Louis Oliver

Louis Oliver, III (born March 9, 1966) is an American former college and professional football player who was a safety in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. Oliver played college football for the University of Florida, and was twice recognized as an All-American. He was a first-round pick in the 1989 NFL Draft, and played professionally for the Miami Dolphins and the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL.

Early life

Oliver was born in Belle Glade, Florida in 1966. He attended Glades Central High School in Belle Glade, and was a standout high school football player for the Glades Central Raiders. Memorably, Oliver blocked two punts in the same game as a junior.

College career

After graduating from high school, Oliver attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he was a walk-on player on head coach Galen Hall's Florida Gators football team in 1985. Subsequently, Oliver not only earned an athletic scholarship, he became a starting free safety and team captain, and totaled eleven career interceptions. He was a first-team All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) selection in 1987 and 1988, a first-team All-American in 1987 and a consensus first-team All-American in 1988, and a two-time SEC Academic Honor Roll honoree. Oliver was also the recipient of the Gators' Fergie Ferguson Award recognizing the "senior football player who displays outstanding leadership, character and courage."

Louis Oliver (poet)

Louis Oliver (April 9, 1904 – May 10, 1991), also known as Little Coon or Wotkoce Okisce, was an American poet of the Muscogee people. His poetry combines themes of Creek folklore with an examination of intellectualism in the context of the Creek nation.

Oliver was born on April 9, 1904, in Coweta, Oklahoma, which at the time was still part of the Indian Territories; his parents died when he was young and he was raised by relatives in Okfuskee. He studied at the Euchee Indian School and then Bacone College; unlike many of his contemporaries, he earned a high school diploma in 1926, an accomplishment that alienated some other Muscogee who accused him of "capitulating to the White Man's ways".

While living among the Cherokee in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in the early 1980s, Oliver joined a writing group that included several published authors, and moved away from the more classical European forms of poetry that he had been practicing until then. He became the author of two books of poetry, Caught in a willow net: poems and stories (Greenfield Review Press, 1983) and Chasers of the sun: Creek Indian thoughts (Greenfield Review Press, 1990). In 1987, the Este Mvskoke Arts Council of the Muscogee people gave him their inaugural Alexander Posey Literary Award. He died on May 10, 1991, in Tahlequah.