Myron Roderick

I was sad to see that Oklahoma State wrestling legend Myron Roderick died. (Click here for an obit from the Oklahoman.) I had a chance to meet him while I was in college....
   It was early 1985, and I needed a story. As a journalism major at OSU, I found myself in a required, upper-level feature writing class, taught by Professor Harry Heath, the brilliant curmudgeon who had been the head of the whole journalism school at one time. After mulling over one mundane idea after another, I decided to write about the rebirth of the OSU football team.
   The Cowboys had just gone 10-2 in Pat Jones' first season, and everyone on campus was giddy about the football team. (It would be the early 1990s before everyone realized that Jones couldn't coach a lick.)
   I don't remember why, but I decided that I needed to interview Roderick, who was the athletic director at the time. Early one afternoon, I looked up the phone number for the athletic director's office and called it.
   Roderick answered the phone himself, catching me off-guard. After stammering around for a beat or two, I told him who I was, and what I wanted.
   "OK, I'm not real busy right now," he said. "Why don't you come by my office?"
   Try to imagine a major-college athletic director today doing something like that.
   I dashed across campus to the athletic offices, which were in the east end zone building attached to Lewis Field (what we now know as Boone Pickens Stadium). A secretary led me into a not-large office, and there was Myron Roderick, who smiled and shook my hand. Strong grip, not surprisingly.
   We talked for probably 45 minutes, about the football team, about the athletic department (and, like an idiot, I didn't ask him a single question about wrestling). I don't remember most of what he said, although I do recall him saying, in not so many words, that Jimmy Johnson was not the friendliest guy and that no one in the athletic department missed him. (Johnson left in the spring of 1984 to coach the University of Miami.)
   Then Roderick said, "Hey, you want to talk to Coach Jones?" And we were walking down a hallway to the football offices, where I spent about 30 minutes interviewing Pat Jones.
   Later, as I walked back to my dorm, I shook my head in amazement at how I had spent my afternoon. I wrote the story for my class over the next several nights, and I don't think I got a very good grade (Professor Heath was tough), but I didn't care. From that moment forward, I was a big fan of Myron Roderick.
   Everyone will remember his wrestling accomplishments, the NCAA titles, the fact that he hired Eddie Sutton. What I will remember is how he took the time to help a mostly-clueless journalism student with his homework.

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They Wore Short Shorts

Once upon a time, basketball players wore really short shorts. 

...That's the message you'll probably take away from this photo, which I dug out my archives on the eve of college basketball season.

But there's more to the story.

Fresh off a season of photographing Oklahoma State football from the sidelines, I decided to try my hand at basketball photography.

Dec. 10, 1987 was not just another home game for Oklahoma State. It was the home opener, and the debut of the newly-renovated Gallagher-Iba Arena. (Note to OSU fans: this was the refurbishment that spiffed up the old Gallagher Hall, but retained close to the original seating capacity. The massive overhaul came much later.)

The Cowboys were in the second season of Leonard Hamilton's tenure as head coach. It was Hamilton's first head coaching job after serving as a Kentucky assistant, and at that point in his career he could recruit...but that was about it.

Notable players on the 1987-1988 squad included talented drug flame-out Richard Dumas and future New York Knicks stalwart John Starks. Naturally, I didn't get a single good photo of either one of them.

The arena looked great, with shiny brass railings and new seats that were more comfortable than the old ones, but still afforded leg-room only to children and amputees.

With my trusty Minolta in hand, I grabbed a piece of floor along the baseline. I quickly learned that basketball photography would be more uncomfortable than football had been. That hardwood floor is brutal on the knees, and you really can't stand up during the game and move around. You're surrounded by other photographers, and you have to watch out for stray basketballs and players flinging themselves out of bounds.

I focused on the space in front of the basket, and hoped for the best. This photograph was the best I had at the end of the game -- which OSU won over Tulsa University, 66-65. It would also be my last basketball photograph until I became an actual sportswriter in 1990. I'll leave those stories for another day.

Even though it was a close contest, plenty of Cowboys got into the game. This photo features backup guard/forward Mike Peterson scoring one of two baskets he recorded in 9 minutes of action. Also in the photo are starting center Sylvester (Sly) Kincheon (#42) and backup center/oddity Alan Bannister (#43). Bannister was from England, and because he was taller than 7 feet OSU gave him a basketball scholarship. He was the most un-coordinated human being I've ever seen. I remember watching him walk across campus, thinking he looked like a marionette - his limbs seeming to be under someone else's control. He played basketball like that, too. Finally, that's Derrick Davis (#11) in the background, who I don't remember at all.

And yes, they all wore short shorts -- because we didn't know any better yet.

Standing in the Way of Barry Sanders' March to Glory

Barry Sanders was a transcendent, once-in-a-lifetime football player. He won the Heisman Trophy and turned in the greatest rushing season in NCAA history, and followed that up with a Hall of Fame career with the Detroit Lions.

But in 1987, he was a backup tailback and kick returner for Oklahoma State.

That year's Cowboy squad finished 10-2 and were led by senior tailback Thurman Thomas, himself a future Hall of Famer. I had the great good fortune to score a sideline pass for the OSU home games that season from my employer, the El Reno Daily Tribune, which gave me my first opportunity to try sports photography (see previous post).

No Flag on the Play

Back in 1987, I got to try my hand at sports photography for the first time. My newspaper, the El Reno Daily Tribune, had a sideline photo pass for Oklahoma State games, and that year I got to go. I think maybe I won a drawing.

I'd been shooting pictures on a regular basis as reporter/photographer, but that was mostly around town. Football, I quickly learned, was a whole different ballgame (pun intended).

1987 was a good year to cover Oklahoma State football. They finished 10-2 and won the Sun Bowl over West Virginia. The only blemishes on the record (and this will sound all too familiar to Cowboys fans) were losses to Oklahoma and Nebraska. That's how it was in the old Big 8 Conference. 

That OSU squad featured senior tailback Thurman Thomas, a future Hall of Famer, and a sophomore quarterback named Mike Gundy. Oh, and the backup tailback was a guy named Barry Sanders (more about him in a future post).

Now There Was a Coach...

As I watch the field take shape for the College World Series, it's easy to see what this year's NCAA baseball championship tournament will have in common with the last 11: Oklahoma State is once again watching at home.
If you were an Oklahoma State baseball fan in the 1980s and early '90s, you thought it would last forever.
The conference titles. The College World Series appearances. The domination.

Sigh. Now look at them.

Under the leadership of the comatose Frank Anderson, the Cowboys have consistently squandered talent and underwhelmed their fans. Following a shocking Big 12 Tournament championship in his first season (2004), Anderson has managed to put more distance between the team and its glory years.

The Gary Ward Era
Gary Ward came to OSU in 1978 from the Arizona junior college circuit. He immediately transformed a moribund also-ran into the dominant baseball team in the old Big 8. The numbers speak for themselves:

• 16 straight Big 8 championships 1981-1996
• 13 Top Ten finishes in final Baseball America poll (since 1981)
• 10 College World Series appearances.
• 3 appearances in the national championship game.
• 953 wins against 313 losses. Oh, and one tie.

The Cowboys never broke through and won the College World Series under Ward (the school's lone national title in baseball came in 1959), but they were always relevant. They were always right there. Any serious discussion of college baseball in the 1980s had to include Oklahoma State.

Ward taught the science of hitting, producing All-Americans like Robin Ventura and Pete Incaviglia. But more than that, he taught attitude. The Cowboys swaggered. They carried themselves like champions. Incaviglia would warm up in the on-deck circle by swinging a sledgehammer.

Nowhere was that attitude more in evidence than in the Big 8 Tournament, which the Cowboys owned for 16 consecutive years. In some years, it looked like the Cowboys run might come to an end, at the hands of the Oklahoma Sooners or an upstart Kansas team. But the Cowboys always came through in the end, staving off all challenges in the double-elimination tournament.

That success never translated fully to Omaha and the CWS. Ward's two best teams fell short in the final game to Stanford (and Jack McDowell) in 1987 and Georgia in 1990. Pitching usually let down the Cowboys in Omaha, and indeed, was always the team's Achilles' heel in the Ward era.

After making one last run to Omaha in 1996, Ward announced his retirement. He blamed a chronic back ailment, but in truth, lack of support from the OSU athletic department at the dawn of the Big 12 conference era pushed Ward out the door.

So naturally, they hired Tom Holliday, Ward's longtime pitching coach, to replace him. The same Holliday who was reponsible for the pitching that never measured up to the offense. Holliday made one trip to Omaha, and then was fired after seven mostly-underwhelming seasons.

The funny thing is, Holliday had more success than Frank Anderson. Anderson, however, soldiers on with the support of the athletic department. And Cowboy fans are left with memories of the days when they had a real baseball coach.

Postscript: I took this photo of Gary Ward during the Big 8 Tournament at old All Sports Stadium in Oklahoma City during the late 1980s. I believe he was threatening to make the shortstop walk home if he made another error (kidding). Baseball uniform buffs will note the sans-a-belt pants look, along with the pullover jersey. Those were great uniforms with "Oklahoma" in block lettering and "State" on the black baseball bat underneath. They frequently wore orange or black jerseys with the white pants. And black stirrups, by God.

Next time: More fun with black and white photography...