholarship. He was the starting center on the basketball team for four years and became known as Ace Noonan or Big Bill. Sportswriters reached deep for   adjectives and adverbs when describing his feats.
Lanky Bill Noonan extricated himself from a tangled mass of arms and legs, stretched his 6-foot-4-inch frame high in the humid air of George Washington gym last night and plunked a fat yellow basketball in the bucket to clinch George Washington's third consecutive victory of the season, a well-deserved 44-34 triumph over a fighting Geneva quintet, wrote one overheated scribe in The Washington Post in 1933.
He was believed to be GWU's oldest living letterman. When Mr. Noonan was introduced during a timeout at the basketball game against Rhode Island on Jan. 28, the packed house gave him a standing ovation. Later that weekend, he regaled a reunion of baseball alumni with stories from the courts and fields of his era.
Mr. Noonan was also a star right-handed pitcher on the university's baseball team and was reported in May 1935 to have ;baffled the locals [opponent Johns Hopkins Bluejays]. He fanned 14 and allowed only two hits, both scratch bunts.  After graduating in 1937, he continued playing basketball and minor league baseball until he joined the Army during World War II, serving in the United States.
After the war, he joined the police force in Washington, working in the old Precinct 4, the wharf area, for 13 years. In 1946, he moved to Arlington County and became owner of a small grocery store.
He sold his store in the mid-1950s and went to work for the SBA as an investigator until his 1973 retirement.
He was a longtime member of Knights of Columbus, Edward Douglas White Council in Arlington and was a founding member and longtime usher at St. Thomas More Cathedral in Arlington.
He spent his last six years as a resident at Sunrise at Bluemont Park in Arlington.
His wife, Lorene Kitchens Noonan, died in 1984.
Survivors include two children, Joseph Noonan of Gwynn, Va., and Pamela McIntosh of Arlington; a sister, Lorraine Boyd of Chaptico; four grandsons; and two great-grandchildren.