Mel Olix was talented enough to play to play either professional baseball or football, in which he was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1950.
However, the 1946 Ashtabula High School and 1950 Miami University graduate — where he was a championship quarterback at both stops — chose a different path.
His journey took him to the University of Cincinnati for medical school, then the Air Force as a flight surgeon and finally to Ohio State University, where he finished his residency and then served as the football team’s orthopedic surgeon from 1957 through 1995.
Inducted into the Miami Hall of Fame in 1971, the Ashtabula High School Hall of Fame in 2000 and his alma mater’s first inductee into the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame in the inaugural Class of 2004, Olix’s journey has sadly come to an end.
Olix died last Thursday at the Forum in Columbus.
He was 84.
Gene Gephart, also a member of not only the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame (Class of 2008) but also the Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame (Class of 2003), was next in line at quarterback at Ashtabula High School when Olix moved on to the collegiate level at Miami.
“Mel was a player I always followed,” Gephart, a 1949 AHS graduate, said. “As a junior-high student, I followed everything Mel did. He was my role model.
“I followed what he did at quarterback. He was an outstanding passer, with a very good arm, and he was big for his day. He could throw the ball long or short.
“As a basketball player, he was one of the first players I knew who was allowed to shoot one-handed, so I followed his example.”
Another Ashtabula County Football Hall of Famer, Tony Chiacchiero (Class of 2005), also had high praise for Olix.
“Mel was a great friend to a lot of people,” the former standout player and coach at Ashtabula said. “He related well to people. We lived in the same neighborhood and went through school together.
“I’d say he was a man’s man.”
Childhood friend Sam Orlando echoed many of Chiachierro thoughts.
“He was a great leader with a lot of charisma,” he said. “He (had) a loving, compassionate aura about him. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you. He was a great leader on the football field, on the basketball court and in track.
“He was a very talented individual. He taught me son (Rich) in medial school. My son’s a doctor and performed cataract surgery on (Olix) a few years ago. Mel taught him and a lot of other surgeons.
“Mel helped a lot of people, undetected. He excelled in everything he did.”
Another childhood friend, longtime county football coach Frank Farello, couldn’t agree more.
“Mel and his family were always great people,” he said. “Mel was an honor student and a great athlete in high school who went on to college at Miami. He was in the top 10 of his graduating class.
“Mel always had integrity and a good moral compass.”
Farello said Olix’s personality drew people to him, even as a teenager.
“Everyone liked him, his classmates and adults,” he said. “We went everywhere together. We were real tight. He was very popular, humble but not boastful or anything like that.
“He was a great guy.”
Olix had a habit of being surrounded by greatness.
At Ashtabula, he played football for Hall of Fame coach George “Chic” Guarnieri, who was inducted in the inaugural class with Olix in 2004.
At Miami, he began his playing career for Hall of Fame coach Sid Gillman, then playing his senior season under the direction of yet another Hall of Fame coach, Woody Hayes. While there, he was joined on the Redskins (now known as the Redhawks) by two more eventual Hall of Famers, former Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian and former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler.
Even Olix had his heroes.
“I had a tremendous example in my cousin, Don Dunick, who was a big tight end,” he told the late Karl Pearson, himself also a member of both county hall of fames, in an interview in 2004. “Bill Ritter grew up a few houses away from me and spent a lot of time at our house because his father had died. He was like another brother to me.
“Al Camplese was another one. And there was Ray Peet. He was the only person I’ve ever seen who could throw a baseball from one end of a football field to the other. And Ara was like my biggest brother. He’s probably the greatest field general there’s ever been.”
But Olix always said the biggest inspiration in his life was his wife, Mary Jean, who he married in 1951. The couple, who made two trips around the world together, had four children and eight grandchildren.
“It’s been a wonderful, blessed life and Mary Jean is without question the best part of me,” he said in 2004. “I couldn’t ask for a better partner to walk hand-in-hand through life with.”
Born April 11, 1928 in Ashtabula, Mel Olix is survived by his wife of 60 years, Mary Jean.
He is also survived by children, Marianne and Dale Williams of Upper Arlington, Peggy and Barney Benkelman of Helena, Mont., Gary Olix of Upper Arlington and Tom and Susan Olix of Upper Arlington; niece, Kathy Davis O’Connell of Harpersfield; grandchildren, Keely Williams of New Orleans, Dale Williams III of Charlotte, N.C., Charles Williams of New Orleans, Neil Benkelman of Portland, Ore., Grant Benkelman of Helena, Louise Benkelman of Helena and Dan Olix and Jenny Olix, both of Upper Arlington.
His family asks that contributions be made in Mel’s honor to the Parkinson’s Foundation or charity of your choice.
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