Sat, May 17 2008
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We believe: The Johnny Wilson Award recognizes multi-sport achievement.
The inaugural Johnny Wilson Award — for athletes who excel in more than one sport — was given out Wednesday. Stormy Holder of Highland High School and Justin Fuller of Anderson High School were the initial recipients of the award, which will be an annual event.
At Wednesday’s ceremony was Johnny Wilson himself. He was on the team when Anderson won its last state high school basketball championship in 1946. Wilson who now lives in Pennsylvania, where he is an assistant coach to his son’s team at Lock Haven University.
Wilson said he laments that many student athletes today don’t participate in multiple sports, but he did and it’s what his award celebrates.
At Anderson, he not only played basketball, but ran cross country, played football and excelled at track. His first love, he explained, was baseball, but the track coach didn’t want to lose him. His good friend Carl Erskine played. Erskine was also present Wednesday, reminiscing about growing up with Wilson in the later Depression years, a time when whites and blacks were rarely friends.
Erskine said Wilson could’ve played professional baseball. He said that he and Wilson were 4.0 grade point average students — then laughingly explained that each had a 2.0, which added up to 4.
Wilson went on to graduate from Anderson College and get a master’s degree at Indiana State. He played with the Harlem Globetrotters and coached in Indianapolis and Chicago.
It’s safe to say the 16 students who were nominated for the Wilson award (Holder was not present) could barely relate to the environment Wilson and Erskine grew up in. Times have changed radically in 60 years, but some things — being the best you can be, working hard toward a goal — are timeless, and Wilson personifies these characteristics, as do the students honored in his name.
“Growing up, he was one of the last people you would have thought would accomplished all that he has,” said Erskine of his friend. “It really doesn’t matter what you have. It matters what you do with what you have.”
The two students who received the award were given $500 scholarships from the Madison County Community Foundation. The other 14 received medallions and an opportunity to have their picture taken with two legends.
The students might not have been able to relate to the world Erskine and Wilson grew up in, but they wanted their picture taken with the two extraordinary men. The students can relate to excellence, to resilience in the face of fatigue, to pushing oneself for higher goals. After all, they’re athletes, the same as Wilson and Erskine. It’s 60 years later, but some things never change, and that’s what the Johnny Wilson Award will celebrate every year.
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