!
Bengals season ticket holder Charlie Kock prepares to announce the Bengals fourth-round selection during last month's NFL Draft.
Charlie Kock is so Who Dey through and through that when his toes get cold they literally burn with the reminder that his biggest thrill as a Bengals fan is being at the Freezer Bowl 30 years ago when the Bengals won the right to go to their first Super Bowl.
Now that has to be right there with this year's draft, when he won the right via a drawing of Bengals season ticket-holders to announce the team's fourth-round pick. After he and about 80 others breakfasted with Roger Goodell and he got to shake hands with the commissioner, Kock admits he said the name backwards.
"Charles Orson, tight end, Georgia."
In the end, though, he got one over on his buddies in the Hillview Golf Course's Thursday night league not far from his Green Township home. He did get the pronunciation right.
"They were just all over me, giving me grief, saying I wouldn't be able to pronounce it or that I would say something like Stanley Wilson," Kock says.
But he thinks the Bengals got it right when they plucked Orson Charles.
"I've been reading about him ever since and I like him," Kock says. "Yes, it does sound like he's got good hands."
Kock, 67, is always reading the sports page. He's always going to Bengals games. He's been to virtually every one since the Bengals arrived in town. And he's still riding the wave of his New York visit with his wife of more than 40 years.
During a Mother's Day lunch at Frisch's with his three grandchildren last Sunday he was approached for an autograph.
"I had a great time," Kock says. "I'm a football fan. I love football, so that was something I really enjoyed."
Kock loves football so much, he doesn't remember the individual games so much as he does the great players on both sides of the ball.
"I've been lucky enough to see all the great quarterbacks down through the years. And when Jim Brown retired, Leroy Kelly followed him in Cleveland as their running back," Kock says. "I always liked Isaac (Curtis) because of the way he flipped the ball to the official after a touchdown. Anthony (Muñoz). And of course (Tim) Krumrie. Even though he didn't do much in the NFL, I always liked Archie Griffin."
Nowadays Kock's favorites are still led by a big receiver, this one named A.J. Green.
"Green, and I think (Andy) Dalton is going to be one of the great quarterbacks," Kock says, adding another receiver. "And I like (Jordan) Shipley. They've got the good hands."
He also likes the nine other picks the Bengals announced.
"I've seen where people are saying the Bengals and the Buccaneers had the best drafts and I agree," Kock says. "They needed somebody so that Green's not always double-teamed. They got a running back. It's like ESPN said, they got people where they needed them."
