A Tribute to Oscar Patrick: The First Great WVU Receiver

In September 2020 I ran across a short obituary of Oscar Patrick, a man described as a WVU wide receiver "great." I'd never heard of Patrick, even though I was born and raised in West Virginia and went to school there; and I was curious: who was this unknown (to me) former Mountaineer described as great.
So I did some research, and dived into my collection of WVU highlight videos going back to the early 1960s, and pulled out all of Oscar's highlights that I could find. The resulting collection shows a young man coming out of a segregated school system in southern West Virginia and becoming a star on the State's flagship football program.
His coaches were Jim Carlen and Bobby Bowden, and with Mike Sherwood throwing the ball to him, Oscar had a good sophomore year, leading the team in receiving yardage, and exploded for 50 catches, 770 yards, and 5 touchdowns in his junior year. At Penn State, he had 10 catches for 190 yards and two touchdowns -- a true Beast Mode performance up at the #3 Nittany Lions' Happy Valley.
However, in 1969, his senior year, Oscar injured his knee at Tulane, and it was the end of his football career. He got tryouts with the Redskins and Bengals, but his knee couldn't handle the strain. His potential was never fully realized in college, and the injury was such that he couldn't heal up and play at the next level.
So here's my modest offering of a tribute to Oscar Patrick -- the "Big O" -- in the hope that we'll remember him a little better in the future. He had some catch-and-runs that would look really nice in the stadium team video.
I hope you enjoy it.

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Oscar Patrick appeared on the Hollywood Squares in November 1973 as a contestant.

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This reminds me of a running back in the early 1980s named Tom Gray. I thought wow, we really have a great back now. He made a cut and tore his ACL. Was never the same. In the era before the arthroscopic knee surgery and sports medicine we have had for awhile, great talents like Patrick and Gray, just disappeared. Thank you for posting this. I know I watched this guy as a child, but I didn't remember him. Well deserved tribute.