Jim Oddo helped put two football programs on the map.
While he will always be remembered to some for building Charlotte Catholic High School into a North Carolina football prep powerhouse, he will also forever hold a special spot at NC State for being a captain on the 1957 Wolfpack team, the first to ever win the Atlantic Coast Conference championship.
There were two flashier players on that Earle Edwards-coached team, tailbacks Dick Christy and Dick Hunter, but all the offensive action that year started with Oddo, a senior center from Wilmington, Delaware, who also played on the defensive line.
Oddo, who died in his adoptive hometown of Matthews on March 31 at the age of 85, is one of two members of that team to become a legendary North Carolina high school coach.
Bob Paroli set his roots in Wilson and Fayetteville and won more than 400 games, while Oddo settled in Charlotte and won more than 350. Combined, they won four state titles in their respective divisions.
Oddo was one of the many players that Edwards, a product of Pennsylvania's steel mills, brought South to play for the Wolfpack. Though he was officially from the other side of the state line, Oddo was part of the Edwards’ Northern migration that brought players like Christy, Hunter, Rosie and Chuck Amato, Dick D’Angelis and a multitude of others from the Keystone State.
When the Wolfpack played at Penn State in 1956, it had more players from that area than the Nittany Lions.
Oddo had a big impact on the Wolfpack’s championship season. In perhaps the biggest game of the year and one of the most important in school history, State fell behind Duke by two touchdowns in the first quarter. The Pack, which hadn't beaten Duke in 11 years, fought its way back to a 14-14 tie, thanks to a pair of touchdowns by Christy. The game-tying touchdown was set up by Oddo’s 53-yard interception return.
The Pack went on to win its first ACC title with a 29-26 victory over South Carolina in the final game of the season to qualify for the Orange Bowl, a trip it was unable to make because of an all-sport NCAA probation enforced on Everett Case’s basketball team. Oddo was named first-team All-ACC following the season.
He was also named Delaware’s Athlete of the Year in 1957 and was inducted into the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
After serving as an assistance in Fort Pierce, Florida, and East Mecklenburg in Charlotte, Oddo took over at Charlotte Cathloic in 1973 and coached there until his retirement in 2014, winning state titles in 1977, 2004 and 2005.
He made 30 state playoff appearances in his 41 seasons, recorded winning records in his last 14 seasons and made four consecutive trips to the North Carolina Western Regional championship game. Remarkably, he was 52-7 in his final four seasons.
One of his players, former Wolfpack defensive back Derrick Taylor, made it to the NFL to play for the New Orleans Saints, while many others, including former North Carolina running back Elijah Hood, went on to play college football and other sports.
Oddo was remembered Tuesday with a physically distanced, mask-mandatory memorial service on the Keffer Stadium field at Charlotte Catholic that bears his name. The family requests that memorials be made in memory of Oddo to Holy Angels in Belmont, North Carolina, or to one of these charities of their choice.
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
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