It's OK

It’s the stars that blanket the High Point over Kenton.

It’s a late-afternoon picnic on Cavanal Hill.

It’s the foliage along the Talimena Byway.

It’s Eischen’s in Okarche, Click’s in Pawnee, Cattlemen’s in the City and Meers in Meers.

It’s Seqyoyah and Black Kettle; Woody Guthrie and Will Rogers.

It’s the ghost of Alfalfa Bill Murray surveying the land from his perch atop Tucker Tower.

It’s the sun rising over the Ouachitas and falling over the Wichitas.

It’s “Go Pokes” in Stillwater and “Boomer Sooner” in Norman.

It’s peaches in Porter and strawberries in Stilwell.

It’s a simple wave peeking over the steering wheel of each truck you pass on a county road.

It’s the faith of the ranchers, praying for rain.

It’s the courage of a fireman, pulling a baby’s broken body out of the rubble.

It’s April 14, 1935, April 19, 1995 and May 3, 1999.

It’s the resiliency of a community to rise above any adversity.

It’s you and me, however different, united by a common bond.

It’s Oklahoma and it’s OK.

A Cowboy’s Call to Action

Phog Allen was the first to lose in this building. 

He was also the second to lose in this building. 

Soon after, Dean Smith and John Wooden followed. The names go on: Don Haskins, Jerry Tarkanian, Norm Stewart, Tom Izzo, Tubby Smith, Bob Knight, Roy Williams…

All have entered and all have succumbed to the relentless strain of mayhem that is brewed inside those walls. 

Gallagher-Iba Arena. 

Madison Square Garden of The Plains. 

Mr. Iba’s House of Horrors. 

The Rowdiest Arena in the Country.

People call me a skeptic. I call myself a realist. Either way, it’s hard to deny that this year's basketball team just isn’t very good.

I don’t think it’s for lack of effort. They fight hard. I’m not a coach and I don’t want to pretend to be. I’m not here to pinpoint the issues of a program that I’m not a part of day-in and day-out. 

What I do know, though, is that we have failed them. We have failed that team as alumni. Our hypocrisy stretches even to our alma mater, where hallowed but hollow words droop off the tongue of the masses, “Ever you’ll find us, Loyal and True…"

My roots go way back in Gallagher-Iba Arena (for a guy my age). My earliest memories of being in that building are filled with the likes of Robisch, Webber, Adkins and Mason. My first Cowboy jersey was a Chianti Roberts No. 23.

I remember the original Oklahoma earthquakes; when 6,381 people would literally shake the rafters of the old house. When the enemies were LaFraentz, Stone and Najera.

I remember the jealousy that welled up within me when Mom and Dad called me from their seats during a delay late one game, the staff frantically mopping up glass, looking for a replacement goal and picking bloody shards out of Big Dady’s bald head. I could only watch on and dream of one day owning a piece of shattered backboard from the grand re-opening…the perfect Cowboy keepsake.

I remember the first time I stepped foot on that white maple floor, a self-proclaimed Bryant Reeves-reincarnate at Eddie Sutton's basketball camp… the same camp that McFarlin, Williams and the Graham twins became my heroes.

I remember fighting the urge to vomit for the entire second half of a game in 2010, trying to discern if it stemmed from a brutal bout of the flu or the fact that I was a first-time scoreboard operator at Gallagher-Iba and we were on the verge of knocking off the No. 1 team in the country.

I remember the emotions that overtook me as I sat on the Cowboys' bench listening to Doug Gottlieb take the public address mic at halftime during a game ten-years removed from January 27, 2001, recalling the strength and courage of Coach Sutton during that fateful period.

I remember playing three-on-three pick up games as a college student, recreating all the great moments on that court: Big Country’s half court shot; Victor’s Bedlam bank shot; Byron’s over-the-shoulder circus shot.

I remember ups and downs, but what I remember most is the life that was breathed into the place each time the lights were turned on. 

The place didn’t get its reputation from the teams that wore orange and black. It got its reputation from you and me. From the students and from the band. From the fervor and passion that has been wildly discharged in that building for 77 years. 

It sickens me to imagine Gallagher-Iba Arena clad in anything but orange. When Travis Ford and his team take the floor on Wednesday night, I want it to be vintage GIA. We can be a variable. We can make it hell on our opponent. 

Be Loyal. Be True. Be so loud that the soul’s of Mr. Iba and Bob Kurland are awakened in the rafter’s among the championship banners. 

When Larry Reece takes the mic, I want his eyes to glance around the building and he can say with a full heart and a booming voice, “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Gallagher-Iba Arena, THE ROWDIEST ARENA IN THE COUNTRY!"

Whispers In The Wind

Something whispers in the wind.

Nimbly and delicately sweeping through the Georgia pines, under the soft moonlight of a Southern sky, fleeting whispers of memories past shatter the silence of this slumbering modern day Garden of Eden.

The serene lull of a cool breeze transports the memories of bellowing roars of patrons. It carries the ghosts of Sarazen and Snead, Hogan and Jones. Under the stars and the moon it trundles down Magnolia Lane and over the old clubhouse, glancing the Crow’s Nest before exposing the sprawling sanctuary below. 

Through the chutes of trees, up and down the immaculately groomed hills and across the creeks. If you listen closely, you can hear the roars of Sarazen's shot heard 'round the world in ‘35, Nicklaus’ eagle in ’86 and Tiger’s chip in 2005. 

It creeps over the Hogan Bridge, where you can see the faint image of a young boy fishing in Rae’s Creek for his dinner.

It climbs the hill to the 18th green, where so many moments have been etched in time. That young boy, now a man, stands stoically by as his friend, Gentle Ben, finishes the tournament at the top of the big white leaderboard in 1995. The two friends embrace, overwhelmed with emotion. Twenty years later, on the same green, they embrace once again; one final time.

It wanders through the woods to Ike’s Pond where, amidst a hazy fog, the shadowy figure of a man from a bygone era materializes on its banks… 

In a few hours, the cool breeze will transform into a warm current of energy as the veil of darkness draped across the sanctuary gives way to light. The silence will be broken by thousands joined together once again, just as they do every second Sunday in April.

Something whispers in the wind. Its a tradition. 

A tradition unlike any other.

We Remember

The cold, dry air crept from under the attic closet door, over the footboard of the bed and somehow found its way into my sheets, assaulting my toes with its frigid malevolence. The temperature in Owasso had dropped into the 20s.

I had gone to bed in a foul mood. The “friendly confines” of the Coors Events Center in Boulder, Colorado had been less than accommodating to my Oklahoma State Cowboys. In fact, the Pokes were handed an old-fashioned Big 12 beatdown. 

Ricardo Patton, just 42 years old, had out-coached a legend of the game. He tactically sliced and diced Eddie Sutton's patented man-to-man defense for 81 points to earn one of Colorado’s five conference wins that season.

Andre Williams was a bright spot for the Pokes on a night where moral victories were few and far between, finishing with 15 points and 16 rebounds. Coach Sutton searched for energy from nearly his entire bench. Even Daniel Lawson and Antoine Broxsie played a few minutes for the desperate coach.

It was a night that we all wanted to forget. Match-ups with conference powers Missouri and Oklahoma loomed on the horizon. Coach Sutton wanted to get out of that dreary tundra as quickly as possible to focus on the next game. I, twelve years old at the time, wanted to fall asleep. Sunday school wasn’t going to be fun with my group of fellow grumpy Cowboy fans and the few crimson-hearted hecklers.

Attempting to ignore the impending frostbite on my toes, I forced myself to think tropical thoughts. As I’m wasting away on a warm, sandy beach, my paradise was interrupted by my father opening my door and sitting on the bedside. 

“Jared, there was an accident in Colorado.”

I knew about Evansville and Marshall. I had no inkling that it would ever happen to us, the Oklahoma State family.

The morning of January 28, 2001 wasn’t filled with trash talk from fellow sunday school members or frustration over the poor performance from the day prior. The chill I felt on my toes from the night before had enveloped the state of Oklahoma. The sunshine never managed to poke through the gray clouds and fall on the rolling plains of the countryside. It was as if Mother Nature sensed that our home was veiled with the dark, sorrowful mourning that can only come from tragedy.

We had lost ten brothers.

N81PF, a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 prop plane and one of three that the Cowboys basketball program flew (often), had gone down.

Kendall Durfey, Bjorn Fahlstrom, Nathan Fleming, Will Hancock III, Daniel Lawson, Brian Luinstra, Denver Mills, Pat Noyes, Bill Teegins and Jared Weiberg.

Ten sons, brothers and fathers. Ten Cowboys fallen in a snowy pasture outside Strasburg, Colorado.

I’ve made the pilgrimage to the small memorial placed at the scene of the crash, 44 miles outside of Denver. 

I’ve played pickup games on the same white maple floor that Daniel Lawson and Nate Fleming dripped sweat on every day, working their tails off for one of the most legendary coaches in the game.

I’ve sat at the scorer's where Bill Teegins used to make his iconic call, “He shoots, He scores, Heeeee’s fouled!”.

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There are moments surrounding this tragic event that will always bring us closer as an OSU family. 

January 26, 2011 - The day I wept at halftime of an Oklahoma State basketball game while I sat on the team bench and listened to Andre Williams, Desmond Mason, Doug Gottleib and Eddie Sutton recall that fateful day ten years prior. 

Eddie was the courageous man that led the OSU family out of those tumultuous times, even though it may have cost him more sacrifice than ever thinkable. Public address announcer Larry Reece said it best on that afternoon..

“Coach, you were our John Wayne back in those days."

November 17, 2011 - “God forbid this happen again.” Eleven months after the tenth anniversary of the accident, the unthinkable had happened. Once again I was awoken by my dad; this time was a phone call early in the morning.

I threw on a sweater and jacket and drove a half a mile to Gallagher-Iba Arena. The news trucks were already there. I remember having to choke back tears as I stood just off camera in the team film room as it was announced that there had been another crash. 

Behind the same podium where Mike Gundy once expressed “I’m a man; I’m 40!”, Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis was telling the world that we had just lost four more members of our family.

Kurt Budke, Miranda Serna and Olin and Paula Branstetter had fallen in the Arkansas backwoods.

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Those tragedies, however unthinkably distressing they may have been, have knit the Oklahoma State University family together into an unbreakable bond. We know what it’s like to lose. We know what it’s like to win. But most importantly, we know what it’s like to rise above adversity with courage and valor. 

No matter where you are, in Stillwater or Dallas or Dubai or Orlando, when you see someone donning the orange and black, you know they’re a part of your family. You may never know their name or their life story, but they are with you in the part of the heart that pumps your orange blood.

Just smile and give them the Pistol’s Firing.

Not For College Days Alone...

As I sit in my apartment in Orlando, Florida, 26 years old and 1,196 miles from home, I find myself doing what I've done best for the last two and a half years: sitting on my couch, reflecting.

I am not ashamed that I often recollect my time at Oklahoma State University. After all, it was the most memorable five years of my life. 

I resided at 1123 W. University, 5th & Willis and 901 W. Will Rogers. Three addresses; thousands of memories.

Five years with intentions to study; five years of spending more time in Gallagher-Iba Arena and Boone Pickens Stadium than in Edmon Low.

I've been to many college campuses across the United States of America. From the vine-laced brick walls of Harvard to the burritos in Lubbock. The Southern Belles in Tuscaloosa and the Boys of Old Florida. The prestige and tradition of American institutions of higher education are compelling, but no campus can compare to the reverent, hallowed grounds of the old pasture on which Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College was once founded.

Photographs, memories and references known but to Oklahoma State faithful are what I cherish the most. 

One of my biggest fears is losing these vivid memories over time. Hence, this blog. I don't expect anyone to read this, but if you do then I hope it will give you a sense of the reverence I feel for that university. My university.

Proud and Immortal,

Bright shines your name.

Oklahoma State, 

We herald your fame.

Ever you'll find us

Loyal and True,

To our alma mater,

O-S-U.

Call me nostalgic. Call me sentimental. Call me a homer.

Better yet, just call me a Cowboy.