User:DtheH01/sandbox/Charlie Lee

Charlie Lee is a former college football player, college and NFL football coach, NFL scout, and NFL front office executive. Born February 28, 1945.

After graduating from Liberty, MO High School in 1963, Lee played running back (1963 – 1966) at Northern Arizona University where he was co-captain and twice named as honorable mention on the Little All-America football team. In 1984, Lee was inducted into the Northern Arizona University Athletics Hall of Fame.

In 1969, Lee was hired as assistant football coach and assistant track coach at Central High School in Kansas City, MO. In the winter of 1970, Lee was promoted to head coach of both programs and coached both squads through 1972. Under Lee’s tutelage, the Central track & field teams won 3 Missouri state team titles. Among the players Lee coached at Central were future University of Southern California and NFL players Eric Williams and Ken Randle. When Williams was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 after an 8-year NFL career, he credited Lee as being a key factor in his success.

In 1973, Lee was hired as an assistant football coach at Northwest Missouri State University where he spent the 1973 season. Lee was the first black coach of a major sport in the history of Northwest Missouri State University’s league, the Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

After only 5 months at Northwest Missouri, Lee was hired as a backfield coach and recruiter at the University of Arizona under head coach Jim Young on 2/8/1974. Lee was the second black assistant football coach ever to coach at Arizona. Lee was preceded only by Willie Peete who coached at Arizona from 1971 – 1982 before going on to a NFL coaching career. Lee coached three seasons (1974-1976) at Arizona before leaving with Young to coach at Purdue when Young was hired as the new head football coach in West Lafayette in December 1976.

Before coaching a game at Purdue, Lee left to join the staff of new University of Texas head football coach Fred Akers in July 1977. Lee was the second black full-time assistant football coach to coach a game at the University of Texas. (Prenis Williams, an assistant coach under Head Coach Darrell Royal, was the first black full-time assistant coach at the University of Texas from 1974-1976. NFL player Alvin Matthews was a part-time assistant coach during 1972-1973 .) Hired as wide receiver coach and recruiter, Lee replaced Jimmy Raye who had left Wyoming to join Akers at Texas when Akers was hired in December 1976. However, Raye left Texas after only five months and before coaching a game at to join the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers as a wide receiver coach. Lee coached at Texas from 1977 through 1981. During his tenure at Texas, the Longhorns played in 4 bowl games including the 1978 Cotton Bowl where an undefeated Texas Longhorn team led by Earl Campbell lost to Joe Montana’s Notre Dame squad in the de facto National Championship game. Lee recruited many of the players that led the 1981 Longhorns team to a 10-1-1 season, a win in the 1982 Cotton Bowl, and a #2 final Associated Press national ranking. Lee also recruited many of the 17 Longhorn players that were taken in the 1984 NFL draft and 12 Longhorn players that were drafted in the 1983 NFL draft.

In 1981, Lee was lured away from Texas to become offensive backfield coach on the staff of new NFL Denver Broncos head football coach Dan Reeves. After the 1981 season and one year as an on-field coach, Lee was promoted to a Bronco front office role as Director of Public Relations (1982-1984) and then to Director of Player & Community Relations (1985-1993). Lee was both the first black assistant coach and the first black front office executive in the history of the Denver Broncos organization. In 1993, Lee transitioned to the role of College Scout that he held from 1993-1998. During his time as a College Scout, Lee scouted and signed future NFL Pro Bowler Rod Smith as an undrafted free agent in 1994. Smith credits Lee with believing in him as an NFL prospect when other NFL scouts didn’t. Smith had two major knee injuries during his college football career at Missouri Southern University that deterred most scouts from considering him a potential NFL player. During Lee’s career with the Denver NFL organization, the Broncos won seven AFC West titles, five AFC Championships, and two Super Bowl titles.

After leaving the Broncos, Lee taught social studies at South Valley Middle School in the Liberty, MO school district for 14 years until retiring in 2015.