You know, we spent a lot of time in this deep
dive dissecting the famous, the headline grabbers,
the guys whose faces are on the cereal boxes.
But I have always been obsessed with a totally
different kind of American archetype. I call
it the local legend. Right, the local legend.
You mean the guy who owns the car dealership
down the street and everyone kind of whispers,
you know he played pro ball back in the day.
Exactly. The guy you see at the hardware store
who is He's just a little too big to be a regular
civilian. He moves differently. And today, we
are doing a deep dive into one of those lives.
We are looking at a man named Harold Dwayne Aiken.
But honestly, nobody in the records calls him
Harold. No, the nickname jumps right off the
page. They called him Horse. Horses Aiken. It
is just such a perfect mid -century football
name. And what we have for you today is a stack
of documents. We're looking at a Wikipedia entry.
draft cards, roster stats, obituary notices,
and they paint this incredible picture of a guy
who lived the dream, got crushed by the reality
of it, and then built a completely different
kind of empire. And honestly, the Horsican story
is the perfect lens to look at the American Football
League in the late 60s. We aren't talking about
the polished corporate NFL we know today. This
was the Wild West and Aiken was right in the
middle of that transition from the gridiron to
the boardroom. So our mission today is to unpack
this life, to look beyond just the sports stats
and see the trajectory of a career that spans
77 years. Because for you listening, I want us
to find those aha moments in the details of draft
picks and business expansions. So let's set the
scene. We are starting in McAllister, Oklahoma.
Right in the heart of the country. Yeah. The
date is January 11th, 1945. Harold Aiken is born
right as World War II is winding down. Which
puts him in a really specific generational cohort.
He is technically part of the silent generation,
but he's growing up with the baby boomers. And
growing up in Oklahoma in the 50s and 60s, I
mean, that is football country. It's a religion.
And apparently the congregation had a giant in
their midst. Let's talk about the physical profile
here, because the stats and the source material
are, well, they're jarring for 1967. Harold Aiken.
stood six feet, five inches tall. That's 1 .96
meters. And he weighed in at 260 pounds or 118
kilograms. It's so easy to gloss over that number
today because we see defensive ends who are 280
and run like deer. But you have to contextualize
this for the era. In the mid 1960s, there were
no state of the art nutrition programs. There
were no peptides. There is barely weightlifting
as we know it today. Right, because the old school
mentality was that lifting weights made you muscle
bound and slow. Exactly. So to be 6 '5", 260,
and 1965, you were a genetic anomaly. You were
a naturally occurring mountain. That is exactly
why the nickname horse sticks. He wasn't made
in a lab. He was corn -fed and physically imposing
in a way that just didn't exist on most rosters
back then. So he goes through the Oklahoma education
system. He starts at Putnam City High School,
then goes straight to Oklahoma State University.
He's an Oklahoma State cowboy. And he obviously
makes enough noise there to catch the eye of
the professional scouts because we arrived at
the 1967 draft. The class of 67, this is a massive
turning point in sports history. You have the
NFL and the AFL, the rival leagues operating
separately, but they are heading toward a merger.
So the competition for talent was incredibly
fierce. And Horsaken gets picked in the third
round, 67th overall. That is a high pick. Very
high. That's not a, let's see if he makes camp
kind of pick. That is a, we absolutely need this
guy pick. It is substantial, capital. The San
Diego Chargers spent a third rounder on him.
In 67, if you are drafting an offensive tackle
in the top 100, you are expecting him to anchor
your line. You are looking for a bodyguard for
your quarterback. And let's talk about where
he landed, San Diego. The Chargers. Oh, the Sid
Gilman era. Yes. But think about the culture
shock for a second. He is a boy from McAllister,
Oklahoma. And suddenly it's 1967, the summer
of love is kicking off, and he lands in Southern
California. The Chargers had those iconic powder
blue uniforms they were playing at Balboa Stadium.
I mean, it must have felt like landing on Mars.
And the style of play was so different. Sig Gilman,
the Chargers coach, was the father of the modern
passing game. The AFL was known for airing it
out. wide open vertical passing. For an offensive
tackle like Aiken, that means you aren't just
run blocking in a cloud of dust. You are retreating
in pass protection one on one against defensive
ends who are trying to kill your quarterback.
It is a high stress environment. It really is.
I was looking at the other guys the charges drafted
in that same class to see who of course was competing
against. You've got names like Ron Billingsley
and Dickey Post. Right. And Bob Howard, Bernard
Erickson. It was a really specific incoming class
of talent. Post is actually a great reference
point here. Oh, definitely. Because he was this
small, lightning fast running back, he actually
became the AFL Rookie of the Year in 1967. So
you have this dynamic where Dickie Post is the
guy getting the headlines, the flash, the glory,
and Horace Aiken is the guy drafted to make sure
Dickie Post doesn't get broken in half. That
is the eternal plight of the lineman. But here
is where the story takes a turn. We look at the
career stats provided in the records. Harold
Aiken plays two seasons in the AFL. 1967 and
1968, games played, 13. And here's the kicker,
games started, zero. Zero starts. Now I want
to unpack this with you because on the surface
you could look at a third round pick. playing
13 games with no starts and call it a bust. But
I feel like that misses the reality of that life
entirely. It completely misses the point. The
bust label is for fans. The reality of the locker
room is totally different. To stick on a roster
for two years in the AFL, to dress for 13 games
at the highest level means you were valuable.
It means you were surviving the meat grinder.
It's the role of the backup lineman. You are
the insurance policy. Precisely. And think about
the psychology of that. You have been the horse
your whole life, the biggest man in McAllister,
the star at Oklahoma State. Then you get to San
Diego, and you are just your depth. You are the
guy who plays on special teams or comes in when
someone snaps an ankle. You have to check your
ego at the door every single morning. And you
were practicing against the defensive monsters
of that era every single day. Getting beat up.
For two years without the glory of hearing your
name announced as a starter that requires a specific
kind of mental toughness It is a blue -collar
existence in a white -collar game and then after
the 1968 season it just stops The source material
doesn't specify an injury, but for alignment
in the 60s, it was almost always physical attrition.
Knees go, the back goes. Or the economics just
don't make sense anymore. We have to remember,
in 1968, NFL and AFL players weren't making millions.
They were making decent money, but not retire
forever money. A lot of guys had off -season
jobs just to make ends meet. Which sets up the
second act perfectly. Because Horseykin didn't
just retire and fade away into a dive bar to
talk about the good old days, he pulled off what
I think is the hardest maneuver in sports. The
pivot. The pivot to civilian life. It's so tough
for so many athletes. But the source tells us
he became a founder. He founded a company. And
I just love the name of this venture. It's not
a Kelton Global Enterprises. It is the budget
floor store. It is so grounded. It tells you
exactly what it is. No pretense at all. And he
didn't stay in San Diego to do it. He went back
to Oklahoma City. That return to his roots is
crucial. He started in McAlester and Putnam City,
went to OSU, went out to San Diego, but he returned
to build his business legacy right back in Oklahoma.
He leveraged his identity. He is a local boy,
a former cowboy, a former pro, but he applied
it to something incredibly tangible, flooring.
But I want to challenge the idea that this was
just a fallback plan because the source notes
of the business didn't stay a small operation
forever. It grew to four locations across Oklahoma.
Right. And that distinction really matters. Opening
a store is a job. Expanding to four locations
over several decades. That is organizational
leadership. That is logistics, HR, supply chain
management, and marketing. It makes me wonder
if the offensive lineman mindset is actually
better suited for business than, say, the quarterback
mindset. I think there's a really strong argument
for that. Think about it. What is an offensive
lineman's job? It's protection. It's enabling
others to succeed. It's doing the dirty work
without expecting applause. If you are a quarterback,
you are used to being the center of the universe.
If the business fails, it is a massive shock
to the system. But if you are a tackle, you are
used to the grind. You are used to pushing a
heavy object forward one inch at a time. That
is a fascinating parallel. Orsaken spent two
years protecting Dickey Post in San Diego and
then spent the next several decades protecting
his employees and his margins in Oklahoma City.
Exactly. And the scale of four locations implies
he survived the economic ups and downs of Oklahoma.
The fact that the budget floor stores survived
and expanded tells me he was a shrewd operator.
He wasn't just a jock with a recognizable name.
It also speaks to the community aspect. We talked
about the local legend at the top of the deep
dive. If you have four stores in a place like
Oklahoma City, You are a pillar of that community.
And that is where the legacy really sits. When
we look at the vital statistics at the end of
the timeline, he passed away on March 18th, 2022
in Oklahoma City. He was 77 years old. And the
source for that is his obituary at Mercer Adams
Funeral Service. So he had roughly 50 years of
life after his last snap in the AFL. 50 years.
That is two full generations. The professional
football career was just a blip, a glamorous
violent blip. But the life of Harold Aiken was
defined by what he built in Oklahoma. I want
to go back to the source material itself for
a second. We are looking at this digital record,
and technically on Wikipedia, this article is
classified as a stub, a short article. Which
is deeply ironic. It feels almost disrespectful,
doesn't it? You see the word stub and you automatically
think incomplete. But we have just spent all
this time unpacking a lived life that included
being a collegiate athlete, a top 100 draft pick,
a professional AFL player, and a successful business
owner with multiple locations. It really highlights
how digital records condense decades of incredible
effort into just a few bullet points. This is
the tension between digital fame and actual impact.
The algorithm loves the outlier. If a check -in
had thrown five touchdowns in a Super Bowl, he'd
have a novel written about him online. But consistency,
reliability, building a local business, the internet
doesn't always know how to value that. It's the
quiet professional. Yes. And I would argue that
the stub classification of his digital life is
actually a testament to his success. He didn't
flame out publicly. He didn't have a tragic post
-career spiral. He went to work. He built a family
business. He died in the city he loved at 77.
That is a complete narrative, even if the word
count is low. It really makes you look differently
at those lists of draft picks from the 60s. We
see the names and if they aren't Joe Namath,
we just gloss over them. But every single one
of those guys has this massive second act. And
for the people of Oklahoma City, for the people
walking on the floors he sold, he wasn't a stub,
he was the horse. He was a person of real substance.
I am struck by the contrast between the nickname
and the reality of the man. Horse suggests this
wild untamed animal. but his life story is one
of incredible discipline. That is the duality
of the athlete entrepreneur. You need the animal
physical ability to get your foot in the door
of the AFL, but you need the discipline to walk
out that door and build a life when the cheering
stops. At Kin, clearly had both. And he did it
during such a volatile time. We mentioned the
60s, but think about the changes he saw in business
from the 70s through the 2000s. He pivoted from
an analog world to a digital one. And kept the
doors open. That is the stat that impresses me
more than the third round draft pick. Staying
in business for decades is harder than making
an NFL roster. Oh, come on, really. Harder than
blocking defensive ends. I actually think so.
In the NFL, you just have to be physically elite
and know the playbook. In business, the market
changes every day. Your competitors change. The
economy crashes. To navigate that for 40 or 50
years requires a level of adaptability that sports
doesn't always teach. That is a fair point. He
had to learn a whole new playbook every single
decade. Exactly. And he couldn't rely on being
six foot five to sell carpet. He had to rely
on trust and reputation. So as we wrap this up,
I want to briefly recap this incredible arc.
the boy from a Gallister, the horse of Oklahoma
State, the San Diego Charger, and finally, the
flooring magnate of OKC. A life well lived. Truly.
It emphasizes that success isn't just about the
number of starts in a pro game, which in his
case was zero, but about the ability to pivot
and build something lasting. Four store locations
lasting. It's a reminder that the official record
is often looking at the wrong scoreboard. Right.
We tend to value the things that are easily measured
in a box score. but you cannot measure the value
of a guy who builds a foundation in his hometown.
So here's the provocative question I want to
leave you with today. We all have our stats,
our job titles, our followers, our degrees. But
when the game is actually over and someone is
looking at the stuff of your life, which number
actually tells the true story of who you were?
Is it the draft pick or is it the franchise you
built quietly day by day? I think Horsican gave
us the answer to that. It is what you build when
the uniform comes off. I completely agree. Thanks
for taking this dive into the archives with us
today. It is always fascinating to see how much
life exists in the margins of the record books.
Always a pleasure to dig in. We will catch you
on the next deep dive. Keep looking out for the
legends next door.