SECOND GLANCE
Pete Odom Amazed Foes With Speed
by Chuck Pickard

What made Pete Odom great as a Sherman High football player?
"Pete had a tremendous  amount of athletic ability," is the way Joe Joiner describes the former Bearcat star who died early Friday in a Dallas veterans hospital.  He was 42.
Joiner, remembered as a standout end for SHS in the mid 40s, was a member of the Bearkittens (freshman team ) in 1940, Odom's final year to wear the Maroon and White.
"Pete was one of the fastest straight away runners I've ever seen," said Joiner who also played at Baylor.
Joiner recalls Odom as being like a race horse once he broke into an open field.
"The guy had amazing speed," said the Sherman attorney.  "There was no catching Pete if he ever got as much as half a step on a defender.   He was stronger than most sprinters."  Odom weighed around 175 his Senior year.
Looking back on that 1940 season, Joiner remembers vividly how Odom and the Bearcats rolled over 8 straight opponents entering the Paris game.
"Sherman had been winning by whopping scores and was the top-ranked team in t he state," related Joiner.  "Paris also had a great team that year.   They were the only team to beat us. As I recall the score was 21 -14."
Odom, who played tailback on Coach J.B. Head's team, ranked among the leading scorers in Texas his Senior year.   He played freshman ball at Rice before World War II beckoned.
Odom, a hospital corpsman, was paralyzed from the waist downward when fragments of a mortar shell struck him in the back.  He was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge in February 1943.
While most people remember Odom for his feats on the gridiron, the Sherman speedster also excelled in track.   Joiner was on the same track team with Odom in 1941.
"Pete was second in the 100 two straight years at the state meet," said Joiner.  "Both times he was beaten in photo finishes.
"I'll never forget one meet when we had to win the mile relay in order to take first place.  Pete was a 100 and 220 man but he jumped in to help out in the mile relay.
"He made up 30 yards on the anchor leg and this enabled us to win the meet.
"Pete was the kind of athlete who doesn't come along  often.  He was born with the ability to run."
The memory of Odom will live forever in the hearts of Bearcat fans.  In his  honor, the school gives the Pete Odom Award to the outstanding  Bearcat gridder each year.


Pete Odom Dies

Courage that sustained him through 22 years as an invalid due to a World War II wound saw Pete Odom through until death came early Friday in a Dallas veterans hospital.  A former football star at Sherman  High School, Mr. Odom died at the age of 42.  He underwent major surgery a  few days ago at the VA hospital.
In his honor, the Pete Odom Award for the high school's outstanding football player was given for a number of years by the Sherman Booster Club.
Funeral services were under the direction of Barrett Funeral Home.
Odom, a medical corpsman, was picking up wounded at the Battle of the Bulge on February 3, 1945, when the fragments of a  mortar shell struck him in the back.  That was near the Rhur River, Germany.  He had been paralyzed from the waist downward since that time and had been confined to a wheel chair.
Serious illness on April 29 sent him to Wilson N. Jones Hospital.  In early May he was transferred to the Lisbon Hospital at Dallas. A few days ago doctors amputated his left leg.
Mr. Odom, a 1941 graduate of Sherman High School, where he was an outstanding football player, didn't let his war injury get him down.  For several years, he operated a grocery on E. Lamar from a wheel chair.  He was well informed in nearly all fields of sports and kept up with what was going on in the sporting world each day.
An avid Bible student, he attended church regularly as long as he was able.  But for the past 10 years, Sunday services were conducted at his bedside by members of the Fairview and Crutchfield Baptist Churches.  Church worship services often were recorded and played for Mr. Odom at his home.  He was a  member of the Fairview Baptist Church.
He was born December 5, 1922 in Sherman, son of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Odom.  He had lived with his parents at 603 N. McKown.
Survivors besides his parents include 2 brothers, Bryan Odom of Sherman and Howard Odom of Dallas.