Oklahoma Panhandle State University Athletics

For twenty years the name Oscar Williams rang through the rafters of Oklahoma Panhandle State University’s athletic arenas. The name still reverberates today as the moniker of the modern-day gymnasium on the campus where the coach of two sports made his mark over sixty years ago. And on Friday, Jan. 22 the words “Oscar Williams” will ring in revelry once more, as this longtime and influential coach is inducted posthumously into the 2015 Aggie Hall of Fame.

Williams joined the Aggie coaching ranks in 1951 as the head football coach for, then, Panhandle Agricultural and Mechanical College (PAMC). In 1953 he added the title of Head Baseball Coach to his resume and remained the head coach for both sports through the 1971 seasons. As if coaching two sports wasn’t enough, the man described by one of his former players as a “workaholic” also served as the school’s athletic director for many of his years on staff. Coach Williams passed away in January of 1972 leaving a legacy of greatness that has lasted through the decades.

Originally from Wynnewood, Okla. a young Williams graduated high school in 1940 and had excelled in many sports including baseball, football, basketball and track. It is noted in the Native Americans in Sports journal that he once “played hooky from school, hitched a ride to a high school track tournament at a nearby college, and scored enough points for the Wynnewood Savages to win the high school championship” as a “one-man track team.” Williams was of Choctaw decent.

He attended Memphis State University for one semester before enrolling at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater in 1941; he attended on an athletic scholarship and lettered in both football and baseball in 1943. While attending OSU Williams pitched for a semipro baseball team, the Stillwater Boomers, and led them to a state championship. He then entered the United States Army, served in the Pacific theater and was discharged as a captain in 1945. After the war Williams returned to OSU and completed his degree.

Upon marrying his wife, Barbara, in 1947 Williams began his coaching career at Marshall High School in Oklahoma where he coached baseball and football for two years before moving on to Elk City. He became the head football coach at PAMC in June of 1951 and notched a winning 6-4 record during his first season; the 1951 team tied the best-season school record since 1939.

Throughout his time at Panhandle the coach racked up over 100 wins in football including, an All-Sports Bowl victory over Langston University in the standout 1961 season. Over twenty-one seasons Williams’ players received 118 All-Conference placings (First Team, Second Team and Honorable Mention included), and seven earned All-American honors including, most notably, Jim Holder and Jerry Linton. Holder broke Linton’s national rushing record of 1,483 yards in 1962 the very next year, grounding 1,775 yards in ten games to lead the nation in 1963. Jim Holder was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2012, posthumously.

Records available from the 1953-1963 seasons indicated that Williams acquired close to 100 baseball wins during that ten-year period, and claimed the Frontier Conference Championship in 1958. The Aggies returned to the conference tournament the following two years, falling short of the championship round in both appearances. After a successful 10-5 season in 1960, Aggie pitcher Paul Orr signed a professional contract with the Detroit Tigers; Orr spent two seasons playing in Detroit’s minor league affiliations.

Impacting countless athletes along the way, Coach Williams is described by former players to have been “tough, but fair”. He was well-respected and believed that players proved themselves by working hard, and that time on the field could be earned regardless of age or class rank. “When he said to do something, you did it,” recalls J.B. Flatt who played End for Williams 1959-1962. Flatt also recollected the grueling “three-a-day” football practices, and playing both ways, the full length of games against tough NCAA opponents in a time when the Aggies were accustomed to receiving at least a few breaks during their regular NAIA matchups.

Nicknamed “Tricky” for his tendency towards unconventional play calling, Williams was famous for running the “single-wing” offense and posing an unbalanced line which was uncommon at the time and hard to defend. David Rutledge, End from 1961-1965, said of Williams’ opponents, “You didn’t know what to expect when you played him.” Rutledge elaborated, “He would start every game in a ‘split-T’ formation and the snap count always went on one. He thought that if we always went on one, we’d never jump offside.”

Frank Corsoe had the great fortune to play for Williams during his final football season with the Aggies. Corsoe, now a sports editor for The Blade in Toledo, Ohio, also recounted the “single-wing” variations that Williams remained loyal to throughout his career. “Coach Williams was on the cutting edge when it came to offensive football. He ran an offense back in the early 1970s that has a lot of similarities to the West Coast offenses of today.” Commenting that Coach Williams was “well-respected by NFL coaches”, Corsoe explained that the coach had spent time in Denver with the Broncos’ staff observing how they prepared for drills. He also remembered assistants from the Dallas Cowboys, as well as scouts, who attended some of the Aggies’ practices back in 1971; the year Williams engineered one of the “greatest upsets in college football history.” That year Panhandle upset an undefeated Central State team, which had James Hooks, a future NFL running back, in its backfield.

Another member of Williams’ esteemed 1961 team, Jim Hampton was a walk-on athlete arriving in Jan. of that year. Hampton remembered the coach visiting him during Thanksgiving break in 1960 in his hometown of Hennessey and offering a scholarship to play football. At the time a scholarship stipulation required athletes to compete in two sports, so Hampton received coaching from Williams in baseball for one season. When asked how his coach juggled two sports and Athletic Director duties he responded, “It is amazing now that I look back on it…how he managed I will never know; but as I look back he had a tremendous impact on all the players and helped develop us for the future.”

The stories could go on and on telling tales of a coach who gained respect and expanded the impact of Aggie Athletics far beyond the borders of Goodwell.