Willie Franklin

inductee Willie Franklin was a standout football player at MCC from 1968-1970.  He was an All-American in Track in 1969-70, football in 1970, runner-up in wrestling in 1969.  Willie received a full scholarship to the University of Oklahoma from 1970-72 where he holds a javelin record to this very day.  Willie would earn his Bachelor’s Degree in Special Education.   After MCC and Oklahoma, Willie walked on with the Baltimore Colts in 1971 and played professionally for two years.  He spent six months with the Los Angeles Rams then finished his playing career in the World Football League with the Philadelphia Bell in 1974. 

                In 1975, Willie took on another challenge off the field.  He went to Bible School at Harding Christian University in Searcy, Arkansas.  In spending two years at Harding, Willie laid the foundation for the next 35 years of his life.  Those 35 years would be utilized spreading the Word of God. 

                From Oklahoma to Baltimore to California to Hawaii to Australia, Willie Franklin traveled tirelessly and worked in various ministries doing what he loved best.  He also spent seven years as a missionary in Papua, New Guinea.  After meeting his wife Pam in 1983, the Franklins had three girls, Natalie, Rochelle, and Mary Jannelle, and a son James Michael Ray. 

                In 1991, Willie and his family moved back to Oklahoma to work with the Wilshire Church of Christ.  After that, the Leanna Church of Christ came calling and the Franklins spent four years on Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  The next five years saw Willie and family at the Highway “E” Church of Christ in Rolla, Missouri as a campus and pulpit minister.  In 2004 through 2007, Willie was campus minister at the University of North Texas.  At that time he became involved with the Texas Women’s University in Denton.  Currently, Willie is involved with the Lewisville Church of Christ in Texas. 

                Willie Franklin is most grateful for his time at MCC because people took the time with him and showed him how to persevere.  Raised on cartoon characters Mighty Mouse and Popeye, Willie soon came to liken himself as a defender of those people that couldn’t defend themselves.  He remembered times when Coach Paul Widmer would bring groceries over to his mama’s house when they had trouble making ends meet and wondered why someone would do something so nice for someone. 

                Coach Wid became an instant role model to Willie and perhaps foreshadowed that type of humanity that is so descriptive of Willie Franklin’s life today. 

                He ran track for Coach Carvel Jackson and Willie’s only request to join the team was whether or not there would be food for him to eat on the road trips.  After Coach Jackson obliged, Willie was on the team. 

                Coaches Mutt Ford and Wid had gotten Willie a parking lot sweeping job so that he could help his family make ends meet.  All of these random acts of kindness exhibited by Mesa coaches began to shed light onto a bigger picture that Willie would begin to embrace and make commonplace.  He started to see service as a means to breaking down barriers. 

                In a recent interview, Willie talked about his time at Oklahoma under then Offensive Coordinator Barry Switzer and D-Line Coach Jimmy Johnson.  He also talked about the time when he walked on for the Colts and was an instant teammate of the legendary Johnny Unitas.  He mentioned one particular shootout with Johnny U’s last regular season home game ever at Colts Stadium.  Before 120,000 people, Willie Franklin watched Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas duel back and forth.  The eventual victors were the Colts.  As Willie Franklin admired Johnny Unitas’s late-game heroics for the Colts, a plane flew over the stadium with a banner in tow that read “Unitas We Stand.”  It was at that moment Willie remembered saying to himself… “Wow, I really made it.”