Charlie 'Choo Choo' Justice

Editor's note: This is part 1 of a two-part column.

When I wrote about Dub Hord several weeks ago, I mentioned he was a teammate of Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice at Carolina in the late 1940s.
I realized at the time I had not written about Justice and wondered how that could be considering his status among not only our state's sports heroes but our famous citizens also.
To me, Charlie has no equal as a sports legend in my lifetime. Only Billy Graham would surpass him in the best known category. I'm sure this is not true in younger generations.
Charlie was an all-around good athlete at Asheville High just before World War II, but it was football that gave him regional, state and national stardom at an early age. He actually played football with the nation's best players — professional and college — right out of high school while still in his teens.
This was made possible by the war and the athletic program the Armed Forces put in place to entertain the troops.
Justice was drafted into the Navy in 1943 and was sent to Bainbridge, Md., Naval Training Station after boot camp to become a member of its great football team. He was the only high school boy to be chosen and he played against the best teams in the country for three years.
His greatest days were at the University of North Carolina where he became a national celebrity, appearing on most of the country's top magazine covers and regularly on news clips at the movies in the days before television. Over 200 schools offered him a scholarship.
Charlie finished out his career with the Washington Redskins before returning to our state and entering the business world.
In the pre-war days, eligibility requirements were very lax and Asheville High had players from other western North Carolina towns.
The school's 1941 and 1942 teams were undefeated and were considered among the best in the country. The team only played four other schools from North Carolina and two of those were colleges. The team took on large schools from Knoxville, Tenn., Atlanta, Ga., Columbia, S.C., and Miami, Fla.
In 1942, Asheville scored 441 points to the opposition's six and the closest game was a 22-0 victory over powerhouse Kingsport, Tenn. As a tailback in the single-wing offense, Justice averaged 265 yards rushing while playing a little over half a game, getting 18 yards per carry. He was also the team's top passer and averaged nearly 43 yards on 19 punts.
At Bainbridge, Justice made the team as a punter. In a scrimmage with the Washington Redskins, he convinced the coach to let him play. He gained 45 yards on three running plays, intercepted a pass and made two tackles.
He was soon starting in the team's T-formation backfield. Here, you had a 19-year-old, 155-pound boy just out of high school playing against seasoned pros and experienced college stars. With Justice as the leading rusher, the team went undefeated that first season.
When one of the sailors in the stands yelled that Charlie "ran like a run-away choo choo," a Baltimore sports writer used the tag the next day in the newspaper and the name stuck.
The 1944 Bainbridge team went undefeated in 10 games against the nation's best college and service teams. Justice averaged more than 12 yards a carry and had 21 touchdowns in his two years there.
He was selected to the All-Service Team. Teammates included Otto Graham, Charlie Trippi, Bill Dudley and Glen Dobbs.
The war ended before the 1945 season and Charlie was sent to Hawaii to play for the Navy All Stars in a round-robin tournament with the other service branches.
He found himself in the barracks with Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, who were there for the baseball tournament.
When the football season ended, he was sent back to the states to be discharged and it wasn't long until he made his way to Asheville, where his wife, Sarah, was waiting for him. He married his high school sweetheart his first year in the Navy and together they pored over the 200 college scholarship offers in deciding where to spend their next four years.
Next week is Part 2: UNC and the Washington Redskins.

Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-1966, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.