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Steve Wadiak: The Heartbreak Kid

Steve Wadiak

Steve Wadiak was South Carolina's first sports idol. His promising future was tragically cut short, though, when the premonition he had that he would die young came true.

Special to The State

Written by RON MORRIS

rmorris@thestate.com
Posted on 11.02.08
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Anna Wadiak walked the midway at the annual South Carolina State Fair as proud a mother as you ever have seen. She was in Columbia that chilly October evening to see her son play football for the first time. Earlier in the week, Anna rode the train south from Chicago along with her daughter Jeanette Korlin and Jeanette’s husband, Vern.

The trio strolled a couple of steps behind Steve Wadiak that night. By the fall of 1951, Wadiak was as recognizable around Columbia, and really throughout the state of South Carolina, as Gov. James Byrnes. Wadiak’s presence just about anywhere in the state, and particularly at the State Fair, elicited stares and finger-pointing from his adoring fans.

“There goes ‘Th’ Cadillac’,” fans young and old said.

During his four-year football career at USC, Wadiak earned several nicknames, but the one that stuck with fans was “Th’ Cadillac.” It even spawned a cheer that reverberated through old Carolina Stadium when Wadiak carried the ball from his left halfback position:

Rickety Rack

Rickety Rack

Give the ball to Wadiak

Rickety Rack

Rickety Rack

Rex Enright wants a Cadillac

The State Fair crowd was eager to pat Wadiak on the back that night, two days before the annual Big Thursday game against Clemson. Fans sought autographs as he meandered through the crowd, a few folks even asking his mother to sign scraps of paper. Anna reluctantly obliged as she wore the garnet-colored sweater Steve purchased for her upon her arrival in Columbia.

At one point that night, Wadiak pulled his brother-in-law aside and the two moved out of earshot of onlookers and, more specifically, away from the star player’s mother and sister.

“I don’t know that pro football is going to work out for me,” Wadiak told Vern. “I’ve had a premonition. I’m soon to die. Someone in the family should know I have drawn a will.”

Korlin does not recall the exact words of his brother-in-law. But there was no mistaking the eerie sensation that overwhelmed him. Fifty-six years later, it still chills him.

Less than five months later, Wadiak was dead, killed in a car crash around daybreak on March 9, 1952, the only one of six passengers in a 1950 Buick to lose his life when the car sped at about 90 mph through a hairpin turn and flipped five or six times some seven miles north of Aiken.

Wadiak’s death shook Columbia. He left a legacy as USC’s first mega-star athlete, a standout like no other before him on the football field and a matinee idol like no one before or since.

Wadiak left enough mystery surrounding him and his death to make his story as intriguing today as it was more than a half-century ago. You see, Wadiak died in an era when questions generally went unanswered. Family, fans and the media were not as inquisitive as they are today. He died, OK? Leave it at that.

What did it really matter that Wadiak’s background was virtually unknown when he stepped off a train in Columbia in February 1948? What did it matter that he believed his days on earth were numbered, and that at age 25 he sought an attorney to write a will, one he carried in his wallet? How important was it that Wadiak left a substantial amount of cash in his will for his lover, the one partially responsible for him getting booted out of school his junior year? Who really cared that he reneged on a scheduled trip to Raleigh on the weekend of his death, opting instead to attend a party in Augusta? And do we need to know that Wadiak — at the last minute — elected to change cars for the return trip to Columbia?

By locating the only surviving member of Wadiak’s family, several of his USC teammates and a few remaining friends, and by digging up documentation of his life and death, we now can begin to reveal what has for so long gone unanswered. In doing so, we can solidify Wadiak’s legacy for those who knew him and met him, and we can better explain it to current football fans who only know Wadiak as the long-ago USC player whose No. 37 jersey is retired by the school.

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Video: See Wadiak in action (story continues below)

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Since Pat Vella hailed from Rockford, Ill., a short drive from Steve Wadiak’s hometown in Chicago’s Southside, coach Rex Enright sent him to greet his new South Carolina teammate at the old Southern Railways Station on Feb. 13, 1948.

Vella immediately was struck by Wadiak, who — when he gave Vella a firm handshake, looked him square in the eye and repeated his name — might as well have signed a pact to everlasting friendship. The two walked the hill up Main Street to campus, Wadiak carrying a small tote bag, and went to Enright’s office.

Wadiak found his way to Columbia on the recommendation of Bill Milner, a USC player under Enright in 1941 and ’42. Milner was playing for the Chicago Bears when he attended the Chicago city parks championship game of 1947 and noticed Wadiak.

Every Chicago neighborhood fielded a team back then, and to say it was a brand of pick-up football was an injustice to the highly organized league. Teams wore uniforms, and entire sections of the city attended games in support of their respective teams. Wadiak played for the Roseland Mustangs for one season after his two-year stint in the Navy.

Operating at left halfback, Wadiak ran for touchdowns covering 87, 35 and 40 yards in Roseland’s 21-0 championship victory. Milner was impressed and arranged a meeting with Enright that winter in Chicago. Enright took a liking to the young man and brought Wadiak to Columbia having never seen him play football.

The NCAA allowed just about anything in those days, including tryouts. So Enright issued Wadiak a pair of khaki practice pants, a red jersey, shoulder pads and cleats. A full-scale, contact tryout came next.

It took place at Melton Field on the USC campus, a vast field that served as the team’s practice area and the site of area high school games. It was located where the Russell House now stands.

Vella and Red Wilson conducted most of the tryouts for Enright, at least the pass-throwing and receiving. A few linemen were corralled that day to provide contact when handoffs were made to Wadiak.

Vella, Wilson and Enright could not believe what they saw. The 22-year-old Wadiak was listed at 5-foot-9, yet he was that tall only in shoes with thick lifts. He packed 197 pounds on his stocky frame. His thighs were large enough to require tailor-made slacks. His shoulders and arms were massive, and he wore a size-18 collar. When he showered, Vella said he saw Charles Atlas for the first time.

Wadiak was an enigma, the product of a strenuous fitness regimen that was extraordinary at a time when weight-lifting and long-distance running were not in vogue. Yet, as early as his freshman year of high school — 1941 — Wadiak was waking at 5 a.m. for hourlong jogs through neighborhood parks. On weekends, Wadiak swam two or three miles a day in Chicago’s Lake Calumet.

The Wadiaks converted the garage in their two-story frame house in the tiny Burnside neighborhood into a fitness area, complete with free weights and a medicine ball. Anna and Nicholas Wadiak also made certain their children ate healthy foods, avoiding fried meat and eating produce from the garden in the vacant lot adjacent to their home at 9322 South University St.

A favorite neighborhood activity for the children was to go “junking” on Saturdays, forever in search of discarded treasures. Tin-can labels from White City, Rosemary and Libby products were considered among those treasures. Collect 100 labels, toss in 99 cents, and a child could purchase a toy. Wadiak’s older brothers and sisters bought roller skates and toys. Wadiak opted for a football.

He spent nearly every waking moment as a youngster either mindful of his physical fitness or participating in some sort of athletic competition. His older brothers, Walter and Joseph, as well as his sisters, Jeanette and Olga, had the same 10 o’clock curfew, but their parents knew young Steve often stayed out later playing pickup basketball games. So as to not get caught, Steve often scaled the oak tree that cradled the Wadiak home and sneaked into an upstairs window.

It was little surprise Wadiak managed a Chicago-area runner-up finish in wrestling while attending Vocational High School or that he captured the city’s Ping-Pong championship. But football was his game.

Wadiak attended Fenger High in 1940-41 then transferred to the new Vocational High School for the 1941-42 school year. Perpetuated by a T&T Sporting Goods radio advertisement that still runs on a Columbia station, the long-held belief is that Wadiak didn’t play high school football.

Technically, that is true. Since Vocational High was newly formed, it did not participate in Chicago’s public school athletic league during Wadiak’s three years there. The team had no uniforms and wore sweatshirts, an assortment of helmets and work pants. It practiced at Avalon Park, some three miles from the school, and players jogged to the field for conditioning.

Nevertheless, Wadiak played and scored at least one touchdown in each of his 27 games at Vocational High. Years later, after Wadiak’s death, Beryl McNabb, his high school coach, declared Wadiak the greatest running back in school history.

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Enright certainly was a believer in Wadiak after one practice session. In fact, Enright attempted to hide Wadiak from the media and opponents during the preseason of 1948. Colleges played practice games then, and USC scheduled one at Melton Field against North Carolina and its great running back, Charlie “Choo-Choo” Justice.

Enright at first had no intention of playing Wadiak, but he gave way to his desire to see how his newcomer would perform against stiff competition.

“You ready to run, Pinchy?” Vella, the USC quarterback, said to Wadiak as he arrived in the huddle for his first play. Vella was the only USC player during Wadiak’s career to refer to him as “Pinchy,” a nickname Wadiak acquired as a youngster in Chicago. He was a mascot for neighborhood football teams, going so far as to wear baseball and football uniforms and sit on the bench with the Burnside and Roseland area teams. Many of the older players chewed tobacco or pinched snuff from tins. To make Wadiak look like the big boys, the players prepared tins of coffee mixed with sugar for the youngster and watched “Pinchy” play along. Years later, when he sent a postcard from New Orleans to his high school coach, Wadiak signed it “Pinchy.”

When Wadiak returned to the USC huddle after a 60-yard touchdown run on his first play in the scrimmage, he turned to Vella and said, “Give me the ball again.”

This time, Wadiak went 70 yards for a touchdown — and a star was born. As much as Enright attempted to shield Wadiak from publicity, word began to leak out. A picture of Wadiak appeared in The State just before USC’s season-opener against Newberry under the headline “Secret Weapon.”

Jake Penland, the columnist for The State and over the next four years one of Wadiak’s biggest boosters, wrote in the preseason: “Possibly the biggest single attraction in store for the fans is speedy Chicago halfback Steve Wadiak, a sophomore up from junior college for his first appearance in major college football.”

Wadiak, of course, was not from any junior college. He dropped out of high school before graduation in 1944 and entered the Navy. In 27 months as an aerial gunner, Wadiak was stationed in Norfolk, Va., and Corpus Christi, Texas, where he earned his high school degree. While there was no record or mention in letters home that Wadiak played football in the Navy, there was every reason to believe he remained physically fit.

Wadiak did not start the first game of his USC career. He covered 12 yards on his first carry and finished with 60 yards on five runs, including a 2-yard touchdown late that gave USC a 39-0 lead en route to a 46-0 victory. Three days later, another picture of Wadiak appeared in the newspaper under the headline “Headed for Stardom?”

Bishop Strickland was USC’s star running back, and Wadiak was to play second fiddle the remainder of the 1948 season. Nevertheless, there were highlights. His 45-yard run set up USC’s only touchdown in a 13-7 loss to Clemson. His first start came in the sixth game of the season against Maryland, and he responded with eight carries for 104 yards, including a 70-yard touchdown.

Perhaps the high point of a 3-5 season was the 27-7 win at highly regarded Tulsa, a game in which Wadiak scored on a 67-yard run and finished with 10 rushes for 106 yards. The good times were beginning to roll for Wadiak, and on the team’s airplane ride back to Charlotte he joined his teammates in serenading the flight crew with the singing of Leo Friedman’s classic, “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

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The summer before his sophomore year, Wadiak piled into Vella’s 1948 Chevy for the 17-hour drive home to Illinois along with Vella’s wife and their two young children.

Wadiak received a hero’s welcome upon his visits each summer to Chicago’s Burnside neighborhood. Wadiak was known not only for his athletic prowess but for his endearing personality. From a young age he earned extra cash and learned his way around Burnside by delivering groceries door to door for Demkowicz’s, the corner store not far from the Wadiak home.

While other young men returned from World War II and began to raise families, Wadiak headed to college. He was the first in his family to do so. His two older sisters were not afforded the opportunity, and his two older brothers dropped out of high school to help support the family. Wadiak’s father, Nicholas, worked long hours as a carpenter for Illinois Central Railways. His mother, Anna, took the trolley each day to work, where she washed dishes in the kitchen of Fables Restaurant at the corner of 79th and Exchange.

Wadiak was the first to break away and carry the family name proudly outside Burnside. He had made a name for himself in Columbia by the beginning of the 1949 season. To his teammates, he was now known as “Steamboat Steve,” inspired by the grunting sound he emitted as he carried the football under his arm. Opposing players said he sounded like a steamboat whistle, a warning to steer clear.

Penland, The State columnist, pinned the nickname “Th’ Cadillac” on Wadiak. No doubt, the catchy nickname helped create a persona for Wadiak that enhanced his standing on campus, in Columbia, throughout the state and across the Southeast. As his play on the field improved, so did his star status.

Wadiak seemed to save his best for Clemson. Season-opening losses to Baylor, Furman and North Carolina had USC reeling as Big Thursday approached. Wadiak saved the day with a 2-yard touchdown run, 88 yards rushing on 20 carries and a 60-yard punt return in USC’s 27-13 victory. The players carried Enright off the field following the game, and “movies” of the game were shown the following week at the Carolina Theater downtown.

A year later against Clemson, Wadiak was branded forever as the greatest running back in USC history, surpassing the exploits of Earl Clary, who earned the nickname the “The Great Galloping Ghost from Gaffney” while playing from 1931 to 1933.

USC entered the 1950 Big Thursday game with a 2-1 record and was given little chance to defeat an unbeaten Clemson club that had outscored its first three opponents 115-0 and was ranked 12th nationally. The only blemish on the Tigers’ record at season’s end was a 14-14 tie against USC.

Playing on a muddy field at Carolina Stadium and in front of former Gov. Strom Thurmond, Wadiak was a one-man gang. On USC’s first play from scrimmage, Wadiak went 66 yards to set up a touchdown. In the third quarter, he ran 73 yards for a score. He finished with 19 carries for a Southern Conference-record 256 yards, a total not surpassed for another 23 years and one that ranks third in USC history.

To watch Wadiak run was to see an unusual combination of agility and brawn. When he briefly ran on the USC track team, he was timed at 10.1 seconds in the 100-yard dash. His ability to break quickly from the blocks in track translated to the football field, where he had an uncanny ability to accelerate through a hole in the line of scrimmage.

Once in the open field, opponents found the prospect of tackling Wadiak much like taking on an ice box on wheels. To make matters worse for opponents, Wadiak had a stiff-arm that was punishing. He delighted in breaking the nose of an opponent, since facemasks were not a standard part of the helmet at the time.

A spectacular 35-yard run at Georgia Tech, 109 yards rushing against Furman, another 182 at George Washington, 108 vs. Marquette and 96 against The Citadel left Wadiak as the unanimous choice for Southern Conference player of the year.

Only a late-season ankle injury prevented Wadiak from reaching 1,000 yards rushing. He fell 2 yards short after being removed late in the season-finale against Wake Forest in deference to the sore ankle and 14-degree weather.

Wadiak began to gain national recognition during the 1950 season. The Southern Conference award was presented by the Washington Touchdown Club in the nation’s capital. Feature stories about Wadiak appeared in Atlanta, Washington, Chicago and Milwaukee newspapers.

Before the 1950 season, USC followed the lead of North Carolina, which employed a sports information director primarily to promote the play of All-American Choo-Choo Justice. Don Barton served in the same capacity for USC, and he spent the bulk of his time touting Wadiak.

Wadiak needed no such boost in Columbia, where his jut-jaw, wavy hair and steely blue eyes were recognizable wherever he went, whether it was dining at the Green Derby Restaurant in Five Points or attending a high school football game at Melton Field. This was an era when there truly was a Big Man on Campus, and Wadiak was that man at USC.

Peter Sercer, who today ushers fans into the elevators at Williams-Brice Stadium, was a 14-year-old student at Columbia High School when he spotted Wadiak at one such game. Sercer secured Wadiak’s autograph and was the envy of his classmates when he showed it off at school.

Wadiak was not above having a little fun as well. He participated in panty raids of women’s dormitories on campus. Once, following a high school football game at Melton Field, Wadiak waited on the balcony of his Preston dorm room with his roommate of three years, Bayard Pickett. A few fans leaving the game began chanting “Go, Clemson!” and pointing to Wadiak and Pickett. The partners in crime waited for the perfect moment and dumped buckets of water onto a couple of passersby.

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As much as Wadiak was the center of attention on the football field, he also was the life of the party. Vella, who later owned and operated Vella’s Restaurant in West Columbia, recalled Wadiak could walk into a room, survey the crowd and single out which female he wanted to leave with that evening.

Wadiak was knock-down good-looking. His teeth were white and perfect because they were all false by his junior year. Running backs often lost their teeth before facemasks were added to helmets, and Wadiak’s were littered on football fields across in the Southeast. The lump on his nose, permanent from several breaks on the football field, was a distinguishing characteristic.

Beyond his looks, Wadiak had charm and a confidence about him that wore well on others. He would smile, offer a few words of acknowledgment with his raspy voice and women would melt.

Vella and his wife rented a two-bedroom, off-campus apartment on Confederate Avenue during the 1948 and ’49 seasons. Many nights, Wadiak brought a female companion to the Vellas to spend the evening.

Wadiak’s liking for women got him into hot water during his senior year. In fact, his affair with Nancy Fulmer got both expelled from school for the spring semester. All of this we know from documents found in the USC Carolinian archives.

Turns out, Nancy Fulmer had been married for seven years, having wed when she was 15.

Wadiak knew of the marriage, which Fulmer had kept secret even from her parents. When Fulmer’s husband, Carroll Kester, showed up at her Sims College dormitory on Feb. 25, 1951, the cover was blown. He demanded Fulmer and Wadiak cease their relationship.

Kester claimed his wife had joined Wadiak on two trips to Daytona Beach, Fla., one of which was confirmed by both Wadiak and Fulmer. On that trip, in late March of 1950, Fulmer’s mother sought the assistance of coach Enright in locating the lovebirds. When Kester and the mother found Fulmer in Florida, they returned her to Columbia.

By then, Fulmer had been expelled indefinitely from USC because married students were not allowed to live in dormitories. The student disciplinary committee also suspended Wadiak from school because he had taken a coed to Florida without proper permission and without the knowledge of her parents or husband.

Wadiak withdrew from his spring-term classes in 1951 then was reinstated for the summer school session thanks to appeals to the USC board of trustees from Enright, Columbia attorney Sol Blatt Jr. and student body president Floyd Spence.

During that summer school session, on July 25, 1951, Wadiak paid a local attorney $15 to draw up his last will and testament. In the event of his death, Wadiak left his spiffy 1950 Pontiac Catalina Coupe to his teammate John LaTorre and all cash in his bank account to Nancy Fulmer, who also was named executor of the estate.

Fulmer was re-admitted to USC for the fall semester of 1951 after finalizing her divorce from Kester, who later became president of the Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain. The one condition to Fulmer returning to school was she must remain “inconspicuous” on campus.

That worked fine until Wadiak asked Fulmer to be his sponsor at the annual homecoming dance in 1951. The disciplinary committee stepped in and said Wadiak and Fulmer again would be suspended from school if they appeared together at homecoming activities. On Oct. 5, the day before the homecoming game against Furman, the board of trustees met and voted unanimously to allow Wadiak and Fulmer to attend the dance.

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The 1951 season was as rocky for Wadiak as his off-field activities. He didn’t practice during the first month of the season because of cracked ribs. “Steve never uttered a word of complaint, a word for excuses,” wrote Van Newman in The Columbia Record. “The public didn’t learn of his injury until it was completely healed.”

Despite the injury, Wadiak managed two touchdowns and 81 yards rushing against The Citadel and 147 yards on 28 carries against North Carolina. Although healthy, but perhaps still stinging from the student disciplinary actions, Wadiak was not his best against Clemson when he ran 20 times for 69 yards.

The following week, against George Washington, Wadiak received a gash in his right leg that required six stitches. In one of the few times that he was quoted in the newspaper, Wadiak said he didn’t feel the cut and was not sure the blood he saw was his own. “However, when I pulled the cut open and could see all the way to the bone, I was sure,” he said.

That George Washington game was Wadiak’s final run for glory. He ran for 109 yards on 21 carries and late in the game passed North Carolina’s Justice as the Southern Conference’s all-time leading rusher. His career total of 2,878 stood as USC’s record until George Rogers broke it in his Heisman Trophy-winning season of 1980, and ranks fourth in school history.

The disappointment of Wadiak’s senior season did not diminish his star status on his team or in the community. Before the season, his teammates unanimously named Wadiak the team captain, a break from coach Enright’s tradition of having game captains and then a single captain at the conclusion of the season.

The respect of his teammates was well earned. During USC’s 1950 game against George Washington, the quarterback called Wadiak’s number near the goal line. Wadiak shook him off and let another player carry the ball for a touchdown. Wadiak already had two touchdowns that day and wanted someone else to garner credit.

When commended by the alumni president at an offseason meeting, Wadiak turned the attention to his teammates and said, “It was those guys just as much as me.”

Wadiak even got along famously with the media. Late in his senior season following a game at Virginia, Wadiak carried the typewriter for The State’s Penland from the team hotel to the Charlottesville train station.

Around town, Wadiak ate free at any restaurant, which was standard practice at the time and acceptable under NCAA rules. He wore the finest tailored suits, provided free of charge from the prestigious Lourie’s men’s clothing store on Main Street. While other USC students and teammates dressed in T-shirts and rolled-up blue jeans, Wadiak appeared on campus nattily attired in khaki pants and meticulously pressed shirts.

He took an active part in the Block C Club for USC letterwinners and the Newman Club, a Catholic student organization. He fulfilled all requests to appear at Columbia-area events. Midway through his senior season, Wadiak crowned Jean Myers as the Columbia High homecoming queen. During the 1950 Community Chest fundraiser in Columbia, a radio station called on three prominent figures to make appeals for contributions: the governor of the state, the mayor of the city and Wadiak.

Before the final game of his college career, Wadiak spoke to a Boy Scout rally of 4,000 in Columbia, subbing for Gov. Byrnes, who was sick with a cold and unable to attend.

Shortly after the season, Wadiak addressed the Sims Park Blue Devils Junior Club at its annual father-son chicken dinner, and the club presented Wadiak with a pair of cuff links. Then he headed off to play in the Blue-Gray Classic in Montgomery, Ala., in late December and in the Senior Bowl college all-star game in Mobile, Ala., on the first of the new year.

On Jan. 17, 1952, the Pittsburgh Steelers selected Wadiak in the third round of the NFL draft with the 30th pick overall. Pittsburgh, which used the single-wing offense in 1951, said Wadiak would be a better fit for the T-formation the Steelers were planning to switch to that season.

Wadiak remained in school for the spring semester of 1952, signing up for 12 hours of courses that would have left him, upon completion, six hours shy of a degree in physical education.

On March 3, he traveled to Charleston with Nancy Fulmer and was honored by the St. George Jaycees as an all-time member of the St. George football team. All 12 members received gold footballs.

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Wadiak’s next big event was Doug Broome’s birthday party. The two had met several times at Broome’s Drive-In restaurant on the corner of North Main Street and Confederate Avenue. Broome was a big USC athletics booster, and he liked the idea of Wadiak visiting his restaurant. Of course, Wadiak always ate without paying.

Unfortunately for Wadiak, the big party in Augusta was scheduled the same weekend as a meeting in Raleigh with Peahead Walker, the coach of the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. Walker had made it known to the media his team would outbid the Pittsburgh Steelers for Wadiak’s services.

Wadiak wanted to attend the party. So he told coach Enright to take care of matters with Walker at the annual Southern Conference basketball tournament in Raleigh. The idea was for Wadiak to let Enright essentially act as his agent and make the best decision for his client.

Wadiak maintained correspondence that winter with Peggy Shealy, a student at Winthrop College in Rock Hill who hailed from West Columbia. Those letters were found recently in the attic of Wadiak’s sister Jeanette Korlin in Scherrerville, Ind. In one letter, Wadiak invited Shealy to accompany him to Broome’s party on the night of March 8, 1952.

Meanwhile, Wadiak gave the keys to his Pontiac to Nancy Fulmer, and she drove it to her home in Springfield. It is not clear from Wadiak’s letters, but it appears Fulmer was unaware of his communication with Shealy, who reluctantly turned down the invitation in favor of a fraternity get-together at Wofford College in Spartanburg.

Late Saturday evening, Wadiak hooked up with George Clauson, a USC basketball and tennis player, and the two headed to Broome’s restaurant. Once the restaurant closed, a caravan of five or six cars carrying as many as 25 people headed to Augusta with Wadiak riding in Broome’s car.

The details about the party all these years later are fuzzy to anyone who attended. The best guess is it was a private party hosted by Club Barcelonia, located across the Savannah River in south Augusta, and begun shortly after midnight.

Clauson, retired and living in South Bend, Ind., vaguely remembers beer-drinking and card-playing at the club. At about 6 a.m., a group decided to head back to Columbia in two cars. Clauson recalls Wadiak changing his mind at the last minute and jumping into the same car with Clauson instead of the other car.

Joel Ray, the manager of Broome’s restaurant, drove his 1950, four-door Buick. Wadiak sat in the front seat with Lois Hull, a Broome’s carhop, in the middle. In the back seat, Clauson sat directly behind Wadiak alongside carhops Goldie Rhoden and Betty Dugger.

The other car, with a driver and three passengers, led the way back through Aiken and onto Highway 4 toward Wagener.

Highway 4 turned into Highway 215 outside Aiken. About seven miles from town, the road took a hairpin turn to the right. Eubanks Country Store still sits directly across the highway and in the middle of the turn, which since has been changed to take away its sharpness.

The first car passed through the turn and continued on past Scott’s Lake, a popular Friday and Saturday night gathering place at the time. Ray’s car never slowed for the curve. It hurdled out of control, sped off the left side of the road and crashed into the grassy area next to Eubanks’ store, falling just short of the extended tree line.

Ray later estimated he took the turn at between 70 and 80 mph. A highway patrolman, noting there were no skid marks, estimated the speed at between 90 and 100 mph. The vehicle slid 425 feet before overturning, then traveled another 183 feet, overturning five or six times and landing in an upright position. One person who arrived soon after the crash said the car was “smashed like an eggshell.”

Wadiak was the only passenger thrown from the car. Had seat belts been required in cars, Wadiak might be alive today. The coroner’s report of the crash, using a pool of blood as evidence, estimated Wadiak was thrown some 55 feet from the vehicle.

The front car circled back. Duska said she recalls thinking Wadiak was the least injured of the passengers.

All were initially taken by ambulance to the Aiken Hospital, then all but Clauson were moved to University Hospital in Augusta. Clauson was transported to Columbia Providence Hospital. Amazingly enough, Ray was treated and released. Hull and Dugger both sustained broken legs. Rhoden fractured her left leg and arm. Clauson sustained bruises.

Clauson still does not remember much about the crash because he was asleep in the back seat, his head in Rhoden’s lap.

“I remember heading to the ceiling,” Clauson said. “That’s the last thing I remembered until I woke up outside. It was scary. ... All I know is I was awfully lucky. The Lord was with me that night, I’ll assure you.”

Wadiak’s luck ran out that night, his premonition realized. His body was hurled from the speeding vehicle and he lay motionless in his own pool of blood. A broken neck killed him.

Some reports said he died en route to the Augusta hospital. Others said he died an hour after arriving.

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Word of Wadiak’s death spread quickly through Columbia, most getting the news via radio reports Sunday morning. Others heard it among the whispers at churches throughout the city. George Bennett, a student at Clemson at the time, remembers surprising his parents by returning to church in Columbia and greeting them with the report that Wadiak was dead.

By Sunday evening, coach Enright had taken charge of funeral arrangements for Wadiak. Four members of the student body wrote to USC president Norman Smith to request Wadiak’s body rest in the University Chapel for one day, and for that day to be set aside for mourning among faculty and students.

The students’ request was denied because the Wadiak family wanted his body returned to Chicago as quickly as possible for burial there. Instead, Enright suspended spring practice for one week. A rosary was recited Monday evening at the chapel of the Paschal-Regal Funeral Home, and an estimated 2,000 paid their respects.

“The news of Steve’s death was a staggering blow to me and the entire Carolina coaching staff,” Enright said. “He was one of the finest boys I have ever coached. He typified a true All-American. His loyalty to his school, his teammates and his coaches always came above any personal glory.

“He never alibied, always gave his best. Steve was modest in victory and he took defeat gracefully. Losing Steve was just like losing a member of the family. He was tops in every respect, both as an athlete and as a man. The University of South Carolina has lost a real friend. The entire world of athletics has lost a real leader and a wholesome influence during a troublesome period.”

Classes at USC were canceled Tuesday morning for the 10 o’clock services at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, across from the current Richland County Library. Not a seat was vacant, and the overflow crowd stood outside on Assembly Street. Pallbearers included Wadiak’s USC teammates Bayard Pickett, Chuck Prezioso, Larry Smith, Harry Stewart, John LaTorre and Bob Kahle.

A large wreath of garnet carnations and black ribbons covered Wadiak’s casket with white carnations forming his jersey number “37.”

Rev. Frederick Suggs intoned the final mass, and the St. Peter’s choir sang. The Columbia Record reported, “Young coeds sniffled and the eyes of husky footballers became unashamedly wet as the service proceeded.”

At the conclusion of the service, Suggs said Wadiak was ready for “his last train ride from Columbia.”

The pallbearers, Enright and Wadiak’s brothers, Joseph and Walter, accompanied the body by train to Chicago following the service. On Saturday, another huge throng assembled at St. Peter and Paul Ukranian Church, and burial followed at nearby Mount Hope Cemetery.

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While in Columbia for the services of their brother, Joseph and Walter met with Enright and informed him Steve had written a will. The brothers asked Enright to search their brother’s belongings in hopes of finding the will. Enright’s search came up empty, but he was certain in time the will could be found in Richland County records.

On Thursday, March 20, five days after Wadiak’s burial in Chicago, an intriguing and unsigned letter with no return address arrived at Enright’s office. Barely legible nearly a half-century later, the note read, in part:

“I found these papers on the ground with some other papers with some picters (sic) — I came by the office but no body (sic) was there. I didn’t get no money ... I don’t want no trouble with this.”

Enclosed was Wadiak’s tattered will and testament.

It took two months of working its way through the Richland County courts before Wadiak’s will was properly assessed and the property dispersed. The problem at the outset was that Nancy Fulmer was named executor of the estate and she was not the required 21 years of age.

Fulmer agreed to make Enright the executor, and he found a couple of surprises in the will. First, Wadiak left his Pontiac Catalina Coupe, a car he paid for in cash two years earlier, to his teammate John LaTorre.

LaTorre was a friend to Wadiak, but no more so than Wadiak’s roommate, Bayard Pickett, or his native Illinois buddy Pat Vella. LaTorre was surprised as anyone to receive the car, which he drove back and forth to Maryland during his military service days and eventually traded for a Grand Torino around 1960.

When LaTorre’s son was born in 1954, he named him Stephen Randolph LaTorre in honor of Wadiak. LaTorre’s son died four years ago of cancer.

The other surprise in the will was the sum of $3,305 left in Wadiak’s bank account and earmarked for Nancy Fulmer, his steady girlfriend of the previous two years. That was a rather hefty sum of money — equivalent to $26,325 today — to be in the possession of a college student who had never had a job.

How Wadiak built such a bank balance was anyone’s guess. He received $75 monthly from the GI Bill and another $15 monthly from USC as “laundry money” under NCAA rules. Wadiak also occasionally visited the State House, where he shook hands with legislators who slipped him $10 and $20 bills. After those visits, Wadiak also found unmarked envelopes in his mailbox at USC with cash enclosed.

The paperwork from Wadiak’s settlement shows his bank balance first covered all funeral expenses, including a gravestone in Chicago as well as his hospital expenses in Augusta.

Sad to think, Wadiak saved all that cash to pay for his own funeral.

A couple of other items of interest came out of the hearing to settle Wadiak’s estate. Listed among family assets was a $1,000 settlement of a lawsuit paid to Wadiak’s mother, Anna, by Joel Ray, the driver of the car that crashed.

In a March 27 hearing, an Aiken County coroner’s jury absolved Ray of blame in the crash and Wadiak’s death. The six-man jury, after hearing testimony from two highway patrolmen and a statement by Ray, ruled the fatal crash was unavoidable.

“It was an unavoidable accident,” Ray, who died of cancer in 1991, said during the testimony. “I would not have had it happen for anything.”

One patrolman testified he found no signs of alcohol on any of the passengers or at the crash site, even though Clauson now says he is certain some in the party had been drinking at Broome’s party — except Wadiak. To this day, family and friends say Wadiak never smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol.

It appears that a balance of $917.91 in Wadiak’s estate eventually was awarded to Nancy Fulmer, who lived an interesting life before dying in 2003 at age 71 in Aiken. She married Ronald Baynham, a commercial airline pilot, and they relocated to Miami. When their property was lost to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the Baynhams moved to Augusta and then to Aiken, not far from where Wadiak was killed.

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A few weeks after Wadiak’s death, the USC athletics department retired his jersey No. 37. The Wadiak family returned his trophies to USC, and for several years the jersey, trophies and a bronzed pair of his shoes resided in the Maxcy College lobby on Pendleton Street. Today, the collection can be seen in a trophy case outside the team meeting room in the south end zone of Williams-Brice Stadium.

At halftime of the 1952 Big Thursday game against Clemson at Carolina Stadium, the USC band spelled out “37” and played “Old Lang Syne” as members of the crowd of 35,000 bowed their heads in silence.

Since 1966, the Steve Wadiak Award has been presented annually to USC’s most valuable player. Wadiak was included in the inaugural class of inductees into both the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame in 1960 and the USC Athletic Hall of Fame in 1967.

For many years after Wadiak’s death, his mother visited his grave site every Sunday following church services. A painting of Wadiak hung in the hallway of Anna’s home for another 30 years.

The death of her youngest son proved devastating to her and her family. Within two years, she and Nicholas, her husband of more than 40 years, were divorced. The stress of their son’s death had taken a toll on the marriage.

“It was so devastating,” said Jeanette Korlin, his sister and the only living sibling. “I still feel it. ... I never got over it. I never did.”

Tragedy struck the Wadiak family again in 1976 when Steve’s brother Joseph was killed while attempting to rescue a man from a work hole in Chicago. Before she died in 1987, Anna had buried her estranged husband, two sons and a daughter.

Even today, Wadiak is remembered in South Carolina. Once I-20 was completed in the early 1970s from Augusta to Columbia, traffic along Highway 215 outside Aiken diminished greatly. It is relegated mostly to local traffic these days.

On occasion, someone stops at Eubanks Country Store and asks Larry Eubanks about Wadiak’s crash site. Locals know the turn in the road as “Wadiak’s Curve.” Eubanks passes along the story about how his father, Marvin, who owned the store for more than 30 years, was among the first on the crash scene.

Eubanks also likes to tell the story of how Strom Thurmond passed through the store frequently during his early days as a U.S. senator. Over time, the senator struck up a friendship with an elderly man named “Puddin’” who hung out at the store. “Puddin’” liked to coax a soda and pack of Nabs out of Thurmond.

Without fail on these visits, Thurmond would pause and tell his friend, “You know, this is where the great Steve Wadiak was killed.”

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