Like father, like son
Adhering to the example set by his father, Cameron McGriff’s work ethic and tenacity has helped fuel Oklahoma State’s push for an NCAA Tournament bid.
When Nathaniel McGriff watches his son play basketball, he takes solace in knowing his efforts have mattered.
All those hours working as an American Airlines skycap, in the men’s locker room of a DallasFort Worth country club and even that bartending gig on the side, they’re all validated when he gets to see Cameron McGriff on a basketball court.
“It really lets me know that he understands what I’m doing and why I’m doing it,” Nathaniel McGriff said. “That’s everything. All my hard work and money I’ve spent, all the sacrifices I’ve made for him paid off.”
A sophomore forward at Oklahoma State, McGriff spent his childhood examining his father’s efforts, soaking in the definition of hard work. Often, those three jobs kept Nathaniel McGriff away from his son’s games. But both he and McGriff’s mother, Octavia Goodman, made the trip from Grand Prairie, Texas, to West Virginia on Saturday; they make sure someone is at every game to support McGriff.
Saturday, they watched as he put up 20 points and nine rebounds, helping the Cowboys win back-toback games against top-20 opponents for the first time in program history. McGriff also finished with 20 and nine in OSU’s upset of Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse. He’s averaging 12.8 points and 8.2 rebounds across his past five games, fueling OSU’s charge into the NCAA Tournament picture with his father’s lessons guiding the way.
“I just look at that and I just try to translate that into basketball,” McGriff said. “Whatever I was going to be doing for the rest of my life, just try to translate it into that.”
Although McGriff’s season started with “a stretch where I wasn’t playing to the best of my ability,” he has become OSU’s best player in recent weeks. He’ll try to continue that Wednesday, when OSU faces Kansas State in Gallagher-Iba Arena seeking its first consecutive conference victories of the season.
Blows to each eye against Kansas and Baylor forced McGriff to wear protective goggles at West Virginia, but if anything, they helped his performance. McGriff went 13-for-13 from the free-throw line and scored 12 consecutive points for the Cowboys in the first half of their victory.
“I’m just trying to figure out why it took so long to figure out that Cam needed goggles,” coach Mike Boynton joked. “If that was the case all along, dude would be in All-Big 12, maybe All-American talk about now.”
But McGriff’s success has been building long before he donned goggles. His breakout hasn’t come as a surprise to Brandon Averette and Thomas Dziagwa, two fellow members of OSU’s sophomore class. The trio regularly spends late nights together inside Gallagher-Iba Arena, sometimes playing oneon-one until 2 a.m. with McGriff’s learned work ethic on display.
“The work that he’s put in behind the scenes is showing on the court,” Dziagwa said. “Nothing but love for Cam. His ceiling, he’s not even scratching the surface. He can be even better.
“Nicks or bruises, he’s always in here.”
Averette figured it was only a matter of time before McGriff’s in-game performances matched those nights in the gym. After scoring no more than six points in OSU’s first five Big 12 games, McGriff has four double-digit performances in his past seven conference contests.
“I already knew he had it in him,” Averette said. “Just took confidence for it to come out ’cause he works so hard every day on his game. He’s showing what he’s been able to do all along.”
A season ago, Boynton, then an assistant coach, joined Dziagwa, Averette and McGriff for many of those late nights, building a foundation for the present.
Boynton has lined up perfectly with that hardworking outlook McGriff learned from Nathaniel, the team operating under a mantra of “Let’s work.” It’s possible no player embodies that more than McGriff.
“There’s no secrets,” Boynton said. “You have success based on how much work you put in.”
Boynton, though, was not the coach McGriff moved to Stillwater for. Originally recruited by Travis Ford, McGriff played his freshman season at OSU under Brad Underwood after Ford and the university parted ways.
His personal life experienced sudden change, as well. A month before McGriff’s freshman season began, his cousin, Kebra Bunkley, died at 44 of liver failure. Bunkley was more like a big brother to McGriff, living with the family for several years and attending many of McGriff’s games. Bunkley, an artist, “drew a lot of things that reflected just the beauty of life,” McGriff said.
Bunkley’s talents increased McGriff’s interest in art, but he continued to devote his time to being on the court.
“Basketball is a craft,” Goodman said. “I think that anything that Cameron does, he puts his heart into.”
McGriff played in all but one of OSU’s games his freshman season and was prepared for increased impact as a sophomore. But then Underwood bolted for Illinois.
With McGriff facing the prospect of having to commit to a third coach at OSU, Goodman provided a simple message.
“Basketball is basketball,” she said. “The transition, once you know your purpose and what you’re there for, regardless of who it is, that’s what you’re there for. That doesn’t change.
“You just have to work your way through it, and that goes with anything in life.”
Thanks to lessons learned from his father, McGriff has worked his way through plenty. He doesn’t plan to stop.