N.C. State football coach Earle Edwards was the featured speaker at the 1958 awards banquet for Landis High School, and he pleaded for the town to remember him the next time it produced a player like Billy Ray Barnes.
“We never really got to meet Mr. Barnes when he was at Wake Forest,” Edwards told a chuckling crowd. “All we ever saw was Billy’s back.”
In the room was a strapping, 230-pound Landis senior named Oscar Overcash. He wasn’t a flashy, fiery ballcarrier like Barnes, but he was special in his own right. He would be Landis’ gift to the Wolfpack.
Overcash had been granted leave from the Shrine Bowl squad to attend that school banquet and accept an award as Landis’ most valuable lineman.
A few weeks after Edwards’ speech and the Shrine Bowl, Overcash was in Raleigh’s Reynolds Coliseum. He was a guest of the Wolfpack for the Dixie Classic Christmas basketball tournament. It was the Dixie Classic, the one for the ages.
Overcash watched the Wolfpack beat Louisville, second-ranked Cincinnati (with Oscar Robertson) and seventh-ranked Michigan State (with Jumping Johnny Green) on consecutive nights and knew where he was going to college.
“The atmosphere, the tradition of State, it all felt right,” Overcash said. “I liked Coach Edwards, and it seemed like the place to go to become a teacher. I didn’t want to be a farmer.”
Overcash’s dream came true. He’s now a retired teacher living in Willmar, Minn. At 68, he still officiates high school football. In 2006, he was recognized for 30 years of service. Age and cancer have broken up his regular crew, but he still subs frequently and was on the field last Friday night.
It all started at Landis High. A four-year varsity player, Overcash was one of the state’s best his senior year. The largest man on the all-county team, he led Landis’ blocking at center. He anchored the defensive line. He boomed soaring kickoffs.
Landis was a small school, but it had the athletes to compete in the SPC. The Yellow Jackets were 6-2-2 in Overcash’s senior season.
“The games with Kannapolis and China Grove, there were fans standing, people stacked two or three deep in the end zone,” he said. “It was a wonderful, exciting time. We had a lot of size and could go 230 from tackle to tackle. I probably got too much credit. I couldn’t have done anything without linemen like Reid Daniels, Tony Ervin, Larry Fain and Harry Steelman.”
As stout as most of those Landis teams were, Overcash was the first (and last) Yellow Jacket named to the Shrine Bowl. Even Barnes was snubbed.
Albemarle’s single-wing master, Toby Webb, coached the 1958 Shrine Bowl team. He saw plenty of Overcash in SPC champion Albemarle’s bruising 7-0 win against Landis and made sure Overcash received an invitation.
Overcash played defense, made three straight tackles on one series and helped North Carolina win 26-20.
He also was part of a 14-0 West win in the 1959 East-West All-Star Game before he reported to Raleigh.
Overcash was a strong player for the Wolfpack, earning letters from 1961-63.
“My claim to fame was being the center for (QB) Roman Gabriel my sophomore year,” Overcash said.
Overcash is also remembered for an ill-fated snap in his varsity debut ó the 1961 opener at Wyoming. When the Pack flew out, the thermometer read 95 degrees. It was 37 when the team landed in Laramie, Wyo.
The center alternating with Overcash struggled on his first snap on a punt. The ball sailed high and far over the punter’s head and led to a desperate 1-yard punt.
“I was in there for our next punt from our 7-yard line,” Overcash said. “Nobody was on me. I snapped that ball and I remember our punter looking up. He didn’t even jump. The ball went right across the goalposts and landed a few rows up in the end zone.”
It was an unusual safety. The Pack lost 15-14.
Overcash’s junior season included a painful, late loss at Nebraska.
“There were 40,000 wearing red. When they scored, I thought the building was falling,” Overcash said.
Things got better from there, including an 8-3 record, a share of the ACC title and a Liberty Bowl trip his senior year.
The memorable game was the ACC finale against Wake Forest and its fine running back Brian Piccolo, who was headed for personal tragedy.
The game was set for Friday, Nov. 22. Overcash was doing his student-teaching at Raleigh’s Enloe High when there was an announcement that President John Kennedy had been shot.
“A bit later we’re listening to a piped-in transmission,” Overcash said. “It was Walter Cronkite’s report that the president was dead. They sent the students home.”Overcash joined his teammates. The Wake game went on that night as scheduled.
“There was none of the usual rah-rah stuff before the game,” Overcash said. “For the national anthem, just one lone drummer went out there keeping cadence. But once the game started, it was like any football game.”
Overcash made two downfield blocks to spring QB Jim Rossi for a pair of touchdowns. N.C. State rolled 42-0 and was a champion for the first time since 1957, but the celebration was muted.
Overcash was in ROTC at N.C. State. He spent a year in Vietnam as a lieutenant. He was a cog in a trucking system carrying supplies and ammo up the coast from the harbor at Cam Ranh Bay. He lost a few men to mines, but he made it back and played minor league football in Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Then he met a girl he liked. That meeting led him to her home state of Minnesota. He found his dream job there. He taught and coached junior high football for decades.
His teaching tools were his experiences from the Wolfpack and the war. Every year on Nov. 22, he brought in the program his parents had saved from the 1963 Wake-N.C. State game and talked to students about what that day was like.
He told stories about Gabriel’s mighty arm, but he saw only blank faces.
“Go ask your fathers about Gabriel,” he told his students. “No, better make that your grandfathers.”
In 2001, the Carolina Panthers traveled to play Minnesota. Gabriel was a radio analyst for the Panthers. His guest in the booth that day was the man who had been his center 40 years earlier.
“Wouldn’t you know, the Panthers beat the Vikings,” Overcash said. “The only game they won that season.”