Years ago, Charlie Flowers was showing me a photo of the 1959 Ole Miss football team. He was pointing to each player, face by face, row by row.
There were 43 players in the photo. Forty-two, Charlie said, graduated.
“Bank president, CEO of his company, successful lawyer,” Charlie said.
“Athletic director, mayor, Chancellor,” he continued.
“Head football coach, Major League baseball player, insurance executive, another mayor,” he kept going and going.
Finally, he finished. “There will never be another team like it,” Flowers said.
All too many people love to talk about themselves. Charlie Flowers loved to talk about his team.
Flowers, who died Sunday night in his sleep, was the best player and unquestioned leader of the greatest team in Mississippi football history, the 1959 Ole Miss Rebels.
Says Robert Khayat, Flowers’ close friend and teammate, “Everybody on that 1959 team would tell you that Charlie Flowers was our leader. We loved him, we admired him, we respected him, we followed him.”
That Ole Miss team out-scored opponents 350-21. Flowers, the fullback, was a consensus All American and finished fifth in Heisman Trophy voting.
“Charlie ran like a Clydesdale,” Khayat said. “He pumped those knees up high. He was a nightmare to tackle in the open field. He made yards when there was no yards to make. He could kick, he could run, he could catch, he could throw.”
But this will tell you much about Charlie Flowers. Ask him about all the yardage he gained and touchdowns he scored, and he’d tell you, “Our line was so good, my sister could have played fullback on that team.”
In 1956, when Flowers came to Ole Miss from Mariana, Ark., broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, hazing was the norm for freshmen football players. Flowers, who could have gone anywhere to play football, couldn’t see the point of it. Why recruit all the best players in the South and then abuse them, he surmised.
“Nobody touches me,” he declared.
And nobody did.
In John Vaught’s offense, fullback was a most critical position. On rollout pass plays, the fullback had to block the end. Not only did the fullback run for power, he was often called on to catch the ball out of the backfield. And, in those days of one-platoon football, he also played linebacker. Charlie Flowers excelled at all.
But if you ask Khayat what he will remember most about his cherished friend, he will tell you about two other facets of Flowers:
- “Charlie was truly a scholar. He was an intellectual. He was a voracious reader. He loved history and he knew a lot about the history of the world. He was always the smartest guy in the room.”
- “I have seen a lot of marriages in my time, but never one to equal Charlie and his wife, Sharon. It was a lifetime love story. They truly treasured one another. Of all the marriages I know anything about, theirs was the one: Charlie and Sharon.”
Charlie Flowers wasn’t perfect. His teammates used to razz him about the way he dressed. He just didn’t care. Khayat tells about the time Flowers was about to fly to New York to appear on national TV as a Look Magazine All American.
“Charlie was packing,” Khayat said. “He took an old rumpled gray suit off the floor of his closet and shook the dust off of it. He packed his black ROTC tie and his black ROTC shoes. Somebody gave him some black socks, but he needed a white shirt. Somebody went and got him a white dress shirt.
“Charlie tried it on, then took it off. He got some scissors and cut the sleeves off. He couldn’t stand the way the sleeves felt restricted so he just cut ’em off. They were going to be under his coat anyway, he said. That was Charlie.”
Flowers was 77 when he died. He and Sharon lived in Atlanta but kept a condo in Oxford, so he had a place to entertain his beloved teammates.
Rick Cleveland is executive director of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. He can be reached at rcleveland@msfame.com.
