HIS FINEST HOUR
Eddie Sutton was a rock for OSU after 2001 plane crash
Eddie Sutton stood on the stage at Gallagher-Iba Arena 19 years ago, putting a team and a school and a city and a state on his back.
I called him John Wayne after that memorial to honor the 10 men killed in the OSU basketball plane crash of 2001. Steve Buzzard, then the Cowboys' sports information director, called Sutton OSU's rock.
“Everyone around him was thinking, how in the world is he doing this?” Buzzard recalled Wednesday, four days after Sutton died at age 84. “Through that first week (after the crash), I remember every day, talking to him, thinking, `what a rock.' He was so strong through the whole thing … he was able to be that figure we were able to look at and say, `that's our rock.'”
And here's how much of a rock Sutton was. He stood tall in those days, trying to lead the healing of a hurting people, despite overwhelming guilt.
“He was the one that assigned the seats on the different planes,” said Sean Sutton, who was his father's assistant coach from 1993-06. “He had such a big heart and cared so much about people … he knew he was the one that put the eight guys on
with those two pilots. It was his decision. He had to live with that.”
Sutton's leadership — fathership might be a better word — in those days was exemplary.
Sean Sutton remembers being in his kitchen, getting the call from his father that one of the planes had gone down, with no survivors, and hurrying to the office to be with Eddie Sutton while he phoned the families of the victims.
The thing Sean remembers most of that scene: how heartbroken Eddie was while making those calls.
And then over the next few days, leading to the memorial service in which Eddie Sutton took the podium and told warm and funny stories about each victim, Sutton was the mighty oak upon which everyone leaned.
“I've never been more proud of my dad for anything,” said Steve Sutton, the oldest of Eddie and Patsy Sutton's three sons. “I can't even fathom the strength it took.”
That experience changed Eddie Sutton. Sean Sutton long has talked of his dad's change with his players. He still was rough on them. Still demanding. Still seeking perfection. The perfect play. The perfect practice. The perfect game.
But he also took to hugging a player after practice, telling them he loved them. Took to calling his boys or his grandkids regularly to tell them the same.
“I think later in life, it took its toll,” Sean Sutton said.
Sean should know. It took its toll on him. Those were his friends and colleagues. For the longest time, he couldn't sleep after the crash. He would lie down and see the faces of his friends as the plane spiraled to its destiny.
“The only way I could sleep was take a sleeping pill,” said Sean, who eventually became addicted and pled guilty to unlawfully obtaining and possessing prescription drugs for non-medical use.
In 2006, Eddie Sutton crashed his car and eventually pleaded no contest to aggravated drunk driving.
The plane crash was “not an excuse for any decision that he made to start drinking again. Not an excuse for why I started taking pain pills to try to offset my depression. Certainly that wasn't the only reason for any of that. I do know with him it took its toll. I'm not saying at all that he decided to buy himself a bottle and start drinking. But it was a painful time for him.
“I know he lived with regret that he wished there was some way he could go back and undo that situation and bring the eight men back.”
Harry Birdwell was an OSU vice president in 2001 and eventually became Sutton's athletic director. They were good friends, and Birdwell shared the stage with Sutton during that plane-crash memorial service.
“It had a toll on his life,” Birdwell said of Sutton's strength during those times. “It clearly aged him. But I think he knew how strong he had to be, especially in public. And I understood that a big part of my role at OSU was to keep his tires pumped up. Because so many people were leaning on him. He needed confidants and a shoulder from time to time.
“The plane crash was a turning point in Eddie's life in a lot of ways, in terms of his closeness with his family. In terms of his understanding of mortality. But I think it gave him a sense of how important he was and his perspective was to a fan base and to those families. I think it was always a part of who he was, after that. You never fully recover from a tragedy.”
Sutton left OSU in 2006. He still made plenty of public appearances and was a regular at Cowboy games in Gallagher-Iba, even in later years, when he watched from a wheelchair near the baseline.
In those years, there was one constant about Sutton's appearance. An orange and black lapel pin that read, “Remember the 10.”
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at oklahoman.com/berrytramel.