ABILENE -- The old guard came home to huddle one last time around the one they called Wolf. To do for him, once and for all, what he'd never done for himself.
Jerry "Wolfie" Wilson ('71) died April 25 at the age of 69 after a brief battle with cancer. His nickname came from Ron Willingham ('54), Â whose work in leadership development with the ACU football team, among other contributions, earned him induction into the ACU Sports Hall of Fame last year. In a session with players in 1968, he asked each to introduce himself. He thought Wilson said "Wolf." The moniker stuck. And so did Wilson.
His resume says he played football at Abilene Christian University for
Wally Bullington ('53) from 1968-70 then became an assistant for him and five other ACU head coaches in three different decades. And that he was also the Wildcats' head baseball coach from 1973-75 and coached football at a handful of high schools across West Texas.
But it doesn't explain what brought, by the dozen, men he had led into battle on gridirons and diamonds for nearly 30 years and across multiple generations back to Abilene this week to say goodbye through tears. To understand that, you might have to get in the car for a 1,200-mile round trip from Abilene to Greenville, Miss., the very voyage Wilson made each Thanksgiving and Christmas during the mid-1970s to make sure the Montgomery boys were home for the holidays.
"Those drives back and forth were special to me," says older brother Wilbert ('77), whose 76 touchdowns made him ACU's career leading scorer. "I think about those drives a lot, especially now when I'm taking my kids different places. I think about Jerry driving me and [younger brother] Cle ('78) up and down the road and leaving his family behind. The time he gave up to make sure that we were happy tells you everything you need to know about Jerry Wilson."
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