Southern Nazarene finding its way
Bobby Martin tried to apologize to Dan Hays.
They were basketball coaching contemporaries at archrival schools. Hays coached 33 years at Oklahoma Christian University. Martin coached Southern Nazarene for 17 seasons. And back in the 1990s, when Oklahoma smallcollege basketball was at its zenith, SNU-OC games were rowdier than Bedlam.
One fateful night in Southern Nazarene’s old Broadhurst Gym, SNU beat the Eagles, and the students celebrated by flinging superballs onto the court. Thousands and thousands of superballs flying and bouncing all around the Eagles as they tried to leave the court.
Martin grabbed Hays and said, “I am so sorry.” Hays had a wide smile and even in defeat, reveled in the rivalry. Hays told Martin, “That’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen.”
Martin is beginning his 40th
year as the Southern Nazarene athletic director. So when fans and alums complain about missing the old days of SNU competing in the NAIA’s District 9 or Sooner Athletic Conference, Martin knows how they feel. Heck, he feels the same way.
“I love the NAIA,” Martin said. “I have a special place in my heart for that. I wish the NAIA the very very best. I really do. Do I look back and wish we were still there? Probably not. I’m learning to love the NCAA Division II.”
Six years ago, the Crimson Storm left the NAIA for the NCAA. The NAIA’s future was uncertain; talks were held to fold the NAIA into the NCAA. NAIA football was and still is largely a mess. NCAA Division II is a much better place for football schools. And Southern Nazarene needed football as an enrollment booster.
So the SNU administration made the decision that Oklahoma Baptist and Oklahoma Christian soon would mirror.
The road has been rocky. SNU’s proud basketball tradition was put to the test. Its young football program was sent reeling. The athletic department, trying to maintain its mission of driving enrollment, faced more restrictions with NCAA scholarship limitations and compliance.
“It’s hard to go from the success we were having to what we’ve been through the last few years,” Martin said. “But I believe strongly, then did and still do, that this program is built on a really good foundation. God honors our program and He does a lot of great things through it. I’m not concerned whether or not we will be successful. That will happen. And it’s starting to happen.”
The Crimson Storm joined the Division II Great American Conference, made up of six Oklahoma schools and six Arkansas schools. Four public schools and two private schools from each state. SNU is coming off its best year ever in the Great American.
The Crimson Storm went 27-3, won the GAC men’s basketball championship and played in a D-II regional. SNU has most of the players returning from that team.
“I hope we can look back and say it kind of proved to be a launching point for the men’s basketball program,” said Adam Bohac, in his 10th year as SNU’s coach. “Hopefully encourage and provide a lift to the whole department.”
Southern Nazarene football was much improved in 2017. The Crimson Storm had winning records in 11 of its 12 seasons in the NAIA. But in its first seasons of NCAA Division II football play, SNU was 5-50.
2017 was better. The Storm went 4-7, beating in-state rivals East Central and Northwestern, plus Arkansas schools Harding and Henderson State.
Third-year head coach Andy Lambert “has done a great job, is doing a great job, getting our program to where we’re going to be competitive,” Martin said. “You’re going against programs that have been established in NCAA Division II for a long time. It’s going to be difficult to get there and stay there, just because of the costs involved.”
Public schools, with their lower tuition, comprise a far greater percentage of NCAA Division II than in the NAIA. That’s not a deal-breaker for basketball, with its limited roster size. But it makes football much more difficult. Public schools can offer room and board for a virtual half scholarship, but the tuition difference is vast. SNU has to parcel out its 36 football scholarships in limited portions to produce a roster of 120 players.
Division II requires a minimum of 10 sports. SNU offers 16, because the more sports offered, the higher the enrollment. Southern Nazarene has slightly less than 2,000 undergraduate students, plus a few hundred graduate students.
“We would love to grow,” Martin said. “This is a great place. SNU is so easy for me to sell personally.” He grew up in Canyon, Texas, and came to then-Bethany Nazarene College because two Nazarene ministers called the school and encouraged scholarship help. SNU’s connection to the Nazarene church is as strong as ever. But the Nazarenes aren’t the Baptists; their numbers are limited.
The double community of the Nazarene church and the small-town feel of Bethany, literally inside the Oklahoma City metropolis, creates an enticing atmosphere some recruits and virtually all parents.
Martin has started an endowment for SNU athletics that he hopes soon reaches $3 million. That would give the Crimson Storm a consistent, albeit small, revenue stream.
The move to the NCAA has changed things at Southern Nazarene. Not all for the better.
“There are individual times you wish you could do differently,” Martin said. “Taking a kid out to get a Coke. In Christian ministry, that’s who you are and what you do.” Such restrictions have “been an adjustment.”
But there are advantages. Martin said he’s told the SNU faculty, “This isn’t fair, but it’s true. You are looked at as a better faculty the minute we joined the NCAA. It helped us to be able to get into doors. Some kids, they wanted to go to NCAA. Didn’t want to talk to the NAIA at all.”
When Martin arrived in Bethany in 1972, the school had been in the NAIA only six years. By 1981, under coach Loren Gresham, SNU won the NAIA title in basketball. Gresham would go on to be the 28-year school president; under his charge Southern Nazarene joined the NCAA.
Martin is not predicting that the Crimson Storm is on a collision course with another national championship. But he believes in the place and he believes in the people. That’s always a good place to start.