Oaklets loved the grid iron from an early age and played on the football teams of Roosevelt Junior High School and Hamilton High School. It was the start of a stellar career in playing and coaching.
The star offensive lineman of the Blue & White, Oaklets played on the 1935 state championship team and rose to captain the team his senior year. He was also named to the All-Ohio High School Football Team, playing in a bowl game in Jacksonville, Florida. Oaklets’ standout football playing earned him a scholarship to Miami University where he was named as an outstanding freshman player.
Oaklets didn’t immediately finish his schooling and was working at the Niles Tool Works Division of General Machinery Corporation by 1942. He married his high school sweetheart, Irma (Schwab) Oaklets, on June 3 of that year.
Oaklets joined the U.S. Navy on Feb. 10, 1944 and was sent to Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois where he underwent advanced torpedo training. He graduated from that school in January 1945 and the following month was assigned to Navy Repair Unit 3205 in the Admiralty Islands north of New Guinea.
After the conclusion of the war, Oaklets was transferred to Ship Repair Base 3864 on Manicani Island in the Philippines in October 1945 until coming home to be discharged in February of the following year.
Sometime before July 1946, he anglicized his surname to “Oaklets” and soon after returned to Miami to study industrial arts and physical education. While there he joined Epsilon Phi Tau and Phi Epsilon Kappa fraternities.
While completing his studies, he also personally built the home at 1175 Highland Avenue in Hamilton where he and Irma would reside for the rest of their lives. The Oaklets later won an award for the design of the home’s front door.
Earning his Bachelor of Science in education in 1949, Oaklets was hired to teach industrial arts at Lemon-Monroe School High School. He was also named as the assistant football coach, and became the head football coach in 1952.
In 1954, Monroe School District failed to offer Oaklets a contract with a coaching position, possibly prompting his move to Seven Mile High School the following year. In addition to teaching industrial arts at Seven Mile, he also served as an assistant coach under coach Marvin McCollum.
He quickly took over as Seven Mile’s head football coach and reformed the school’s team. Following an exhibition game the Hamilton Daily News Journal reported, “Under the tutelage of the new head coach, Rudy Oaklets, the Panthers were the surprise of the preview for their scrap and speed.” Seven Mile’s team took the title for the Little Southwestern League, later renamed the Southwestern Ohio Conference, in 1956.
It wasn’t just football that Oaklets was interested in. He also played baseball on the Schoolmasters Team in the local Business League. Irma was also an excellent baseball player and had very nearly been drafted for a national women’s professional team in her earlier years.
Beyond sports, Oaklets was a master at working with his hands and read industrial arts textbooks and manuals for fun. He taught technical skills critical for employment in the industrial based economy of that period, oversaw exhibits of his students’ work at the local and state levels, and took his students on tours of local manufacturers such as Pease Company.
Oaklets was part of the original faculty of the new New Miami High School when it opened in 1960, transitioning there from Seven Mile to teach metal shop and automotive shop while also coaching the football and track and field teams.
After five years, Oaklets made his way back to Hamilton City Schools for the 1966-1967 School year. He was assigned to Garfield Senior High School where he taught wood shop, coached cross-country, and was an assistant to head football coach Lou Florio.
An extremely popular teacher, Oaklets was beloved by his students at Garfield and had the trophies to show for it. His 1968 track team presented him with a huge trophy inscribed “the greatest track coach in the state of Ohio” and his woodworking class presented him with another trophy which read “teacher of the year” on his birthday in 1971.
Oaklets eventually became the head coach of the JV football team and led his sophomores through an undefeated season in 1968. The next year his track team won a rare district championship. JV football also captured the Greater Miami Conference crown in 1971.
Succeeding Phil Everett, Oaklets was promoted to assistant principal, under principal Robert Quisenberry, ahead of the 1971-1972 school year. In that position he also became Garfield’s athletic director.
As athletic director, he notably proposed creating girl’s soccer and cross country teams at the school. A sportsman to a great degree, Oaklets encouraged the head coach of the Taft Tigers, the Griffins’ school district rivals, after a hard fought game by telling him, “you certainly don’t have to be ashamed of that loss.”
After an educational career spanning 30 years, Oaklets retired from teaching in 1979. However, he went back to work, becoming a bailiff for Hamilton Municipal Court and later working as a clerk for Butler County Area Courts.
In addition to his professional career, Oaklets was also involved with St. John’s Church, the Boy Scouts, Junior Achievement, the Southwestern Ohio Athletic Association, Ohio Retired Teachers, and the Butler County Retired Teachers Association. He was commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel on Dec. 27, 1982 and was inducted into the Hamilton City Schools Athletic Hall of Fame on Feb. 15, 1998.
Oaklets died at Ft. Hamilton Hospital on March 9, 2001 at age 82.
In 2009, Irma donated funds for the construction of the Oaklets Fieldhouse at Hamilton High’s Virgil Schwarm Stadium in memory of her husband. She lived to be 101 years old, passing away on Jan. 2, 2023.
Brad Spurlock is the manager of the Smith Library of Regional History and Cummins Local History Room, Lane Libraries. A certified archivist, Brad has over a decade of experience working with local history, maintaining archival collections and collaborating on community history projects.
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