College Football Hall of Famer who attended a Columbia high school dies at age 84
J.C. Caroline, who attended Columbia’s then Booker T. Washington High School before going on to football stardom for the University of Illinois and the Chicago Bears in the 1950s, has died. He was 84.
He died Friday at Carle Hospital in Urbana, Ill., according to the Walker Funeral Home in Champaign, Ill.
Caroline is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Caroline joins Red Grange as probably the two best running backs in Illinois history. Caroline led the nation in rushing as a sophomore in 1953, gaining 1,256 yards in nine games to set the Big Ten record at the time and helping the Illini to a 7-1-1 record and a share of the conference title. He finished seventh in the Heisman Trophy balloting.
He signed with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League in 1955 before joining the Bears a year later, where he mainly played defensive back. He made the Pro Bowl as a rookie and finished with 24 career interceptions.
He was portrayed by actor Bernie Casey in the 1971 movie Brian's Song, a movie based about Bears running backs Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers.
Caroline worked as an assistant coach at Illinois before becoming a physical education teacher and coach in Urbana.
University of Illinois spokesman Kent Brown called Caroline "one of the all-time great football players in Illinois history."
Booker T. Washington High graduated nearly 7,000 students between World War I and its 1974 closing several years after it had become an integrated school. At one time, it was believed to be South Carolina’s largest all-black public high school.
Caroline was among its best-known graduates, which also included the late federal judge Matthew Perry; Edward Sawyer Cooper, a former president of the American Heart Association; and John Hurst Adams, a bishop with the African Methodist Episcopal church.
The Associated Press Clif LeBlanc contributed to this story.
This story was originally published November 19, 2017 at 3:07 PM with the headline "College Football Hall of Famer who attended a Columbia high school dies at age 84."