A Game Plan

Solomon Oliver Jr. ’69, U.S. District Judge

I came to know Ted Williams,my mentor and friend for forty years, shortly after I transferred to Wooster in 1966 from Miles College, a historically black college in Birmingham, Alabama. I vividly remember him that first year coming to my room in then brand-new Armington Hall to help try to seal out the winter air that was coming in unabated around the windows.

Though I did not take a course from him that year or ever, I began to stop by his office to get his feedback. Ted often talked about having “a game plan.” He helped me with my academic game plan, helping me figure out what courses and/or professors to take. He counseled me on other matters, including issues related to my draft status. Some of Ted’s advice was dispensed while we walked around the block or as he walked to and from meetings. When applying to law school, I asked him to serve as one of my references, and he did. I felt that he knew my capabilities and could probably express them as well or better than anyone else.

The presence of Ted Williams as an African American tenured professor at the College was of great value in my being able to envision success at the College and beyond. He was a living example of what was possible if I worked hard and was given the opportunity. Other African American alumni felt the same way. One such alum, also a lawyer, said to me on hearing of Ted’s death: “He was our Jackie Robinson.” Because of what he meant to black alumni and to the College as a whole, the Black Alumni Council proudly established an endowed scholarship in his honor several years ago.

After finishing law school, I returned to Wooster to teach in the political science department from 1972 to 1975. Ted and I became running buddies, out in rain, shine, sleet, or snow. Though we had some regular routes, Ted would vary them depending on, for example, if he wanted to stop by the baseball field to see how the team was doing or at the apartment of retired coach Mose Hole, to see how he was. On our jogs, we talked about many things, including sports and politics, and strategized about how the Wooster tradition of excellence could be extended to an even more racially and ethnically diverse student body and faculty.

As a College faculty member, I saw more clearly how Ted loved helping students and how gifted he was at it. He embraced the philosophy that all students were capable of substantial intellectual growth and fulfillment under the right circumstances — if both the students and the professors did their jobs. Ted had an intuitive sense of how to motivate students. One might require a gentle nudge, another a big push, and yet another, kind words of encouragement.

Comments posted on the College Web site by former students, some chemistry majors and some not, attest to Ted’s special skill.One former student said of him, “He was the first professor to take my mind seriously, to encourage its development with much supplemental reading and to respond when any crisis affected my heart, and I was not even a chemistry major.” A former I.S. advisee of Ted’s said, “[w]hen it came to late fall and I had limited progress to report (due to a little slacking), Ted asked that we go for ice cream and a little walk. During this walk, he uttered a phrase that I have uttered many times since, ‘It takes a long time to build a tradition of excellence but only a short time to destroy one’. Needless to say, I spent some of my Christmas break in the lab.” Another alum, who never took a science class, stated: “He always had a smile or a kind word after an athletic defeat or a cheer after a victory. Dr.Williams made me feel as if I were important.”

Ted treated all persons with dignity and respect, as if they were important — he believed that. He made friends with people across the campus and in town: in food service, buildings and grounds, at Coccia House and the video store. He was especially good at recruiting students. Ted was Wooster’s greatest ambassador; his advice and caring came with no strings attached.

Ted always asked, “What is the take home message?” So what is the message that Ted would leave with us? It might be wrapped up in another of his sayings, “Don’t throw away your ax, you’re never out of the woods.” In other words, we should never rest on our laurels. As long as we are alive, we must be prepared to fight for those things in which we believe. Ted did just that, and you know what? He enjoyed the battle.