Dreams stay with you
A documentary filmmaker went in search of Big Country.
Kat Jayme always had heard the adage that you should never meet your childhood heroes. But she would like to add an addendum.
“You should never meet your childhood heroes, unless they’re Bryant Reeves.”
Jayme is a Vancouver filmmaker. She’s also a motivational speaker, a basketball coach and an environmentalist. But before that, Jayme was a little girl who loved the Vancouver Grizzlies. The NBA expansion team started play in 1995, and its first-ever draft pick was Reeves.
Big Country. The OSU legend played six NBA seasons in Vancouver. Then injuries derailed his career just as the Grizzlies moved to Memphis. Jayme’s team and hero were gone.
She knew where the Grizzlies went. She never knew what happened to Reeves.
But almost two years ago, Jayme set out to find Big Country, and the result is an award-winning, 40-minute movie — “Finding Big Country” — that will have screenings next week in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
Earlier this month, the film won the Audience Choice award at the Vancouver International Film Festival, which sported more than 300 movies and played to five soldout screenings.
“I have been blown away by the reception in Vancouver and elsewhere,” Jayme said Tuesday. “I always knew that there was an appetite for this film, but it exceeded my expectations.”
There are no holes in the movie’s title. Finding Reeves is not easy, even though every Oklahoman knows his location. Reeves retired to his massive ranch hard by the Arkansas River outside his hometown of Gans in Sequoyah County. You can occasionally spot Reeves at Gallagher-Iba Arena on winter nights, but otherwise, he’s content with seclusion on his ranch, where his cellphone service is spotty, which bothers him not at all.
When you see Big Country, he’s as friendly as ever. As downhome as he was 25 years ago, when he was one of the greatest Oklahoma sports stories ever told and leading the Cowboys to the 1995 Final Four. The spotlight doesn’t reach Gans, and he doesn’t care.
Jayme came to Oklahoma in 2017 to interview people who knew Reeves, and I was more than happy to introduce her to Big Country, because I knew when he’d be at a certain spot — the 2017 Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame inductions. Reeves was just as friendly and accommodating as ever, and Big Country agreed to let her come out to his ranch.
“Dream come true,” Jayme said. “I can’t even believe that that happened.
“Just a standup guy. I was super nervous. When I was interviewing all the subjects prior
to going to his ranch, ‘I’m nervous; should I be nervous?’ Everyone was like, ‘you have nothing to worry about. You’re dealing with like a gentle giant essentially.’ And even people in Vancouver would tell me that. And Bryant totally didn’t disappoint. He totally lived up to what everyone was telling me about him.”
As a kid, Jayme was drawn to Big Country because of his nickname and his size and his status as the Grizzlies’ first marquee player.
For the Vancouver International Film Festival, Jayme kept secret that she had found Reeves, who has done few Vancouver interviews over the years. The Grizzlies themselves have little remnants left in the psyche of British Columbians.
Jayme promoted her film with posters around Vancouver, with a picture of Reeves’ face and the words “MISSING: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?” At the original screening, people cheered when the scene arrived of Jayme finding Reeves.
Of course, here in Oklahoma, Reeves never was missing. We knew where he was. Hunting or fishing or driving around his ranch. But the film remains fun for fans who remember the remarkable player with a fantastic nickname and an even better story, going from major project to All-American in a matter of no time, and to see the Vancouver side of the tale is well worth the time of anyone who loved Big Country.