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Bertram “Bert” Earle Cole, Jr. attended Altus Junior
College in 1938-39 and was a standout football player for
the AJC Pirates. He later played football for Oklahoma A&M (OSU),
but his college career was interrupted by WWII. As a B-24
bomber pilot, he was shot down over the Yugoslav border.
Caught between the Partisan and Chetnik resistance fighters,
Cole and his crew lived underground, protected by brave
Yugoslavs for 4½ months before returning home unharmed.
After the war, Cole completed his college degree and
football career at Oklahoma A&M. He was a part of an
outstanding 1946 team that won the Sugar Bowl, remained
undefeated, and was ranked third in the nation. Although
offered a professional football contract with the Green Bay
Packers, Cole declined and became a farmer. He is married to
the former Willie Gazaway and is the father of six. He also
has 19 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Cole
earned bachelors and masters degrees in Agronomy from
Oklahoma A&M. He retired from a career with the Oklahoma
State Department of Agriculture. Cole is a 33rd degree Mason
and has been awarded the Knight’s Commander of the Court of
Honor. He has donated nearly 26 gallons of blood, an
achievement he calls the most important in his lifetime. The
following quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet hangs on the wall
at Bert Cole’s home; and indeed, his life has exemplified
the words: This above all: to thine ownself
be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. |
