Long Live Bambino: Kole Wilson Looks to Honor Late Brother’s Legacy This Season
Kole Wilson was having the game of his life.
Only minutes into Baylor’s prime-time season opener against Auburn, the 5-foot-9, 170-pound speedster darted ahead at the snap of the ball, threw in a subtle shimmy and dusted a Tigers defender to snag a perfectly placed deep ball from quarterback Sawyer Robertson for a 57-yard gain up the right sideline.
With the roars and cheers of McLane Stadium engulfing him, Wilson had officially burst onto the scene as a Bear. He jumped up and down, screaming ‘Let’s go,’ in celebration of the explosive play, forgetting, at least for a few seconds, that arguably the worst day of his life had happened just a month and a half prior.
With a heavy heart, the often-overlooked and so-called undersized Wilson put together an electric performance, showcasing his blazing quickness, incredible athleticism and great hands. He totaled eight catches for a career-high 134 receiving yards and was a shoestring tackle away from returning a kick in Baylor’s 38-24 loss to Auburn.
“I was just ready to show off my talents,” Wilson said. “I always knew what I could do, but a lot of people doubted me, doubted my height. Coming here to Baylor, the resources, the level of competition, everything was just great. Being able to step on the field and show everybody the things that I’ve known that I could do felt good.”
He added, “There are a lot of schools that didn’t recruit me or wouldn’t even think about recruiting me, and now they’re playing against me, and they can’t stop me.”
When the adrenaline and emotions started to settle from the heat of the battle, Kole snapped back to reality, unable to escape the harsh truth that his older brother, Klinard Wilson Jr., had tragically died on July 12 in a jet ski accident at the age of 28.
“He really wanted to come to this game,” Kole said of his older brother. “He was the first person to tell me, ‘Put in the tickets. Put in the tickets.’ I really wanted him to be here, but I know he was watching.”
In his first appearance as a Bear since transferring from Texas State this offseason, Kole wore an eye-black strip paying homage to his brother, which said, “Long Live Bambino.”
“That’s his nickname — we call him Bam, so I put this across as a reminder,” Kole said.
A month and a half before the Auburn game, the Wilson clan had taken a family trip to Somerville Lake, an hour and a half drive from their home in Houston. On Saturday, July 12, Kole had to head out early to finish a test in Waco by 9 p.m., but before he could leave, he was patiently awaiting his brother’s arrival, who was running late because of work.
“I hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks, so we talked for maybe 20-30 minutes, then I gave him a hug and was like, ‘I’ll see you later,’” Kole said, remembering the last thing he told his brother.
Kole went back to Waco and finished his test at 9 p.m. on the dot, only to receive an urgent and shocking phone call from his friend, who was still at the lake, informing him that something had happened to Bam and that 9-1-1 had to be called.
“I remember praying and praying and praying, and then maybe 15-20 minutes after, he called me again saying that he had passed away,” Kole recalled. “I was in my apartment pacing back and forth. I was confused. It happened all so fast. It still doesn’t feel real. I was just with him three hours before that, and then for it all to happen that quickly was just so crazy.”
Kole and Klinard, a.k.a Bam, were inseparable since their youth, and Kole would always look up to his older brother, regardless of the matter.
“I did everything my brother did,” he said. “I was always pretty much right behind him. He dyed his hair one time, and I was right behind him, so I dyed my hair too. If he got a certain type of haircut, I’m getting the same haircut.”
The two would even simulate Oklahoma drills in their living room growing up, lining up across each other to test each other’s willpower, to which Kole would never win, but believes that’s how he gained his “toughness.”
“We had these little helmets, and he used to dress me up in his football gear because he was playing tackle football at the time,” Kole said with a big smile. “I’m just four or five years old or whatever, and I have the pads and helmet on. He didn’t have anything on, though, because he was obviously bigger than me. Then, we’d line up across from one another, and we’d just run into each other. He used to kill me, but that’s one of my greatest memories.”
In the early 2010s, Klinard had successfully attempted the cinnamon challenge, a viral trend where a person tries to swallow a tablespoon of ground cinnamon without drinking water.
Kole wasn’t far behind, saying, “I saw him do it, and a couple of days later, my mom was in her room asleep, and I’m downstairs opening all the cabinets looking for some cinnamon. I finally found some, and there I am doing the cinnamon challenge by myself while everybody’s asleep. I’m in there coughing and everything, and trying to get some water out of the faucet. It’s little stuff like that. Everything my brother did, I was trying to do.”
That’s why when Kole got the phone call on that fateful day in mid-July, informing him that his brother and his best friend had passed away, it “didn’t feel real.” Kole didn’t have much time to process the hurt before fall camp and football season kicked into full gear, but there isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t think of Klinard.
“I don’t necessarily think of how it happened or anything like that, but I think about him every day, pretty much in some form or fashion — really just the good memories and stuff like that,” Kole said.
He continued, “I feel like God has helped me a lot as far as being able to talk about it and things like that. I feel like everything happens for a reason, and I may not be able to understand it, but God doesn’t make any mistakes at the end of the day. If it was just his time, it was his time, and that’s made it a lot easier to talk about.”
Kole has also spent a lot of time coming up with ideas on how to help Kanon, Klinard’s young son, and be a positive influence in his life moving forward.
“I think about my little nephew a lot, too,” he said. “He came to the SMU game, so that was fun. He’s a carbon copy of my brother, like a split image. It’s crazy how much a person can look like someone else. That’s literally him in little form. Every time I look at my nephew, it’s like looking at my brother.”
Despite playing with a heavy heart this fall, Kole wants to honor his brother by putting together a stellar senior season and ultimately making it to the NFL.
“I just want to make it to the NFL because I know he really wanted me to, and we used to always talk about it,” Kole said. “He loved watching me play. He stopped playing football going into college. He was really good, but some things didn’t go his way — maybe that wasn’t his path. Watching his little brother was the next best thing.”
The funny thing is, with Klinard’s influence over his younger brother, Kole took to football from a very early age, despite his diminutive size. Standing at 5-foot-2 as a freshman in high school, he didn’t let that impact how hard he played, maybe because of the toughness he gained from all the Oklahoma drills with his brother in the living room way back when.
“I don’t necessarily think it was hard because I always played bigger than I was,” Kole said. “Nobody could ever mess with me in any sport that I played. I might have been short, but I was always the most athletic.”
Although he was the most athletic player on the field, Kole’s recruitment process had virtually no traction, and he didn’t hold a single offer following his junior season at Paetow High School in Katy, Texas.
“It was a combination of a lot of things, with my height being one,” he said. “It was right around the time of Covid, that being two. We didn’t really start passing the ball a lot until my senior year, so freshman, sophomore, junior, I didn’t have much film because I did a lot of blocking.”
With an offensive change, Wilson had a breakout senior campaign, earning all-state honorable mention and totaling 19 touchdowns (14 receiving, three punt, two rushing), 51 receptions and 998 receiving yards. Even then, there was still minimal momentum in his recruitment throughout the fall.
“Comparison is the thief of joy, and I believe that,” he said. “I would be sitting around seeing different people get offered, and I’d be like, ‘Dang. I’m way better than him.’ I didn’t understand, but everything’s on God’s timing. That was one of the trials and tribulations that God put me through to be able to learn from that and put it in His hands. At one point, I didn’t understand it all, and it was frustrating.”
It wasn’t until December 13, the week of Paetow’s State Championship game against College Station, that Kole, who still had aspirations of playing at the next level despite little interest, finally received his first scholarship offer from a Division 1 program — Norfolk State (FCS).
Those offers, which seemingly took forever to arrive, started to trickle in, and a week after Kole helped lead Paetow to its first-ever championship, he received a phone call from Clint Killough, Incarnate Word’s recruiting coordinator and wide receivers coach.
Killough was watching the state championship games on television and was taken aback when he learned that the blazing fast Wilson was uncommitted at the end of his senior season. Once Killough got the green light from head coach GJ Kinne, he offered Kole, and Kole committed on the spot without taking a visit, due to the good vibes and genuineness of the coaching staff.
Following an unconventional recruiting process, Kole finally got his shot and earned Freshman All-American honors on a UIW team that made it all the way to the FCS Semifinals before narrowly losing to North Dakota State, 35-32.
Kole then followed Kinne, who took the head coaching job at Texas State, before the 2023 season, and totaled 100-plus receptions, 1,300-plus yards and 12 touchdowns across two seasons in San Marcos before landing at Baylor.
“All you need is one offer,” Kole said. “People get caught up in four stars, five stars, 20 offers, 30 offers — all you need is one offer. A lot of people start off at a big school and end up working their way down. But I feel like I had the perfect path.”
He continued, “I got to be able to go to UIW, watch a couple vets, but I also had the chance to be able to play and develop instead of sitting behind someone for maybe three, four years. I got to play and develop, and then transfer to a G5, which offers better competition. I got to start there as a sophomore, which is not a lot of things that people do, and I got to play there my junior year, and then ended up at the highest level.”
When Kole was looking to jump to a Power Four program this offseason, he leaned on a former teammate at Texas State and current Baylor wide receiver, Ashtyn Hawkins, for his opinion.
“He played a good role because he’s somebody that I trust and that I’ve played with before,” Kole said of Hawkins. “We have similar skill sets, and I saw how they used him. He told me the ins and outs about the program and how the coaches really are. He was with Coach Spavital before, so I could trust everything he said.”
Now teamed up at Baylor, Kole, Hawkins, as well as Josh Cameron, Kobe Prentice and Michael Trigg, combine to form one of the best groups of pass catchers in the country.
“I’ve been a part of some really talented offenses, and this receiving room is crazy,” he said. “We have so much to offer — speed, strength. We have some smaller guys, but it’s hard to contain us.”
He added, “It’s really fun. I know it’s hard for defenses because they don’t know who’s going to pop off. The receiver room is so deep, and Coach Spav puts us in the perfect position to make plays with our playbook, motions and stuff like that. It’s easy to get open if you do your job.”
On the field, Kole’s having the time of his life playing in an electric offense, but he’s still reeling and grieving with the tragic loss of his brother, and he's turning to his faith to help propel him forward this season in honor of Klinard.
“Putting my full trust in God has made me a better person, and it taught me to appreciate things and also to trust in His plan,” Kole said. “This has really gotten me to lock in and fully, with no doubts, put my faith in Him. It’s really taught me to be grateful at the end of the day. Be grateful because you never know what can happen at any moment.”
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