They gathered on June 13, 2026, as they have every few years over the past 55, in their hometown of Orangeburg, South Carolina. The boys of Orangeburg-Wilkinson High’s 1971 Class AAAA State Football Championship team – now gray-haired fathers and grandfathers – showed up, some two-dozen strong, to relive those long-ago glory days.
Indeed, that was a season to remember and cherish for those who lived it, and those who have passed on. It was a season when a troubled community rallied around a football team that, in the words of Mike O’Cain, that year’s quarterback, “helped bring Orangeburg together.”
If you’ve seen the movie “Remember the Titans,” based on a Virginia high school’s experience, you know the plot. Two high schools – one previously all-white, the other previously all-Black – merged in an era of court-ordered integration into one. Teenage players of both races overcame years of enforced separation, found a common cause via an inspiring coach, and won a championship that electrified and united the town.
The movie is the stuff of pure Hollywood. Orangeburg’s reality was something greater.
In February 1968, state troopers and National Guardsmen had fired on students from the city’s historically Black South Carolina State College, who were protesting a segregated bowling alley. Three students died in what became known as the Orangeburg Massacre. The town’s self-image of peaceful coexistence between the races was shaken; Blacks and whites alike were fearful of what might happen next.
Three years later, O-W in its first year of existence rolled to a 13-0 season. Players from the former Orangeburg and Wilkinson high schools, guided by a future Hall of Fame coach in the late Dick Sheridan, became hometown heroes to fans white and Black. Slowly, divisions between the races began to mend. The job is never done, but that season was a start.
O’Cain remembers that time through the eyes of a youngster. “By the time the schools merged, that (Massacre) was three years behind us; I was in the eighth grade in 1968,” O’Cain said. “In 1971, we all just wanted to play football.
“But in hindsight, there’s no doubt in my mind” football success played a role in the healing process. “There seemed to be problems at other high schools that were merging, but we didn’t have any that season. Now, if we hadn’t had our success, there might’ve been issues.”
This year’s reunion at a hunting lodge near Orangeburg owned by the O’Cain family was missing Sheridan, who died three years ago at 81. But it still brought together the usual collection of former players – and one not so usual. Anthony Johnson, a former offensive lineman, in 1971 was one of two senior co-captains from Wilkinson High, along with back Stafford Brown; O’Cain was one of two OHS co-captains along with linebacker Doug Holstead.
In their first meeting in more than half a century, O’Cain and Johnson, now in their 70s, smiled broadly when they greeted each other. This was Johnson’s first return to Orangeburg since a 50th class reunion – he lives in San Antonio, Texas – but one he said was long overdue.
“I haven’t kept up with people in Orangeburg, but my sister has,” he said. When Johnson learned about this year’s football gathering, he said, “As a former captain, I felt obligated to be here.”
The key to 1971, both players say, was Sheridan and his staff (two surviving coaches, Tommy Witt and Bob Taylor, were at the gathering). Formerly a basketball coach at Columbia’s Eau Claire High, Sheridan’s three seasons at OHS and O-W (1969-71) set him on a path to success at Furman and N.C. State. Former O-W players still hold him in almost reverence and for years would attend games at N.C. State as the coach’s guests.
O’Cain credits Sheridan mostly with helping bring the two schools’ players together in 1971. “The first day of practice, he walked into a classroom where we were meeting, and the Wilkinson kids were sitting in half the room, the Orangeburg kids in the other half,” O’Cain said. “(Sheridan’s) first words were ‘integrate.’
“That’s all he said, and he walked out. His thing was, we weren’t going to be two teams, but one.”
While O’Cain spent a career in college coaching, including succeeding Sheridan at N.C. State in 1993, Johnson earned a post-high school berth at the U.S. Air Force Academy, was commissioned an officer in 1976 and spent 30 years on active duty and more as a civilian employee before retirement. The two men lived different lives, especially away from football.
“My dad taught ROTC at S.C. State,” Johnson said, “and we lived across the street from the basketball arena” – the Smith-Hammond-Middleton Center, named for the three students killed in 1968. “I was reminded about that tragedy every day.
“It was like you wanted to keep your head on a swivel. In the (Black) community, people were aware of it. There was a general feeling of ‘watch yourself.’ People were cautious, making sure not to give anyone a reason to react negatively.”
In 1970, while OHS was 10-1 and narrowly missed the state playoffs, Wilkinson went 2-6-1. That season, in the only meeting between the two schools, the Indians crushed the Wolverines, 34-6. Rather than create friction, though, Johnson said that loss helped motivate Wilkinson’s players for the 1971 season.
“I think people thought we weren’t bringing much to the table – but Wilkinson had won a state title (in the Black schools league) in 1969,” he said. “I’d like to think a lot of our motivation was, we didn’t want fingers pointed at us if things went bad. We were hungry; we wanted to do well and make things work” for their new team.
For the OHS players, a controversial loss in 1970 to rival Lower Richland was the motivation. “We’d just missed the playoffs, and our focus was on winning a state title,” O’Cain said. “To get to that game, that was on our minds.” Once the new teammates settled on team colors – orange from OHS, maroon from Wilkinson – and a mascot (UCLA’s 1960s basketball success sparked the adoption of Bruins), the championship became every player’s focus.
O-W went 10-0 in the regular season, winning close games (12-7 over A.C. Flora and a satisfying 17-14 “revenge” win over Lower Richland) and blowouts, twice rolling up 60-plus points. In the Class AAAA playoffs, the Bruins defeated Summerville and Conway before facing Union High for the title. Tied after regulation at 13-13, the game would be decided by “penetration”; whichever team drove closest to its opponent’s end zone would win.
O’Cain led O-W’s offense to the Union 10 before a fumble; now it was the Yellow Jackets’ turn. “They threw a pass to Billy Wingo, who later played at Clemson,” O’Cain remembered. “He caught it at midfield, we hit him (and he fumbled), and we recovered it to win the game.”
The ball was recovered by Dale Dudley, a white defender and former OHS player. The fumble-causing hit came from Jesse Haigler, a former Wilkinson star. It was perfect.
Johnson remembers most a feeling of satisfaction that night. “Starting the season, it’s not like a lot of people predicted we’d do it,” he said. “Afterward, he recalled brutal two-a-day practices demanded by Sheridan and his staff, which made the victory all the sweeter.
“I remember carrying the trophy around the field after the game,” he said. “The (Orangeburg newspaper) Times & Democrat had a photo of hands holding it up, and my hands were in that photo.”
Johnson chuckled. “My kids (ages 35, 32 and 21) laugh at me because I used an orange marker and circled my arm in the picture.”
For the city of Orangeburg, the 1971 State Championship was like a deep, invigorating breath of relief. For players from two schools who became part of one community, it was a triumph of will – one that, 55 years later, still resonates in 70-something-year-old minds and hearts.