What started as a car ride resulted in a full-ride for Charlie Wilson.
The Ohio football alumnus was walking home on a Marietta sidewalk in 1949 when a car pulled over. Out stepped former Ohio line coach Howard Brinker and an opportunity Wilson would not squander.
Coach Brinker was making me a firm offer to go to Ohio University and play football
Wilson said. It was a magnificent feeling. To this day when I go by that same sidewalk I think of Howard Brinker.
With that, Wilson, along with teammate Frank Underwood, became Ohio's first scholarship black athletes the following year.
Underwood, a recruit from Wintersville, said he credits former Ohio president John C. Baker in large part for providing him his chance.
He told me he was at a football game not long after he came to Ohio University (in 1945) and he noticed there were no colored players
Underwood said. So he said
'Get some.'
