{"id":7308,"date":"1999-08-09T08:02:01","date_gmt":"1999-08-09T08:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/?p=7308"},"modified":"2013-03-21T11:29:07","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T11:29:07","slug":"charley-l-johnny-ecker-56-roll-928","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/charley-l-johnny-ecker-56-roll-928\/","title":{"rendered":"Charley L. \u201cJohnny\u201d Ecker \u201956, Roll #928"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dan Rich \u201855<\/p>\n

Charley grew up along the banks of the Ohio River at Gallipolis. As GalliaAcademy high School. he was an outstanding football player and as he puts it. \u201ctried to live life to the fullest!” When the time came to select a college, he was steered in the direction OWU by his classmate, james \u00a0lee dailey \u201956, who told him: \u201ccharley, why don\u2019t you come with me to Ohio wesleyan and we\u2019ll play football together!\u201d That\u2019s all it took to bring charley to the OWU campus in the fall of 1952. other beta brothers from galliplios already on the seene include Keith \u201cBuck\u201d Thomas \u201954, and the late tom D. Halliday \u201955. Danny evens also pledged beta, but dropped out of college to get married.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Charley\u2019s OWU football career was short-lived. Early in his junior varsity season, he suffered a serious knee injury which required surgery and a year\u2019s rehabilitations.<\/p>\n

However, he wants on the become one of the\u00a0 most outstanding intramural football players in the long and illustrious history of theta chapter! He remembers playing with such \u201cstars\u201d as bill Metzel, C.D. simposon, buzzy Christiansen john fundeburg, larry lindere, tom tatham, jim Davies, ken \u201cZeke\u201d Rowly, tommy turco, sam pardoe and yours truly. Charley say that our team (the \u201cterror of the gridiron\u201d) was better organized and better coached than some of the varsity teams at OWU!<\/p>\n

While an undergraduate, charley had a double major in history and in political science. But his true love was music, in which he had a minor; he did extensive training under The capable eye of the late Professor Gordon<\/p>\n

Almstead. Under his tutelage Charley mastered many of the Arias from the world’s great operas. hiss musical ski1l also found their way in to ROTC band were he played the baritone horn.<\/p>\n

As Charley reflected on beta life, his predominant memory was, you guessed it, music! He loved the singing which was so characteristic of our Fraternity during that era. ‘Singing in the dear ol\u2019 hall” after dinner each night, participating in the interfraternity singing contests in gray chapel, singing in the serenades at the women\u2019s dorms\u2026charley loved every minute of it!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charley, who was affectionately known as “Hippo,” had many closed friend in the Chapter: “Cousin Jack” Matthews \u201954,”T Square (Tom Tatham ‘5.0, “Thu Toad” (the late Horner Clark ‘ 55), and yogi’s truly ’55 (then known as “deacon\u201d or ”the Elf\u201d). \u00a0\u00a0Immediately following graduation, Charley served ‘two year in the U.S. Army. He was stationed at Ft. Knox, Ky., where he taught radio code. After receiving his honorable discharge he entered the law school at OhioState, but soon dropped our, realizing that it was not for him. he then studied real estate at OSU and became licensed broker, practicing in gallipolis for some years.<\/p>\n

It was at this time that charley experienced a me true \u201ccalling\u201d to the world of coaching, after training at Ohio University, he become assistant football coach at his alma mater, Gallia academy high school, and latter head football coach. One of his teams had the singular honor of going undefeated for the season.<\/p>\n

After coaching for seven year at Gallia, Clark).moved to the nearby university of Rio Grande, where he coached basketball for three years. One of his teams at URC won the Middle Ohio Conference Championship.<\/p>\n

A devoted Presbyterian, Charley has always been involved in the life of his own church. First Presbyterian of Gallipolis. He has\u00a0sung in the choir and also done extensive \u00a0solo appearances in the Church as well as the community Lions Club, Rotary.. Kiwanis, etc.<\/p>\n

In February of this year Charley was honored by die Black History Committee of Gallipolis as a man who had made his community better. Referred \u00a0to as a ‘local coaching legend; he was recognized for this concern for the individual, and his willingness to work with others. ”<\/p>\n

After \u00a0this tribute. Charley was presented with an honorary plaque which read: “In recognition of your worthy service in the areas of education and athletic. Service Award presented to Charles L Ecker, feb 27, 1999, by the Black History Committee\u201d<\/p>\n

In accepting, Charley shared a childhood desire to build bridges (reminiscent of Beta lore!), but once he realized the math and science skills needed, that dream stopped. “I build bridges for people, and you all have made me what I am today. You’ve made it a pleasure to coach.<\/p>\n

One of letters of commendation Charley received in connection with this honor was from Tom Spencer, AAA \u00a0Manager, Chicago ‘White Sox, Tucson, Ariz\u201e a man coached by Charley in his early years, Notable excerpts follow: “Eck proved throughout his coaching endeavors that he could use the talent he was given and get the best \u00a0results from it\u2026It was always easy to give ‘Eck’ that ‘extra effort \u00a0because he would always give his extra effort for \u00a0us. His concern\u00a0 for us individually .set him aside from lot Of others in the coaching field. The thing for me, That allowed him to excel an coaching,, was that he was willing to \u2018 outwork’ the other coaches he would attend coaching clinics on the local, State and national levels. ‘Eck’ always wanted to find the information from the best college and professional\u00a0 coaches in the business. I recall him taking me \u00a0to clinics at his own expense at Ohio University .Ohio State and Miami, Fla., to expose me to the best coaching minds and techniques available. I \u00a0am still benefiting\u00a0 from those experiences today in my own coaching\u2026 I\u2019ve never met anyone with a greater love of sports than ‘Eck? As he coached me in my early years, he instilled that same love Of Sports in me. It\u2019s with pride that I speak about Eck .a nun who was such \u00a0an influence on my athletic career”<\/p>\n

\"Charley<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dan Rich \u201855 Charley grew up along the banks of the Ohio River at Gallipolis. As GalliaAcademy high School. he was an outstanding football player and as he puts it. \u201ctried to live life to the fullest!” When the time came to select a college, he was steered in the direction OWU by his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-7308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personality-profiles","category-theta-data","tag-august-1999-theta-data","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7308"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7313,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7308\/revisions\/7313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetachapterbtp.org\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}