COURTING CECIL

After his “I’ll be doggone” moment, Holder’s intrigue spiked. Who is this Cecil O’Brate? What’s his story? And where does Oklahoma State University fit within that story?

“I called him up, and he took my call out of the blue,” Holder said. “I introduced myself and said I’d like to come see him. He said, ‘What for?’ I said, ‘You went to Oklahoma State and we’ve never met. And we need to do something about that.’”

In April of 2015, Holder made his initial visit to O’Brate’s office in Garden City, where a 90-minute conversation played out.

“I took a yellow legal pad with me and made a lot of notes,” Holder said.

Holder still has that yellow legal pad, providing a fond memento of the start of a grand relationship he’s built with O’Brate. The notes reflect O’Brate’s past, his many successful business ventures and one key revelation: the man still felt a connection to OSU.

“He would come back to an occasional ball game at that time,” Holder said. “He was a customer of the Bank of Oklahoma. Other than a football game, he had not been back for the 68 years since he had been a student.

Holder committed to changing that. O’Brate, he figured, could benefit from a reunion with the only college he ever wanted to attend.

And OSU could benefit, too.

Along with reconnecting with an esteemed former Cowboy, Holder was seeking a naming sponsor for one of the remaining finishing touches to his ambitious vision of an Athletic Village: the new baseball stadium planned for the corner of Washington Street and McElroy Road.

“That one meeting led to him coming to Boone Pickens’ Mesa Vista Ranch that summer of 2015,” Holder said. “Then he came to multiple football games that fall. Then I went back to see him in April or May of that next year, and the relationship and the friendship and connection to Oklahoma State just kept getting stronger.

“It was always there beating in his chest, his love for the school and connection and all that means. We just needed to reach in.”