Memories never fade at Oklahoma basketball reunion
Wayne Cobb still goes to the coaches convention in Tulsa every year. But he doesn’t know why. He hardly sees anyone he knows.
But Thursday at the UCO Boathouse, hard by the Oklahoma River in downtown Oklahoma City, Cobb was in his element. He saw old basketball friends he hadn’t seen in as much as 30 years. Coaches. Players. Referees.
“I enjoy seeing people you don’t see for years and years at a time,” said Cobb, the retired East Central University coach.
Basketball is a fraternal game. You get to know your players. You get to know your coach. You get to know your opponents.
THUNDER JOURNAL
BLAKE GRIFFIN REPORTEDLY ‘NOT OPEN TO GOING ANYWHERE’
There’s been at least one report this summer that the Thunder would be interested in pursuing in free agency in the summer of 2017.
Now, there’s word that OKC — or any other team — may not get a chance.
In one of his NBA AM pieces this week, of Basketball Insiders cited sources close to Griffin who said the Oklahoma City native and former OU star is “adamant that he is planning to re-sign in L.A. and that he’s not open to going anywhere.”
“Sources close to the situation say win or lose, Rivers is not open to trade talks on Griffin or Paul and that he’s not worried about either walking away in July,” Kyler wrote, in the same post citing sources who said won’t be traded this year.
The Thunder All-Star is eligible to be dealt on Feb. 4, but “sources close to the situation say the Thunder’s view on Westbrook is to see what he can do as the single focal point of the team and plan to keep the noise out of the equation until next summer.”
What the Westbrook renegotiation and contract extension did was guarantee the Thunder an additional year to build around him, be it through a in-season trade or the pursuit of Griffin or another Class of 2017 unrestricted free agent like or in the summer.
According to ESPN, the Clippers and Thunder are projected to be the Nos. 4 and 6 seed, respectively, in the Western Conference this season. Those projections would look a lot worse without Griffin or Westbrook.
Right? That’s a certainty for the Thunder without Westbrook, but is it for the Clippers sans Griffin? Remember when there were rumblings of the Clippers possibly being a better team without Griffin last season? Griffin clearly makes the Clippers a more talented, deeper team, but they still managed to win 31 of 47 regular-season games in which he didn’t play in 2015-16. His absence was felt more in the postseason when Portland swept the final four games of its series with the Clippers, with Griffin missing the last two games due to a quadriceps injury.
Even with the regular-season success without Griffin, Basketball Insiders said Clippers coach isn’t open to trading him or and isn’t worried about them walking in free agency.
For now, the Thunder and Clippers appear intent on keeping Westbrook and Griffin, and the Clippers appear confident Griffin will re-sign. As seen with however, nothing is guaranteed. You get to know the guys in the striped shirts.
There are no helmets to hide faces. No vast expanse of field to hide actions. No massive rosters on which to sink into anonymity.
“You build a respect for each other,” said Gene Robbins, who coached Murray State Junior College to great success from 196268 and later was head coach at North Texas. “The ones who deserve it.”
That respect was on display at the reunion annually hosted and funded by John Hudson, former commissioner of the Sooner Athletic Conference. Three years ago, the first reunion attracted 26 people. Well over 100 have attended each of the last two years.
Hudson said he was tired of seeing old friends only at funerals. “I wanted us to have a chance to get together, have a good time,” Hudson said. “The older
MLB SCOREBOARD we get, the less important what our record is. What’s important is we made a lot of friends over basketball.”
The reunion included dozens of famed high school coaches, like Dub Raper and Charlie Heatley and Jerry Havens. State college coaches like Dan Hays and Doug Tolin and Jerry Jobe. 1960s-era players like Gene Johnson and Jack Herron of OSU, Paul Cloar and Joe Holladay of OU, and Eddie Jackson of OCU.
Tommy Griffin coached Classen High School to the Class 3A state title in 1975, beating Ada in the finals. Ada’s point guard that night was Mike Anderson, who went on to coach on Billy Tubbs’ staff. That same night in ’75, Clester Harrington coached Altus in the 4A state championship game. Griffin, Anderson and Harrington all attended the reunion.
Current head coaches Lon Kruger of OU and Brad Underwood of OSU were there. So were Ted Owens, who coached Kansas for 20 seasons; and Ken Hayes, former head coach at New Mexico State, Tulsa and Oral Roberts; and Darrel Johnson, former head coach at Baylor.
Tony Robinson, who coached Southeastern State for 20 years, 19912011, loaded up his pickup Thursday just north of the Lake Texoma dam, south of Durant. Robinson, 63, was the pup in the group. Robbins, 84, was in the backseat. Gene Davis, 83, was in the front seat. At Pauls Valley, they picked up Cobb, 76, who had driven over from Ada.
“I like to talk to people about old-time basketball,” said Davis, who coached 57 years and as recently as 2013-14 coached Idabel to a 21-7 record.
Davis can still recite details of his first state tournament, 1959, when he coached segregated Grant. Every day, he drove past black boys waiting on the bus to go to Booker T. Washington High School, knowing what kind of team he would have if the school had integrated. That ’58 tournament included Rocky, which had future OCU All-Americans Bud Koper and Gary Hill. But Rocky didn’t win state; now-defunct Woodland did.
Schools close and coaches retire, but memories don’t fade.
“I coached for 100 years,” said Robbins. “It gets in your system. Hard to get away from it.”
In the 1960s, Robbins recruited Alan Simpson from Hugo to Murray State. In 1973, Robbins got Simpson his first coaching job, in Denton, Texas. Simpson retired last year after 42 years, most notably at Byng.
“I’ll never forget it,” Simpson said of his mentor.
And the coaches and players and officials who filled the boathouse on Thursday will never forget the game that gave them not just great memories, but friends for life.