The idea of Charlie as an athlete, along with his brother Bart, tumbled out of the archives in the form of pictures like this: team and individual photos. And I recall my grandmother Isabel kept his tennis trophy on a shelf as well.
Digging in a little deeper, and reading newspaper profiles on Charlie, made it clear. He was, in fact, a gifted athlete.
At Kingfisher Academy and College, Charlie proved a natural athlete, playing nearly any sport on offer, and helping establish teams and competition at his school and college.
Years later, Charlie reflected: “‘I liked football a lot,’ he confided as he puffed hard at his pipe, sitting at his desk on the fifth floor of the palatial new interstate commerce commission building. ‘You see, I went to school about seven years, starting in the academy and finishing in the college. I was a sort of ringer on the Kingfisher team for a while—they let me play while I was still in the academy. Of course,’ he smiled ‘they didn’t pay much attention to the technicalities in those days. Whoever got together the best team won and that was that.'” 1)The Daily Oklahoman, February 16, 1936.
Charlie’s old classmate Ray Lange, himself a gifted athlete, wrote him in 1945: “I shall never forget the time when you carried the ball for seven straight downs for the last twenty-five yards for a touchdown against Oklahoma at Norman in one of my early years on the team. That exploit brought you to the nearest to complete exhaustion I ever saw you. I have used that incident many times as an illustration of the combination of ability and ‘guts.’” 2)Letter from Kingfisher College and Rhodes Scholarship classmate Ray Lange to Charles D. Mahaffie, July 6, 1945.
At St. Johns Oxford, when he was a Rhodes Scholar, he again played multiple sports.
Multiple newspaper profiles of Charles from later years note his still-athletic physique. This may be hyperbolic. He carried a lot more weight by middle age, and wouldn’t have claimed still to be an athlete. But he remained active. One profile notes that “his favorite pastime is hiking with his ten-year-old son, Charles D. Jr., over the trails through the parks and nearby rolling hills.” 3)Un-sourced clipping from 1941
This is one of a series of posts that explore the life of Charles D. Mahaffie, Sr. through family memories and items from a family archive. Charles was the author’s grandfather. He left a remarkable collection of papers, photos, and mementos which offer a lens through which to explore his life and legacies. For the full collection, click here.
References
Wouldn’t it have been cool to be a fly on the shoulder of one of them during those long walks on the C&O Canal? What do you suppose they talked about? What wisdom did he have and give to Charles Jr.? I would’ve like to have asked Dad that question.
That would be wonderful. I am hoping at least some sense of their father/son relationship comes through as I work through some more of what we have, though Charles Senior doesn’t write much of a personal nature in his correspondance