POSSE Magazine - Winter 2021

CADE CUNNINGHAM TASHA MACK WRESTLING RECRUITING TED LEITNER ROSS SEYMOUR

Visit Stillwater

Experience America’s Friendliest College Town!

Explore our Downtown District, enjoy a drink on The Strip, discover a unique boutique shop, or grab a slice on Campus Corner!

#FlySWO direct on American Airlines

Your new home for the performing arts From Broadway to ballet, world-class symphonies to fascinating films, we guarantee you’ll be entertained.

Explore The McKnight Center online to learn more about upcoming events and buy tickets.

BOX OFFICE HOURS: MON-FRI 9 A.M. – 4 P.M. AND TWO HOURS BEFORE SHOW TIME.

McKnightCenter.org | Box Office (405) 744-9999 705 W UNIVERSITY AVE, STILLWATER, OK 74074

ONE MAN BEHIND THE MIC Dave Hunziker was raised in Missouri, traditionally speaking. But in the nontraditional sense, he became an adult in Stillwater.

A graduate of the University of Missouri, Hunziker is a product of the old Big Eight Conference. He paid his play-by-play dues in mid-major conferences, gaining experiences and making friendships I know he would never trade, even for the most glamorous of gigs.

And at the still silky-skin age of 34, with a young family in tow, he arrived at OSU to assume the play-by-play duties at a former Big Eight School. And as we all know, his arrival came on the heels of tragedy. The unassuming Hunziker was replacing Bill Teegins, one of the 10 men lost on Jan. 27, 2001.

Bill Teegins wasn’t just the voice of the Cowboys. He had been in the living rooms of most everyone in the state of Oklahoma at some point. He held the title of sports director at the CBS television affiliate in Tulsa and later Oklahoma City, making him a familiar face as well as a familiar voice.

People knew Bill Teegins. And even if they didn’t know him, they felt like they knew him.

Tough task for a 34-year-old who spent the previous year calling games for Western Kentucky after a gig at Radford.

Twenty years later, Dave is a grown up.

His daughters are young adults, one an OSU alumna and another a future Florida State graduate. And Hunziker has been calling the action for OSU football and basketball longer than anyone in history, currently completing his 20th year behind the microphone at Boone Pickens Stadium. He has even expanded his duties, calling televised and streamed OSU baseball games with former Oklahoma State head coach Tom Holliday.

OSU has had its fair share of talent behind the microphone. The legendary NBC broadcaster who called the early Super

2

WINTER 2021

BY KEVIN KLINTWORTH Senior Associate Athletic Director

Bowls, Curt Gowdy, called Oklahoma A&M basketball and was a lifelong devotee of Mr. Iba. Bill Platt is a member of the OSU’s Heritage Hall for his work across the board.

He even once graced the cover of the OSU baseball media guide. Bob Barry endeared himself to Cowboy fans for 18 seasons before Teegins took over. Rex Holt has been calling OSU baseball and wrestling so long he’s not exactly sure when he started. But none of Hunziker’s predecessors or contemporaries had to remotely face the challenges he faced.

The situation was impossible. The campus and the state were still grieving when he arrived. Hunziker’s job was to replace one of those lost. He was replacing someone that everyone loved. The situation must have been daunting.

But along the way, Dave Hunziker made the jump from the new guy to one of the guys. He’s been in the trenches with Les Miles and Mike Gundy, and Eddie Sutton, Sean Sutton, Travis Ford, Brad Underwood and Mike Boynton. He’s called Final Fours, Fiesta Bowls and Bedlam. He’s been on caravans, hosted fundraisers, moped after losses and celebrated wins, including a Liberty Bowl victory over his alma mater not too long ago.

He did it the only way that he knew how.

With a servant’s attitude, hard work, good preparation. He keeps his head down, is loyal to OSU coaches as well as the university. He is the ultimate team player and knows he reflects Oklahoma State to the rest of the world.

He became one of us the only way he could. By doing it the Cowboy Way. He might be the most unassuming play-by-play voice in college athletics. He is the rare “talent” who cares more about the brand of his school, than he does his personal brand. He is always conscious that his actions reflect on more than just him.

What could be more one of us than that?

F E AT U R E S

10 22 34 42 52 CADE CUNNINGHAM

Not a Typical Freshman; Not a Typical Person TASHA MACK

Another Year; Another Step A.J. FERRARI, TREVOR MASTROGIOVANNI AND DUSTIN PLOTT

Recruiting with Class

DE PARTM E NTS

40 58 62

TED LEITNER

The 150 The Honor Roll WRAVINGS

if you think you can

COVER PHOTO BY COURTNEY BAY

The Voice of San Diego Says Thanks, OSU ROSS SEYMOUR

King of the Colvin POSSE 3

POSSE MAGAZINE

WINTER 2021

POSSE Magazine Staff VICE PRESIDENT OF ENROLLMENT AND BRAND MANAGEMENT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / SENIOR ASSOCIATE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR SENIOR ASSOCIATE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR / EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

KYLE WRAY KEVIN KLINTWORTH JESSE MARTIN DAVE MALEC

ART DIRECTOR / DESIGNER

BRUCE WATERFIELD

PHOTOGRAPHER / PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

CLAY BILLMAN

ASSISTANT EDITOR

GARY LAWSON, PHIL SHOCKLEY

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

COURTNEY BAY, CLAY BILLMAN

RYAN CAMERON, JASON ELMQUIST

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

HALLIE HART, JOHN HELSLEY

KEVIN KLINTWORTH, JIMMIE TRAMEL, KYLE WRAY

Development (POSSE) | 405.744.7301 P ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ANNUAL GIVING/EVENT COORDINATOR

ALEXA ABLE ELLEN AYRES

ASSOCIATE AD/ANNUAL GIVING

CLAY BILLMAN

PUBLICATIONS COORDINATOR

MATT GRANTHAM

ASSISTANT AD / DEVELOPMENT SENIOR ASSOCIATE AD / EXTERNAL AFFAIRS SENIOR ASSOCIATE AD / DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF ANNUAL GIVING

JESSE MARTIN LARRY REECE RYAN SEVERSON SHAWN TAYLOR

ASSISTANT AD / DEVELOPMENT DONOR RELATIONS & GIFT PROCESSING SPECIALIST

ADDISON UFKES

OSU POSSE 102 ATHLETICS CENTER

STILLWATER, OK 74078-5070

405.744.7301 P

405.744.9084 F

OKSTATEPOSSE.COM

@OSUFANEX

POSSE@OKSTATE.EDU ADVERTISING 405.744.7301

EDITORIAL 405.744.1706

At Oklahoma State University, compliance with NCAA, Big 12 and institutional rules is of the utmost importance. As a supporter of OSU, please remember that maintaining the integrity of the University and the Athletic Department is your first responsibility.

As a donor, and therefore booster of OSU, NCAA rules apply to you. If you have any questions, feel free to call the OSU Office of Athletic Compliance at 405-744-7862.

Additional information can also be found by clicking on the Compliance tab of the Athletic Department web-site at www.okstate.com.

Remember to always “Ask Before You Act.”

Respectfully,

BEN DYSON

ASSISTANT ATHLETIC DIRECTOR FOR COMPLIANCE

Donations received may be transferred to Cowboy Athletics, Inc. in accordance with the Joint Resolution among Oklahoma State University, the Oklahoma State University Foundation, and Cowboy Athletics, Inc. POSSE magazine is published four times a year by Oklahoma State University Athletic Department and the POSSE, and is mailed to current members of the POSSE. Magazine subscriptions available by membership in the POSSE only. Membership is $150 annually. Postage paid at Stillwater, OK, and additional mailing offices. Oklahoma State University, in compliance with Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 11246 as amended, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Higher Education Act), the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other federal and state laws and regulations, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, or status as a veteran, in any of its policies, practices or procedures. This provision includes, but is not limited to admissions, employment, financial aid, and educational services. The following have been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies: Director of Equal Opportunity, 408 Whitehurst, OSU, Stillwater, OK 74078-1035; Phone 405-744-9154; email: eeo@okstate.edu.

4

WINTER 2021

This publication, issued by Oklahoma State University as authorized by the Senior Associate Athletic Director. December 2020/#????.

POSSE magazine is published four times a year by Oklahoma State University, 307 Whitehurst Stillwater, OK 74078. The magazine is produced by OSU Athletics and University Marketing, and is mailed to current members of the POSSE Association. Membership starts at $150/year and includes benefits such as the POSSE Magazine and member auto decals. POSSE annual funds contribute to student-athlete scholarships and operating expenses, which are critical to helping our teams stay competitive. Gifts of all sizes impact all areas of athletics. Postage paid at Stillwater, OK, and additional mailing offices.

Hello Cowboy Family,

We’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and we hope you are too. In the meantime as we wade through the murky unknown, we will continue to make sure you have a safe place to relax and rejuvenate. It’s time to make new and wonderful memories at The Atherton and we’re here to assist you whenever you’re ready.

All the Best, Josh Barnard, GM

The Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences has been the ultimate team behind the team for OSU Athletics throughout the fall semester and since the beginning of the pandemic in March.

Based in Tulsa, the Center for Health Sciences has been the backbone for the athletic department’s testing and monitoring of COVID-19. Along with the OSU Athletics medical and training staff, the expertise of the CHS team has provided OSU Athletics with the staffing, flexibility and resources that are virtually unmatched in college athletics.

Throughout the pandemic, the OSU Center for Health Sciences has been instrumental in helping OSU student-athletes achieve their dreams and compete in the sport they love. Through testing and subsequent health and safety protocols, the Cowboys and Cowgirls have experienced limited game interruptions in a world that has undergone continual cancellations and postponements.

6

WINTER 2021

From all of OSU Athletics and every student-athlete,

THANK YOU OSU Center for Health Sciences!

POSSE 7

8

WINTER 2021

play ball Cecil and Frances O’Brate, the benefactors who made the sparkling new O’Brate Stadium possible, got their first good look at the finished product during the 2020 fall semester.

The new home of Cowboy Baseball will officially open this spring.

D

FIEL

TO PHO

R ATE CE W BRU

POSSE 9

a t y pic a l freshm a n

MIKE BOYNTON STROLLED INTO THE PRACTICE GYM AT ARLINGTON BOWIE HIGH SCHOOL IN THE FALL OF 2016, GREETED BY BOWIE’S VETERAN COACH ALLEN GRATTS. 10

WINTER 2021

a t ypical person STORY BY JOHN HELSLEY

PHOTOS BY COURTNEY BAY

The focus on this trip for Boynton, then an assistant for Oklahoma State head coach Brad Underwood: junior Kyler Edwards, a four-star prospect on the radar of a new Cowboys staff in desperate need of impact players.

Gratts suggested, too, that there might be another Bowie player worth a look.

“He said, ‘Tell me what you think after,’” Boynton said.

AND THERE WERE THINGS TO LIKE. POSSE 11

• The lone freshman named to the Associated Press Preseason All-America team , alongside Luke Garza (Iowa),

Jared Butler (Baylor), Ayo Dosunmu (Illinois), Corey Kispert (Gonzaga) and Remy Martin (Arizona State). He is the first Cowboy named to the team since Marcus Smart in 2013.

• CBS Sports Preseason Freshman of the Year and All-America First Team selection, and he was listed at No. 2 on their ranking of the top 101 players in college basketball for 2020-21.

• Stadium named Cunningham their

National Preseason Freshman of the Year and a Preseason First Team All-American.

• Named the Big 12 Preseason Freshman of the Year as well as a Preseason AllBig 12 selection by the league's coaches.

• 1 of 20 players selected for the Bob Cousy Award Watch List, given annually to the nation's top point guard by the Naismith Hall of Fame.

12

WINTER 2021

"If this is who he is now, imagine what he can become."

M I K E B OY N TO N

“Looks good. Great presence. A leader,” Boynton recalled of his take that afternoon.

“I’m thinking he’s a senior, and if he is, he could play somewhere. Maybe that’s why Coach asked me to look at him.”

Probably couldn’t play in the Big 12. Not at Oklahoma State. But somewhere.

Except the player wasn’t a senior. Not even close.

Cade Cunningham, the “other” player that fateful day in North Texas, was but a 14-yearold freshman. And before the visit was finished, he held a scholarship offer from Boynton and OSU. Cunningham stands as a freshman again, but this time he’s universally known in the basketball world, the top-rated recruit in America — and the projected No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft — primed to lead the Cowboys in a season already overflowing with optimism.

“He’s special. He’s real special,” said fellow OSU freshman Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe. “On the floor, he’s real composed.

He’s a leader. And he’s a competitor, first and foremost.

“Outside of basketball, he likes to compete at everything. Cards. Dominoes. Shoot, chess.

So he’s a competitor first. And I like that.

“But on the court, he’s a real special basketball player. Everyone knows that. Great feel for the game. Great vision. And he can score. He’s a great shooter now. I’m excited to play with him.”

That first encounter with Cunningham remains stamped in Boynton’s memory. It was Sept. 20, five days before the player’s 15th birthday. The Dallas area had been good to OSU, delivering so many standouts. Desmond Mason. Terrel Harris. Byron Eaton. LeBryan Nash. Jawun Evans. Marcus Smart. And the area was a priority again.

Edwards would sign with Texas Tech, where he’s been a solid player. But Boynton attached to Cunningham, when other coaches were slow to envision his talents and intangibles, contributing to a long-term relationship that now features a true rising star decked out in orange and black.

“What stood out to me about him, I thought he was a senior when I watched him practice that day, the way he carried himself,” Boynton said. “He didn’t disrespect his coaches. He never rolled his eyes or got mad at his teammates if they dropped a pass.

“He was very competitive, but he listened intently, he played unselfishly. When I found out he was just a freshman, it made me inclined to think, ‘If this is who he is now, imagine what he can become.’”

Indeed, Cunningham became that, and more.

Boynton left Arlington having offered Cunningham a scholarship, but he waited until the next day, back in Stillwater, to inform Underwood of what he’d done.

“Trust me on this one,” Boynton told his boss.

And Boynton doesn’t often pass out offers to kids still too young to drive.

“I’ve watched a lot of ninth graders play,” he said. “There may have been, in my 17 years of college coaching, three that I thought, ‘He’s really got a chance to play at the highest level of college basketball.’

“And Cade’s one of them.”

Eventually, scholarship offers piled up for Cunningham, with all the bluebloods leading the way. Duke. Kentucky. Kansas. North

Carolina. Anybody who’s anybody, and then some.

Ultimately, it was the relationship Boynton started and cultivated that led Cunningham to Stillwater.

And like Boynton, Cunningham recalls that day in 2016 clearly.

“I remember everything,” he said. “It was such a crazy time … being able to get my first scholarship offer to a Division I school, it was wild to me. I was a freshman, and I hadn’t played a high school game yet.

“Telling me that I had a scholarship to a Big 12 school, and I live in Big 12 country — the Big 12 is what everybody watches — to be able to have a Big 12 offer was crazy for me.

“And for him to be consistent with me, from my freshman year to now — we talked all throughout that — having that was super special to me. I’m so glad I’m here now, for sure.”

POSSE 13

OSU’s Best Recruit … Ever?

There’s no lack of basketball tradition at Oklahoma State.

Mr. Henry P. Iba and Eddie Sutton, legendary coaches on campus and nationally, hold places in the Hall of Fame.

Bob Kurland, Bob Mattick, Arlen Clark, “Big Country” Bryant Reeves and John Lucas III stand as multiple-season AllAmericans. And many more have left a mark on the college game — most recently Smart — carrying his brand of intense hoops throughout the NBA. None arrived on campus amid such hype and expectation as Cade Cunningham.

A sampling of his accolades: • 2020 Naismith High School Player of the Year — OSU’s first.

• Player of the Year according to MaxPreps

and Mr. Basketball USA.

• Led Montverde Academy, an elite prep

school in Florida, to a 25-0 record and unanimous No. 1 national ranking, while producing a plus/minus of +30.8 per game.

• Named the nation’s top recruit by ESPN, 247Sports, Rivals, USA Today, MaxPreps and Ball is life.

• McDonald’s and Jordan Brand All-American.

• One of eight five-star recruits signing with OSU in its history, and with a grade of 0.9999 by 247Sports, Cunningham became the highest-rated point guard in the rankings era, and the Cowboys’ highest-rated signee — ever.

• A near-unanimous projection as the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft.

14

WINTER 2021

So, what makes Cunningham so special?

Let those who know him best count the ways.

“He can play the 1 through 4, and dominate all positions,” Moncrieffe said. “He’s a mismatch for point guards. He’s too big, too strong for them. He can play the 2, he can really shoot it. The 3, he’s good on the ball. And he’s a mismatch for 4s, they’re too slow to guard him. So he’s a mismatch across the board.”

Cannen Cunningham, Cade’s older brother and an assistant on the OSU staff, singles out the eyes that see everything, both in front of Cade and yet to happen.

“Vision is his No. 1 key to success,” Cannen said. “He sees everything that happens, and as he’s getting more experienced, he’s more able to move the pieces on the board, so to speak.

He can create situations as opposed to just responding to situations now. I think that’s the biggest thing for him moving forward.”

Then there’s Cade’s size, 6-foot-8, matching what passes as a big man at many schools.

Except in Cade’s case, the skills are far different, matching point guards, the most agile players on the court.

Few great point guards have stood so tall. Magic Johnson, considered the game’s

greatest point man ever, was an outlier at 6’9”.

When perusing a variety of lists ranking the NBA’s all-time point guards, the elite beyond Johnson come in at 6’5” and smaller.

Cade’s size and skills, and wingspan, create matchup problems on both ends of the floor. And get this, he may not be finished growing, yet.

“

“He wasn’t this big when I saw him play during the high school season,” Boynton said, seemingly still in disbelief. “He was six-six, six-six-and-a-half. We measured him here, and he’s six-eight. We were like, ‘Man, this is pretty impressive stuff.’

“You say big point guard, then you see sixeight, and you’re like, ‘Six-eight?’ But he plays the game at such an incredible pace. And that’s the thing that probably gives him an advantage.

“Mentally, he’s already advanced. He plays like he’s a college senior. The pace he plays with, he sees things before they happen. Sometimes even now he makes plays that his teammates just aren’t used to seeing guys make. We’re still catching up to him in some ways.”

Cade, who calls the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex home, doesn’t have to look far for big point guard inspiration. His hometown team features a 6’7” floor general, a player NBA executives recently voted the No. 1 young player to build a team around.

“Luca Doncic. Easy,” Cade said. “He also plays for the Mavericks, and me being from Dallas, that was always my team growing up.

“So Luca, I feel like we have similar body types. The way he picks defenses apart, that’s something I’ve been studying since he’s been in the league. I definitely love Luca.”

Vision is his No. 1 key to success.“ CANNEN CUNNINGHAM

POSSE 15

Brotherly Bond With an age difference of nine years, Cannen and Cade Cunningham developed a different kind of big-little brother relationship.

“We didn’t really wrestle and fight, we skipped that,” Cannen said.

Instead, the Cunningham brothers developed a healthy bond built on respect, with Cannen in more of a mentor position, and Cade eager to listen and learn.

Cannen played collegiately at SMU, where he was a standout forward under legendary coach Larry Brown, so he’d already navigated the path Cade would soon follow.

Cannen’s experiences served as a valuable guide, initially in coaching little brother, then guiding him through the often-perilous landscape of the summer basketball circuits and finally recruiting.

“I always looked up to my dad, he was the nearest male bonding figure to me,” Cannen said. “Being Cade’s big brother, he looked up to me, naturally. I’ve always enjoyed teaching him, and he’s always enjoyed learning from me.

“Growing up, he was my guinea pig. I could tell him to go do something stupid and he’d do it. It was great. But it was great to get to teach him things his peers didn’t know already simply because I’d already been through it.”

Cannen and Cade remain tight, with Gallagher-Iba Arena their now shared office space. Yet don’t assume, as many have, that Boynton’s hiring of Cannen ahead of last season made it automatic for Cade to choose the Cowboys.

It was no package deal.

Remember, Boynton was there at the beginning of Cade’s recruitment, with a first major-college offer. And in the years that followed, Boynton grew to know and admire Cannen as well, forecasting him as a strong addition for his staff.

If anything, Cannen’s role as an OSU assistant coach created a bit of a dilemma when it came to Cade’s decisionmaking process. He was recruiting his brother to Stillwater, but in a different way.

“His recruitment was really unique, from the fact that I’ve always kind of been a mentor/adviser for him,” Cannen said. “That was always an unbiased thing.

“Then I’m competing with Kentucky, North Carolina, Washington, all these major schools who are coming at him 100 percent, and I had to try to remain unbiased.”

16

WINTER 2021

Sure, Cannen’s presence in Stillwater played some part in Cade’s decision, but big brother always instructed Cade to do what was right for him.

“Once he felt comfortable coming here, the conversation with my family was, ‘Take care of him like you always have,’” Cannen said. “Now, I didn’t want to be overbearing.

The biggest thing for me was I just wanted him to enjoy it.

I just convinced my little brother to come here, what if he hates it? What if it doesn’t work out for him?

“But he’s loving it so far.”

Both love being together, too, for as long as it lasts, since Cade seems headed to the NBA after one season in Stillwater.

Cannen is a vegan, and now Cade is, too. And while Cannen is quick to hold Cade responsible if he brings anything less than his full attention to practice, they support each other and even challenge each other on issues that extend far from the court.

“Cade’s a deep thinker,” Cannen said. “Maybe an overthinker sometimes. I love just bouncing wild conspiracy theories at him, just to find out what he thinks about it.

“We have a lot of long, deep conversations. We talk about everything from diet to aliens, and everything in between.

Anybody who meets him, I would suggest bouncing something wild at him, just to see what he thinks about it.”

Cade might be a star, a young man who’s lived in the spotlight already and a soon-to-be millionaire, but that doesn’t mean everything’s easy.

Like a lot of freshmen, he’s in a new environment, facing many of the challenges first-year college students must contend with. Balancing class requirements with newfound independence. Managing potential relationships.

Roommates. Sleep deprivation. Distractions.

Then there’s the pressure of being the newest BMOC, a so-called savior for the program and a player who’s every move will be scrutinized across the board by NBA executives, coupled with the stress and anxiety everyone’s experiencing during this pandemic.

Cannen Cunningham

That’s a lot to manage, making those heavy discussions with Cannen necessary, and welcome.

“Those talks are deep, for sure,” Cade said. “We’ve been through so much. He’s probably my biggest mentor in life, besides my parents. Just having him around here, we can still have those conversations. And it helps me a lot, too.

Allows me to step back and soak everything in. Having him here has been a blessing for sure.”

POSSE 17

Impacting OSU Cade’s size, especially at the point, almost makes it seem like there’s a spotlight encircling him in the Gallagher-Iba Arena practice gym. Also, he carries himself with a real presence, further identifying him as “the guy.”

And yet, he toils with the scout team, a blue jersey draped over his regular gear, separating him from the squad getting in real work.

It’s not some punishment or indication of anything lacking by Cade, but a shrewd move

by Boynton in recognizing and capitalizing on his newest centerpiece’s willingness to earn everything. Indeed, it’s a move enabled by Cade, who doesn’t exude the entitlement some No. 1 recruits might command once on campus.

“The glamour and all that Cade gets in the media, it’s nothing that he is as a person,” said Cowboys guard Isaac Likekele. “He’s just a regular down-to-earth guy. He acts like everyone else, he doesn’t put himself above anybody.

“He works like he doesn’t even have a name.

It’s a testament to what kind of guy he is.”

If anything, Cade embraces the opportunity to quarterback the scout team.

“It feels better to me if you win with the scout team than if you win with all the starters,” he said. “It’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate Coach Mike for that.”

Coach Mike appreciates it more.

Likekele already held a place as a team leader and rudder. OSU’s recruiting class of five features all highly recruited players, resulting in group ranked as high as No. 4 nationally.

Avery Anderson III, Chris Harris Jr. and the Boone twins, Keylan and Kalib, returned along with Likekele. And transfers Ferron Flavors, Bernard Kouma and Bryce Williams joined the program as college veterans.

So Cade’s ability to fit in isn’t lost on the head coach.

18

WINTER 2021

“He doesn’t carry himself with any arrogance,” Boynton said. “He’s a confident basketball player; I think he realizes he’s really talented. But people are attracted to him because he’s very unselfish and very down to earth.

“Maybe the most impressive thing, at 18 years old, with all the hype he’s gotten, is that none of it seems to have gone to his head and made him cocky. Sometimes you see kids like that and it’s a turnoff. He doesn’t have any of that. Great kid. And embraces just being part of the group.”

Cade is considered a rare talent, with the skills to elevate any team. He and Likekele are masters at attacking the rim, and each spent the summer working extensively on improving their shots, which should help maximize their effectiveness together on the floor.

These Cowboys are lacking proven big men, yet are loaded with athletic guards, suggesting an offense primed to push the ball and a defense bent on heavy pressure, which could help mask some of the deficiencies in the paint.

The transition to Cade should be smooth as well, as he’s already played with several of the Cowboys.

Cunningham and Likekele were teammates on the USA Basketball squad that won the gold medal at the 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup in Heraklion, Greece, with a perfect 7-0 record.

Cunningham and Rondel Walker, another touted freshman, played together for the Texas Titans, a powerhouse AAU team. Walker serves as a close witness to Cunningham’s ability to carry a team, offering their last tournament together, in Las Vegas, as an example.

“We were just going out there trying to have fun, and some regular team is on our bumper,” Walker said. “So Cade had to take the reins and tighten us up. He just took over and everyone else basically got on his back and followed.

And it wasn’t even close after that.

“Any time on the court is a fun time with Cade.”

When the virus hit full force in the spring, Moncrieffe jetted from his home in Canada to live with Cunningham in Dallas for a couple months, and the two of them regularly headed to a local gym to battle with Texas-based pros, including former Cowboys like Smart, Jeffrey Carroll and Cameron McGriff.

The former Cowboys pressed Cunningham on the floor, and on what to expect in Stillwater.

“I think the biggest thing was they know the tradition and culture of OSU is playing defense and playing hard,” Cunningham said. “I feel like I do both of those pretty well, but they just continued to emphasize, ‘Make sure you’re in shape. Make sure you’re ready to defend. They don’t care who you are, you’ve got to defend.’

“Having older guys who have been through it — and Marcus Smart is first team all-NBA Defense. He’s a well-known name now — to tell me something like that, it’s something I have to listen to, because they’ve been in my shoes before.”

“He works like he doesn’t even have a name.

It’s a testament to what kind of guy he is.”

I S A AC L I K E K E L E

Stacking Goals Cade Cunningham targets the highest of goals, including being selected the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, and soon, as in 2021.

“The NBA is the end goal for me,” he said.

Leading and guiding Oklahoma State, however, is the immediate goal.

“I am an Oklahoma State Cowboy now, and I want to maximize what I can while I’m here, and win as many games as possible,” Cunningham said.

The goals are not in conflict, but tied together, he said, with one rung on the ladder leading to the next. Cade understands it. Boynton understands it. His teammates understand it and are drawn to the cause.

“Cade is a guy who, in any setting, people will flock to him,” Walker said. “A natural leader. He leads by example. Always the loudest in the room, but always the one with the most wisdom in the room.

“It makes it easy for people to follow him.”

Cade’s goals extend beyond being selected No. 1 or being an All-Star or even being an NBA champion.

He wants to impact people in and out of the game.

“He’s talked to me about becoming almost a pop culture icon,” Cannen said. “In the sense that, Michael Jordan did a lot within the game of basketball, Lebron James does a lot outside of basketball.

“He wants to be a person that can use basketball to acquire the fame that’s necessary to get some major things done. Really give back to his community. Really educate people on how they can uplift themselves. Teach a man to fish, so to speak.

“Honestly, that’s probably what I’m most proud of, that he understands what he has and his responsibility to give back.”

POSSE 19

TIMES ARE HARD, BUT PAYING FOR COLLEGE DOESN’T HAVE TO BE. OSU has great scholarships available whether you have a test score or not!

We started awarding scholarships in December, so don’t delay, and definitely don’t miss the Feb. 1 Priority Scholarship Deadline.

apply.okstate.edu

SENIORS, APPLY NOW!

The world is a Brighter Orange when the brightest minds have the opportunities to grow and learn at a first-class institution. At Oklahoma State, we believe financial circumstances should never be a barrier to higher education. By making a gift to support scholarships, you remove obstacles that could prevent a student from achieving their dreams.

Need-Based Scholarships

Merit-Based Scholarships

With dwindling state support, today’s students

Merit-based scholarships help keep Oklahoma’s

can no longer self-fund their college pursuits

brightest students in our state and provide them

and the financial burden is falling to students

with a competitive learning experience that

and their families.

rewards academic achievements.

Learn how you can remove financial barriers at

OSUgiving.com/Brighter-Orange

another year

STORY BY RYAN CAMERON

PHOTO

another step

CHLOE LD

HATFIE

22

WINTER 2021

FOR OKLAHOMA STATE’S NATASHA MACK, her love affair with basketball can be traced all the way back to the time she took her first steps growing up in a sports-crazed family.

“Everybody in my family played some type of sport. Both of my parents played basketball, so I grew up with a basketball in my hands from the time I could walk,” Mack said.

“I played a little bit of volleyball and was good at that too, but basketball always had my heart.

“Basketball and I are lifelong partners.”

As a fourth grader, Mack and her classmates were given a writing assignment to detail what they wanted to do for an occupation.

“It was a class project where everybody had to write a page about what they wanted to be when they grew up, and mine was all about the WNBA. I always had that vision, and when I got to my junior year of high school, I started to feel like I could play in college and maybe beyond,” Mack said.

After all, Mack spent her formative years watching the league’s first dynasty, the Houston Comets, win the first four championships in WNBA history. All the while, Mack envisioned herself competing at the sport’s highest level and cutting down the nets like her childhood heroes.

During that junior season at Lufkin (Texas) High School, Mack’s stock soared as she found her way onto the ESPN HoopGurlz Top 100 list as a four-star prospect in the class of 2016. As a result, her phone buzzed constantly with college coaches lighting up the line.

Like any relationship, SHE AND THE GAME HAVE HAD PLENTY OF UPS AND DOWNS. Between her junior and senior seasons, Mack’s dream would reach its first potential derailment when her zest for the game disappeared and she walked away from the hardwood. After a brief hiatus, she returned for her senior season and determined her destination would be the University of Houston.

“I was burned out and thought I was done.

I cut the list of colleges, but Houston still checked on me to make sure I was doing ok while other schools stopped calling. When I got back into basketball, I thought I would just go to Houston because they still cared,” Mack explained.

However, she quickly realized she had not found the proper fit. Without having ever suited up for the Cougars, Mack left the program — and for the time being, basketball — behind that December.

“I didn’t fit in and didn’t feel comfortable.

I thought it wasn’t for me, so I quit and got a job,” Mack said.

With basketball in her rearview mirror, Mack returned home and found employment at Pilgrim’s Pride, one of the nation’s largest chicken producers, processing poultry. Loosely translated, she spent her workday removing the wings from chickens — a far cry from her time as one of the nation’s most sought-after post players.

POSSE 23

“I TOLD HER SHE WAS GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE A LIVING WITH IT, AND I BELIEVED IN HER.” RANDY McKELVEY

Early in the summer of 2017, Angelina College assistant coach Randy McKelvey entered the picture.

A native of Lufkin himself, McKelvey had long known of the local legend, and his curiosity was piqued when he saw Mack in their hometown instead of on campus in Houston.

Upon learning of her situation, he took to social media to gauge her interest in a return to basketball.

“I reached out to her on Facebook, and she responded. I got her to come up to the gym, and we kind of talked about playing basketball. She still wasn’t sure because she was working and was living on her own and accruing bills and things of that nature,” McKelvey said.

“I told her, you can still have things taken care of and a place to stay, and you can play the game you love and be successful. She said she would think about it.”

After Mack contacted McKelvey and he continued to explain the opportunities in front of her, hesitance still remained.

“She called back and said she didn’t know if the time was right, so I let her know it was an opportunity to get back on track with basketball because her potential is so great. I told her she was good enough to make a living with it, and I believed in her.”

Despite her future mentor’s continual presentation of a potential roadmap for her future, MACK WAS NOT YET SOLD. “It wasn’t a simple process. She said she wouldn’t come at first. She didn’t think it was the time and didn’t think she could do it,” McKelvey said.

24

WINTER 2021

With that in mind, McKelvey turned his attention elsewhere.

“Honestly, I deleted her number out of my phone. That was my recruiting philosophy. I don’t really beg kids to do anything. We are going to let you know what we can do for you and then we are going to move on to the next one,” he said.

A month later, and with Mack no longer on the radar, an unfamiliar number popped up on McKelvey’s phone.

“I didn’t have her number saved in my phone so I had to act like I lost my phone. I asked who it was. She told me and asked if the offer was still on the table and that she was ready to come to Angelina,” McKelvey recalled.

“From then it was on.”

The next day, McKelvey paid Mack a visit at Pilgrim’s Pride and signed her to a scholarship over her lunch break.

Within a week, she wrapped up her duties at the plant and checked into a dorm ready to resume her basketball journey.

Why the change of heart?

HER LOVE OF THE GAME.

E RUC

TO B PHO

D

FIEL

TER WA

POSSE 25

PHO TO B RUC E WA TER FIEL D

AY EY B RTN COU TO PHO

26

WINTER 2021

“I THOUGHT, ‘OKLAHOMA IS DOING IT LIKE THIS?’ AFTER THAT, OSU TOPPED EVERYBODY.”

TASHA MACK

“I started to think about it a lot and thinking about whether I really wanted to be stuck working in that plant cutting chicken wings the rest of my life or be in school, hooping and doing what I love,” Mack said.

“The whole year off, I didn’t think about basketball until I talked to Coach Randy, and I realized he had a point. I thought about it over and over and realized I missed hooping. It is the love of my life so I had to get back to it.

“I don’t want to do something I don’t love for the rest of my life.”

With Mack’s love for the game rekindled, not only did she change the course for her future, she took the Lady Roadrunner program to heights it had never before reached.

“I called (head coach Byron Coleman) immediately when she committed and said, ’Are you ready to win a championship?’ He asked what I was talking about, and I told him Tasha Mack just committed,” McKelvey said.

With Mack leading the way, McKelvey’s prophecy materialized with the program claiming its first conference championship.

In the process, Mack became the most decorated player in school history. Year one, saw the 6-foot-4 double-double machine named the Region XIV Freshman of the Year while earning second-team PHOTO BRUCE WATERFIELD All-America status.

There was no sophomore slump as Mack elevated her game to the tune of 23.9 points and 11.4 rebounds per game while being named the national junior college player of the year.

She rewrote the school’s record book in the process after SETTING SINGLE-SEASON MARKS IN SCORING, REBOUNDING AND BLOCKS. She also departed as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,471 points.

While heavily decorated, Mack says the junior college route was challenging, but essential, in positioning her to achieve her goals.

“When they say you survive the JUCO route, you are tough. You don’t have all the support you have at the Division I level,” Mack said. “It wasn’t easy, but it was a great experience and helped me mentally.”

Mack once again found herself at the center of schools’ recruiting focus from coast to coast. This time around, she

was better prepared to deal with the stress of finding the right fit after enlisting the help of McKelvey.

“The second time I was smarter, I let my coaches go through it so I could focus on basketball and school,” Mack explained. “Afterward, I started talking to coaches to see where I fit in. It wasn’t as bad as the first time around.”

Because of the bonds already built with McKelvey, Mack leaned on him to help navigate the chaos which comes with being a coveted prospect.

“She let me talk to a lot of the people because it was crazy. One of the things I told her before she made her decision was that you are going to be successful no matter where you go,” McKelvey said.

Once again, McKelvey proved to be right.

Fortunately for Cowgirl fans, that destination became Stillwater. And just like a return to basketball did not seem likely at times, the chances of Mack winding up at OSU were equally bleak. While the Cowgirl program did make Mack’s top five, it trailed her top four choices — until she reluctantly decided to visit campus.

“OSU was at the bottom, but coach told me to take a trip because I might like it. I didn’t know about Oklahoma, but I took the visit, and when I got to campus it was amazing. I had the best experience and it felt like family right off the bat, and I wasn’t even family yet,” Mack said.

“I thought, ‘Oklahoma is doing it like this?’

After that, OSU topped everybody.”

While on her recruiting trip, a visit to a restaurant opened her eyes to exactly what Stillwater had to offer.

“When she was on her visit, she went to a local restaurant and all the people in there knew the players and knew their names and spoke to them. She said she liked that environment and type of feeling in the community,” McKelvey said.

POSSE 27

28

WINTER 2021

BAY NEY

“When the quarantine happened, and as soon as I saw her, I told her I couldn’t be your brother and let you get lazy and ruin the opportunity you have. She understood. And so we started to put in the work,” Lee said.

Leaning on his experience as a three-sport standout in football, basketball and track at Chapel Hill High School in Texas, Lee implemented a rigorous six-day-aweek plan. With logs from the neighboring land serving as the centerpiece of Lee’s regimen, Mack went through the gauntlet of a mile run, weighted lunges, shoulder presses, bench press, curls, squats and box jumps, all with the freshly cut lumber serving as the weights.

Additionally, the siblings would go through basketball workouts three times a week with one-on-one, top-of-the-key and low block drills as the focal point. Each workout would conclude with 100 jumpers and 10 consecutive made free throws.

“When she went Division I, she said she wanted to take over, and I believed every bit of it because we compete in everything we do. We can be playing a game or we can be outside playing cards, that is what we do —compete. It doesn’t matter who our opponent is,” Lee explained.

While Mack appreciates the opportunity and time dedicated by her brother, he has been equally grateful for the chance to help in the pursuit of her dream.

“I couldn’t be prouder of her. For everything that has gone on and then for her to end up being in quarantine and standing up right beside me, it was a blessing. I took that as we are going to put in work, and I am not going to let her fail,” Lee said.

As she prepares for her senior season, Mack wants a shot at a different type of March Madness than the one she experienced in 2020. With eyes on a berth in the NCAA tournament, she is also aware of her place among the top 10 in preseason WNBA mock drafts, and she has taken a mature approach with her lifelong dream in sight.

“I watch the WNBA every chance I get, but I still have a lot of work to do before I get to that point and that humbles me.

When the time comes, the time comes,” Mack said.

“I always try to look at the big picture with everything.”

While the story is far from finished, McKELVEY KNOWS IT IS ALREADY ONE WORTHY OF BEING TOLD. “Just look at where she is now. I knew one day this type of story was going to be written because it is an inspirational story about never giving up and always trying to stay consistent, live your dream and being the best person you can be,” McKelvey said.

“Good things happen to good people.”

PHO TO C OUR T

That close-knit community has loved her back, leaving the senior with only one regret about choosing OSU. “It has been amazing, I have loved it, and I wish I could have given everybody here four years. The people are great, and I have just really connected with everybody,” Mack said.

The comfort level with Stillwater and OSU head coach Jim Littell’s program undoubtedly helped Mack’s transition. She immediately settled into a prominent role and produced the eye-popping numbers McKelvey always believed were possible.

“I am really big on trust, and that holds a lot of weight. Coach Littell, I feel like we go way back. That is my guy right there, and I respect him so much. He keeps his word, and he says what he means,” Mack said.

A month into her Cowgirl career, Mack set the program’s single-game mark with 23 rebounds before needing just 21 games to establish OSU’s single-season mark for blocked shots. In spite of missing almost four full games due to injury, Mack finished seventh nationally with 19 double-doubles, third with her 12.5 rebounds per contest and sixth with her 96 blocks. For her efforts, she was named the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year, a secondteam all-league pick and a member of its alldefensive team.

If you think Mack is satisfied, think again.

With the game she walked away from twice having been taken from her abruptly due to the COVID-19 pandemic last spring, Mack knows unfinished business awaits.

“It burns. When do I get to do this again?

When I do, I have to be better and do it the right way. It definitely puts a chip on your shoulder,” Mack said.

Despite the challenges faced due to those unforeseen circumstances, Mack returned to the OSU campus this fall ready to hit the ground running, in large part due to the initiative and encouragement of her older brother, Serrick Lee. After Mack returned home in March, Lee refused to let the obstacles presented by the pandemic serve as an excuse for complacency.

With training facilities unavailable, opportunity presented itself in the form of a recently cleared five-acre plot next to his home.

“BASKETBALL AND I ARE LIFELONG PARTNERS.” POSSE 29

30

WINTER 2021

boone in bronze On Saturday, Nov. 28, prior to the Cowboy Football game against Texas Tech, the legendary Boone Pickens was honored with a statue at the stadium that bears his name. Sculpted out of bronze

by Enid-based artist Harold Holden, the nine-foot-tall likeness was installed immediately west of Boone Pickens Stadium.

“We could never thank him enough for all that he did for our university,” OSU Athletic Director Mike Holder said. “He gave us everything he had, and all that he asked in return was that we play by the rules and dream big.”

D

FIEL

TO PHO

CE BRU

TER WA

POSSE 31

RECRUITING W

I

T

H

CLASS STORY BY JASON ELMQUIST

32

WINTER 2021

The relationships among this fall’s freshman class for Oklahoma State wrestling span years and criss-cross the country.

They resulted in America’s top-ranked recruiting class in 2020.

T

he connections are interwoven across the Red River and bridge the gap between freestyle and Greco-Roman. At the center was the most soughtafter recruit in the United States, who shunned current title contenders in college wrestling — Penn State and Ohio State — due to the relationships within the class and those created with John Smith’s coaching staff over the years.

OSU already looked to be locked-in for the top recruiting class as signing day was fast approaching in November 2019 — anchored by early commitments from Dustin Plott and Trevor Mastrogiovanni a year earlier. But as signing day drew near, the longtime friendships with those two wrestlers tugged at top prospect A.J. Ferrari, who didn’t commit until almost a full year after the other top recruits — and just a month before officially putting pen to paper.

His commitment and ensuing signing put the final touches on Cowboy Wrestling’s best recruiting class in years.

According to Ferrari, the timeline goes back to when they were all in middle school.

The trio competed at dual events in New Jersey growing up, and Ferrari and Plott competed against each other as early as “10 or 12 years old” in matches that Ferrari said were competitive, with “double overtime matches.”

“We’d always be on those dual teams so that’s how we really established the relationships between me, Dustin and Trevor. That’s how we became good friends and noticed we were a tight-knit group of people who were really making sacrifices to the sport,” Ferrari said. “Not only were they good wrestlers, but good people who I wanted to surround myself with for the rest of my life.

They’ll be like my brothers for the rest of my life with the relationships I’m establishing, so that was huge.”

The trio of Plott, Mastrogiovanni and Ferrari highlight a class that features six wrestlers ranked among the top 100 overall.

And the talent runs deep.

POSSE 33

E

ach of the top six signees in Oklahoma State’s recruiting class were ranked in the top five of their respective weight classes nationally, with five ranked in the top three. The group of newcomers features three wrestlers from Oklahoma, including Plott’s teammate from Tuttle, Luke Surber, and four-time Oklahoma state high school champion Konner Doucet from Comanche. And complementing the home-grown talent is Ferrari, a native of Allen, Texas. Mastrogiovanni is a New Jersey native and product of prep powerhouse Blair Academy, as well as Omaha, Neb., native Jakason Burks. Rounding out the class is Daniel Jezik of Coal City, Ill., and Lake Charles, La., native Alexander Yokubaitas.

While choosing Oklahoma State wasn’t a tough of a choice for the Oklahoma kids, the other three (ranked in the top 40 from around the country) arrived at their decision based on the relationships created with Cowboy coaches.

Mastrogiovanni was originally eyeing a spot on a roster with an Ivy League program until Oklahoma State assistant coach Zach Esposito — himself a product of Blair Academy — began showing interest in the New Jersey star.

W hen the Cowboy prog ra m ca me ca l ling , Mastrogiovanni, despite resignation from his parents, decided a move halfway across the country would be best for his wrestling career due to his relationship with Esposito. “(Esposito) was somebody I had kind of looked up to as a little kid at tournaments when I saw him with older guys, like Daton Fix, and I looked up to them and looked up to him as a coach,” Mastrogiovanni said. “I felt like we were kind of like family just because I’d known him for so long. He was 99 percent of the reason why I came here.”

34

WINTER 2021

At Blair, Mastrogiovanni left an indelible mark on one of his high school teammates that would help shape OSU’s recruiting class.

While Ferrari was originally from Texas, his family moved to New Jersey in the middle of his high school career in an attempt to find their son better competition.

And that landed him at Blair Academy for a year, where he was teammates with Mastrogiovanni.

“Trevor and I were great friends we just really hit it off,” Ferrari said. “We’re good friends with their family, and that was huge for sure having that connection.”

Mastrogiovanni isn’t the only former teammate that Ferrari joins in the recruiting class. Burks and Ferrari formed a bit of a relationship when they both competed for the United States at the 2018 Cadet World Championships in Croatia, even though they were competing in different techniques — Ferrari a member of the freestyle roster and Burks in Greco-Roman.

Burks, who “low-key” wanted to attend Cornell but said he “wasn’t smart enough,” originally made his commitment to Oklahoma State when on a visit to watch the Iowa dual in 2019 — the same weekend Ferrari also made a trip to Stillwater to witness one of the most historic duals in college wrestling.

“So I knew A.J. and I knew that he had a great mindset and I wasn't sure where he would go, but I just tried to get all the good guys together so we could pull it off and have a good class and hopefully have a brotherhood when we start coming up in the lineup together,” Burks said.

“(Esposito) was somebody I had kind of looked up to as a little kid at tournaments when I saw him with older guys.

He was 99 percent of the reason why I came here.”

TREVOR MASTROGIOVANNI Trevor Mastrogiovanni

POSSE 35

A.J. Ferrari Dustin Plott

36

WINTER 2021

“When you have someone that loves your sport, and they love to train, then it really puts you in a great position to develop them.”

JOHN SMITH

B

ut the relationships between the athletes could have just as easily led them together toward another program. That’s where the long-term relationships several of the athletes had with the Cowboy coaching staff helped them gravitate toward Oklahoma State.

For the in-state recruits, and even Ferrari, constant trips to Stillwater for wrestling camps or to watch Cowboy duals inside Gallagher-Iba Arena were met with positive experiences created by the coaching staff.

“A lot of this class comes from long-term relationships,” Esposito said. “You’re not recruiting them at a young age, but we’ve known them since young ages. You always make sure you’re nice to kids when you’re around them because you never know what they’re going to turn into. So this class really is based on relationships, and a majority of the kids came from areas near us.”

Beyond the long-term relationships with the three top components of the Cowboy coaching staff is the relationship many of the recruits created via recruiting coordinator Tyler Caldwell — a four-time All-American, two of those coming after transferring to Oklahoma State.

The top recruits spoke highly of the influence Caldwell had in locking up their commitments.

“You can make a school look good for two to three days, but honestly, he showed me a great time,” Ferrari said.

As the recruiting class came together via commitments, the now-freshmen began discussing the goals they had for forming such a stout group of prospects — even with some overlapping in weight classes. The former high school standouts found themselves constantly talking about joining forces in Stillwater with a common goal. While each individual comes in highlyregarded, they are also looking at the big picture. They have a drive to get the most historic college wrestling program back to the top of the summit — winning the program’s first national championship since 2006.

“Even though they’ve been kind of on the down low when it comes to team titles, I can tell that (the Oklahoma

State program) is coming back up, and I want to be a part of that,” Ferrari said. “I don’t want to be part of a team that’s already been up, I want to be that guy that said, ‘Man, me and Dustin and Luke and Jakason and Trevor, we turned this around to Coach Smith and Coach Espo and all of them. We turned this around and we’re back.’

I want to be that team.”

That mindset is already materializing in Stillwater.

Whether it is the freshmen pushing the established veterans on the roster or them pushing each other, the incoming class has begun to create an impact on the program. And according to the freshmen themselves, that impact is being felt even outside of the wrestling room, during their free time.

“A.J. has a good mindset — works out 24/7 — so you’ve got to compete with him always,” Burks said. “And then most of the guys, like my roommates Konner Doucet and Luke Surber, we’ll be lifting, and then that night, out of nowhere, you see Luke on the ground still doing push-ups. And you’re like, ‘Dang, I need to do something, I can't just sit here and be lazy.’ So I think it's just pushing everyone to become the best that they can be.”

And it’s that drive to improve even when the coaches aren’t around that has legendary coach John Smith excited for this freshman class. It’s not just the rankings of the recruits that is bringing promise to the program, but the passion for the sport that the class has brought that could propel the Pokes toward their 35th national championship.

“I just like the attitude that they bring to practice each and every day,” Smith said. “It looks like they have a high level of love for the sport and when you see those people that love the sport, they love to train, too.

“So that's what excites me. When you have someone that loves your sport, and they love to train, then it really puts you in a great position to develop them.”

POSSE 37

TOP 150 DONORS (BASED ON PRIORITY POINTS)

AS OF DECEMBER 1, 2020

1 Boone Pickens – 6,116,022 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

38

Malone & Amy Mitchell William S. Smith Patterson Family Dennis & Cindy Reilley John A. Clerico W & W Steel LLC Michael & Anne Greenwood Robert A. Funk Ross & Billie McKnight Karsten Manufacturing Vicki & Bob Howard Anonymous #18 A J. & Susan Jacques Harold Courson Helmerich Family Jim & Mary Barnes Chesapeake Energy, Inc. ONEOK, Inc. Joe & Connie Mitchell Simmons Bank Ken & Jimi Davidson Jack & Carol Corgan Mike & Robbie Holder OSU Foundation Chad Clay Kent & Margo Dunbar Watson Family Foundation OSU President's Office Baloo & Maribeth Subramaniam

WINTER 2021

31 Greg & Rhonda Casillas 32 David & Tracy Kyle 33 Waits Family 34 OG&E 35 Vickie & Tucker Link Foundation 36 Russ Harrison & Natalie Shirley 37 Richard Bogert 38 Cecil & Frances O'Brate 39 Gary & Jerri Sparks 40 The Cobb Family 41 Mike Gundy 42 Johnston Enterprises 43 Calvin & Linda Anthony 44 Joe & Vickie Hall 45 RCB Bank 46 Bryant & Carla Coffman 47 Anonymous #1 48 Mike Bode & Preston Carrier 49 Mark & Beth Brewer 50 Jerry & Rae Winchester 51 Brad & Margie Schultz 52 Gary & Claudia Humphreys 53 Joullian & Co. 54 Darton & Jamie Zink 55 Baab Legacy, LLC 56 Lambert Construction 57 Mark & Lisa Snell 58 Flintco, Inc. 59 Jana Drummond

60 Anonymous #2 61 Wiese Family 62 E. Turner & Cynthia Davis 63 Bank of Oklahoma 64 KNABCO, Corp 65 OSU Center for Health Sciences 66 Phil & Ruth Terry 67 OSU Business Office 68 David & Julie Ann Ronck 69 Ed Evans 70 Barry & Roxanne Pollard 71 Chip & Cindy Beaver 72 Bancfirst 73 American Fidelity 74 Steve & Diane Tuttle 75 Jay & Connie A. Wiese 76 Anonymous #3 77 Steve & Jennifer Grigsby 78 Z Equipment, LLC 79 Jameson Family, LLC 80 Sparks Financial 81 Ed & Kathy Raschen 82 Atlas Asphalt Products 83 Pam J. Russell 84 Paycom 85 Ike & Mary Beth Glass 86 Patterson UTI 87 Fechner Pump & Supply 88 Richard & Joan Welborn

OSU ATHLETICS POSSE POINT SYSTEM The Priority Point System provides a fair, consistent and transparent method of providing benefits to donors in exchange for their financial investments in OSU athletics.

Donors gain points three ways: Contributions All current and lifetime contributions (cash or stock) are worth 3 points per $100 donation. Planned (deferred) gifts in the new Leave a Legacy Endowment Campaign will receive 1 point per $100.

Commitment Donors will earn one point each year for purchasing season tickets (one point per sport annually), as well as one point for each year of POSSE donations.

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

Vicki & Jim Click Larry Albin Anonymous #4 David Bradshaw OSU Alumni Association Steve & Vicki Farris Andy Johnson Henry Wells David D. LeNorman The Bank of America John Groendyke Randall & Carol White Lon Kile Philip & Shannon Smith Southwest Filter Co. Jerry Marshall Emricks Van & Storage Brent & Mary Jane Wooten Barber-Dyson Ford Lincoln Mercury JS Charter Investments, LLC Larry & Kayleen Ferguson Harvey & Donna Yost Griff & Mindi Jones Thomas Naugle Midfirst Bank AEI Corporation Steve Tatum John & Kaye Hull Douglas & Nickie Burns Austin & Betsy Kenyon Ronald McAfee

120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Bryan Close Sandra Lee Lindel & Donielle Larison Joseph E. Eastin Bob & Mary Haiges Chris & Julie Bridges Vionette & John Dunn Mike & Glynda Pollard Bill & Marsha Barnes Robert & Sharon Keating Randy & Pati Thurman Bruce & Sheryl Benbrook Fred & Janice Gibson Byford Auto Group Brad & Leah Gungoll Jerry & Lynda Baker Terry & Martha Barker Harrison Investments K D Greiner Johnson's of Kingfisher Prosperity Bank Gary & Mary Ellen Bridwell Bill & Karen Anderson Cory & Lynn Bowker Drummond Investments Stan & Shannon Clark Jay & Fayenelle Helm Russ & JulieTeubner Crossland Construction Co Jon H. Wilson Larry J. Bump

Connection with the University Donors (or their spouses) who are OSU Alumni receive a one-time 10 point bonus, as do OSU faculty/staff and letterwinners.

Points never diminish and will carry over to subsequent years. Donors retain all previously earned Priority Points in their giving history. For questions about the POSSE Priority Point System, email posse@ okstate.edu or call us at 405-744-7301.

HOW DO MY POINTS RANK? as of DECEMBER 1, 2020 Points

Rank

6,116,022 240,562 69,069 44,208 35,440 28,400 20,430 11,106 5,632 2,667 881 249 92 60

1 5 25 50 75 100 150 250 500 1000 2500 5000 7500 8500

39

40

WINTER 2021

The voice of San Diego says thanks, OSU

STORY BY JIMMIE TRAMEL

Ted Leitner is convinced his broadcasting career

and a slew of fantastic fringe benefits — becoming friends with Jerry Lewis, being recognized by an astronaut, chatting with Garth Brooks as if they were old pals — never would have happened if he had gone to school anywhere other than Oklahoma State University.

Leitner isn’t just a broadcaster. He’s a sportscasting legend.

Leitner has been a radio and television play-byplay man with the San Diego Padres since 1980 (this is hard to accomplish if you never played a lick) and was selected in 2014 as one of the 52 most influential sports figures in San Diego history.

POSSE 41

“There I was with my suitcase and my typewriter. That’s all I had in the world, and it was about 115 degrees when I got there at the end of August.”

TED LEITNER

A

San Diego Union-Tribune story about that referred to him as “the voice of San Diego sports.” He earned the title not just by calling Padres games, but by being the voice of San Diego State athletics and by serving a long tour of duty as a San Diego TV sports anchor with an unconventional style.

He has also called Chargers games and hosted a news-talk radio show.

Leitner was raised on the east coast and has spent the bulk of his professional life on the west coast, but in between, he found his calling in middle America: Stillwater.

He is forever one of you — “you” meaning he’s a proud OSU alum. When interviewers ask him about the most exciting event he has seen in decades of being an eyewitness to sports history, he provides a response that they find surprising.

Really? Really.

Said Leitner: “I tell them, you know what, I have broadcast the World Series and other baseball playoff games. I have broadcast the National Basketball Association and playoff games. I have broadcast bowl games for San Diego State, and I have been to the NCAAs with San Diego State basketball. The most exciting event I have ever been to — that I did not broadcast but I have been to — is the Bedlam wrestling series between OU and OSU, and they don’t even know what I’m talking about.

“Trust me. OSU-OU wrestling, I was there for my first (college wrestling) event in 1965, and I’m looking around thinking, ‘This is unbelievably awesome.’ I loved OSU wrestling so much, and they were so good back then with

42

WINTER 2021

(Yojiro) Uetake and (Yoshiro) Fujita after him and Fred Fozzard and all those guys.

“They were idols to me. I was much younger then and about 100 pounds lighter than I am now, and I just thought, of all the athletes that I ever covered or knew, the wrestlers were my heroes in terms of how they worked out and having to pull weight and their workouts alone were beyond any practice, even a (Phil) Cutchin football practice. They were simply awesome, and OSU wrestling was one of the great experiences of my life.”

Leitner was so taken with Cowboy wrestling during his college days that he drove to Ohio to watch the 1967 national tournament at Kent State. Said Leitner, “I was more hooked on OSU wrestling maybe than football.”

But it was football that brought a New York kid to Stillwater.

For the complete Leitner origin story, let’s rewind to before he first set foot in Oklahoma.

You know how high school kids give labels to each other for yearbook purposes? Cutest Couple. Most Valuable to School Life. Most Likely to Succeed … This wasn’t an actual category, but Leitner could have been chosen Least Likely to Grow Up to be a Play-by-Play Man. He was so uncomfortable speaking in front of others that when it was time to give an oral report in class, he would cut school so he wouldn’t have to stand up in front of 20 students and talk. During a phone interview for this story, he referenced a “Seinfeld” conversation about how some people are more afraid of public speaking than dying. You’d rather be in the coffin than give the eulogy? “Yeah, that was me,” he said.

Something had to help Leitner conquer his fears, and that something was an unexpected invitation. His high school needed a public address announcer for basketball games. Out of the blue, the athletic director asked Leitner to do it.

Me? What are you talking about? Why are you asking me?

There was ego to consider. Leitner was a captain on the football team. Football players were BMOCs who ate together in the lunchroom and sat together during basketball games.

Now, instead of socializing with teammates in the stands at basketball games, Leitner was being asked to sit by himself, microphone in hand, at a smelly old gym and handle PA chores.

“I thought, ‘Wow, those guys are going to razz me and think I’m some kind of whatever,’ and they did,” Leitner said. “I don’t know why it appealed to me when he asked me to be the public address announcer. I did it and fell in love with it.”

An all-city football player, Leitner intended to play beyond high school. He hatched a plan to walk on at OSU. It seems random that someone from the Big Apple would choose to relocate to Payne County, but there was a family tie. An older brother had attended OSU. Leitner didn’t have great grades or great finances so

Ted Leitner and the late Junior Seau.

he applied to the University of Denver, the University of Cincinnati and other schools “just to open my odds.” He got as far as being accepted by Denver and getting a dorm assignment before reading through a brochure and realizing there were no photos of the football field. The university didn’t field a football team.

It was deal-breaker for someone who hankered to call football games.

At that time, OSU’s tuition was $18 per credit hour for out-of-state students. Deal.

Leitner boarded a Trailways bus bound for Oklahoma. However long you think that trip was, it was longer than that.

“You name the little podunk town somewhere, and they stopped there,” Leitner said.

“It took a couple of days. There I was with my suitcase and my typewriter. That’s all I had in the world, and it was about 115 degrees when I got there at the end of August. Football, huh?

It’s hot. Two-a-days? Are you nuts?”

Leitner hit campus in the fall of 1965.

Cutchin was OSU’s football coach from 196368. Cutchin had come to Stillwater after serving as an assistant to Bear Bryant at Alabama.

He tried to be Bryant, according to Leitner, “but without a velvet touch at any time. It was just brutal back then.”

Added Leitner, “As one player told me, ‘We had practice today. He didn’t bury us. He just killed us.’ That’s how they talked about Cutchin.”

Leitner, in pursuit of becoming a walkon player, visited Cutchin’s office for a meeting that lasted about 30 seconds. Leitner was granted a green light, but, at six feet and 195 pounds, he wasn’t sure where he might play.

The Big Eight was blessed with alpha males.

Physically, he wasn’t one of them.

A subsequent stop was the campus communications building and a meeting with Dr. Bob Lacy, head of OSU’s radio/TV department. Lacy asked Leitner what he wanted to do. Leitner said he wanted to be a sportscaster, and he explained that he might not be a football player very long considering Cutchin’s reputation. He was instantly correct.

Lacy told Leitner the campus radio’s playby-play man, Steve O’Neal, was a senior. Said Lacy: “Why don’t you work with O’Neal this year and we’ll give you the job after he graduates?” But, in order for that to happen, Leitner would have to give up football. It was a carrot (“that’s just nirvana”) he couldn’t refuse.

The campus station usually did home games.

Road games, because expenses were involved, were more of a rare treat. An OSU season opener against Arkansas at War Memorial Stadium was among those rare treats. O’Neal and Leitner road-tripped to Little Rock to call the action.

“For somebody who had never been to a college game, it was just amazing,” Leitner said. “Having grown up in New York, just to be at a college game in Oklahoma, Texas or Arkansas, it’s a different world. It was so exciting. Steve did the first half. I did the second half. I had never broadcast a game in my life.

I was really thrilled.”

During that initial broadcast, Leitner leaned on what he had heard on the radio from listening to New York Giants broadcaster Marty Glickman. Lacy complimented Leitner on a job well done, but he had one question: Where the hell is Ork-an-saw?

“At the time I had the worst New York accent you had ever heard in your life,” Leitner said.

Lacy gave Leitner a tape recorder and urged him to work on getting rid of the accent.

He needed to be able to enunciate “Tulsa” instead of “Tulsar” and “Oklahoma” instead of “Oklahomar.”

POSSE 43

Yogi Berra and Ted Leitner

“And without those games at OSU and the job OSU arranged for me in Kansas, I’m not ready to do Major League Baseball. It all goes back to OSU.” TED LEITNER

“That’s how New Yorkers basically talked,” Leitner said. “You don’t know that until somebody tells you. I never gave it a thought. I had never been out of New York except to go to New Jersey, in my entire life. Oklahoma was a big new expanse, and I worked on it and I worked on it and I worked on it (shedding the accent).”

Getting an immediate opportunity to do play-by-play was a terrific break, according to Leitner.

A 1966 road game at the brand-new Astrodome in Houston provided another.

Radio station KSPI, which carried revered hall of fame broadcaster Bill Platt’s playby-play of OSU games, got zonked off the air.

If you wanted to hear the game in Stillwater, you had to dial over to the campus radio station. Leitner said people flocked to dorms to be able to receive the campus station’s signal.

44

WINTER 2021

The college broadcast got complimentary reviews — and it provided a confidence boost.

“Maybe I can do this,” Leitner thought to himself.

OSU was victory-impaired during the Cutchin era, but he notched a Bedlam win and coached Super Bowl-bound players like Walt Garrison, Terry Brown (he scored the Vikings’ only points by recovering a blocked punt for a touchdown in Super Bowl IX) and Jon Kolb. Leitner said he got to know Kolb very well and still calls Garrison.

He once asked Garrison, who played for Tom Landry in Dallas, if he had ever seen Landry smile. Garrison’s response: “How would I know?

I have only been here nine years.”

Leitner was asked about his years in Oklahoma and whether there was culture shock. There was, in a good way.

“It was unbelievable. It was so different,” he said, referencing a long-ago shopping trip at an Otasco store (remember them?) in Stillwater.

“The cashier was so friendly, and I literally had never seen this in my life in New York City.

‘How are you doing today? What can I help you with?’ What planet am I on? I had no idea, the difference. And I understand. There were eight million people back then in New York, and it’s rushed and people are in line. Let’s go, let’s go.

Nobody has time for ‘how’s the family?’ and all that stuff. So I bought something, and as I was walking away, she said ‘Y’all come back.’”

Leitner stopped. He interpreted “Y’all come back” to mean “come back to the register.” The cashier had to explain that what she meant was come back and shop another time.

Among Leitner’s college experiences was a memorable interview. The first time he interviewed someone for the campus radio station, the subject was (gulp!) Henry Iba. “I went to his office, and my hands were shaking,” Leitner said. “I’m meeting the great Henry Iba. As you know back then, nobody called him Coach Iba. He was Mr. Iba to everybody, including the guys that played for him and the guys who became coaches. He was still Mr. Iba. He had an amazing presence with that gravelly voice, and he was so nice to me and answered everything and kept saying my name like I was a big-time broadcaster.”

Actually, Leitner was a big-time broadcaster in places like Cushing and Wellington, Kan. — or at least that’s the way it felt to him.

When Don Kelly at radio station KUSH in Cushing needed a kid to call play-by-play of high school football games, Lacy recommended Leitner. For $10 a game, Leitner watched games from the stands, used a flashlight to be able to see the program and delivered play-by-play into a tape recorder so the tape could be played on the station during the weekend. The station signed off at sundown.

Thanks for the opportunity, Mr. Kelly.

Lacy got Leitner a summer job at a station in Wellington. For two years, in addition to doing a board shift and spinning discs, Leitner called Pee Wee baseball and girls softball games for an AM station there.

“It was $100 a week, and I thought I was the most successful broadcaster in the world,” Leitner said.

It was Leitner’s first experience calling baseball. He later called OSU baseball games.

Fast forward to 1980 when San Diego Padres broadcaster Jerry Coleman got a promotion to manager. Leitner worked for the station that carried the Padres. He was asked if he wanted to replace Coleman in the booth.

“Hell, yes. Of course,” he said. “And without those games at OSU and the job OSU arranged for me in Kansas, I’m not ready to do Major League Baseball. It all goes back to OSU.” It was a big and literal climb for Leitner to become a Major League Baseball broadcaster.

As a kid, he worked as a vendor at Yankee Stadium. It was tough duty. Aisles were cramped and New Yorkers were New Yorkers, and, hey, if you stop to watch the game, you’re fired.

“It was just brutal,” Leitner recalled. “You would go all day long. Sometimes in an August doubleheader it would be 90 degrees and humid, and you make like $4 to $6 net, but it was the early '60s, and it was Mickey Mantle, the Commerce Comet, and it was Roger Maris … I got to see them in person.”

Leitner said he worked at Shea Stadium too. He did it because it was an opportunity to see the games.

“I would look up at the press box, and I could make out Mel Allen and Red Barber and later, Joe Garagiola and Jerry Coleman and all those guys broadcasting the Yankees games.

Wow. Look up there. I could see the lights in the booth and the press section for the writers. I was just mesmerized by it.”

What Leitner didn’t know then was he would later spend 35 years side-by-side with Coleman broadcasting Padres games.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “How does that happen to someone? How can you be more lucky? I don’t know.”

Leitner said one domino after another fell for him. While pursuing graduate studies at OU, he began working part-time at KWTV in Oklahoma City. His sportscasting career took him to TV stations in Hartford, Conn., Philadelphia and San Diego, where he forged a style all his own.

“I never used a script on television,” he said. “I always talked right to the camera and memorized what I was going to say or just adlibbed it. Starting in Hartford in 1974, it was all ad-lib all the way through the early 2000s and San Diego, and I just kind of talked to the people instead of delivering it boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It worked out really, really well, but it really was my theme on television.”

Call Leitner crazy if you want, but he tackled sportscasts with the mindset that games should be fun. As a result, he said he wound up

in uncomfortable situations with team representatives because it’s their team and their life and there’s nothing funny about it.

“I would do a lot of personal commentaries and opinions, which makes it like the Howard Cosell thing,” he said. “Half of them hate you and half of them love it.”

He said that approach failed miserably in Philadelphia, where he was fired.

“I don’t know why they even hired me there,” he said. “I should have been smart enough to know, ‘Hey, these people think it’s God, country and sports, and maybe not in that order,’ and they were not amused by my light touch on television. I lasted a year and a half or whatever it was, two years. But in San Diego it worked really, really well. And you do go through that love-hate (relationship) any time you are different, and I’m different in baseball. I tell more baseball stories. I’m not big into statistics and all that stuff. I tell (listeners) what I think is a humorous story or a great story or a touching story and a lot of owners don’t like that, and they told me so.”

Bottom line: Leitner didn’t get where he is today by being a sunshine pumper. If something stinks, it stinks. That made for interesting moments while he was serving double duty as a sports anchor and as a Padres broadcaster. If he called something horrible during a news broadcast, he might get the “death stare” from players at the ballpark the next day.

POSSE 45

Jerry Lewis and Ted Leitner

For instance: Dave Winfield was leaving the Padres, and, during Leitner’s riff on the 11 o’clock news, he said this about Winfield’s replacement: “Hey, listen. If you are going to enter a Volkswagen at the Indy 500, you better know a hell of a shortcut.”

It was a brutal comment, said Leitner, but it was the kind of comment that attracted viewers to the station. It was entertaining. What is he going to say next?

“That kind of thing with the players, man... whew, really uncomfortable,” Leitner said. “So (Winfield’s replacement) comes up to me at the batting cage during batting practice and said, ‘Volkswagen, huh?’ And I didn’t remember what he was talking about. But he was watching.

He just reamed me out. It’s like, ‘Hey, I would rather you yell at me than hold a grudge and stare at me for the next two months.’ But I went through a lot of that with players, especially in baseball. But that’s what it is. I’m not blowing sunshine at these guys.

(I’ll say) ‘That play should have been made.

This guy is a heck of a player, and he made a great effort, but normally he catches that ball.

That ball should have been caught.’ That has not made me popular with players, ever, in any sport, but that’s OK.” Leitner, asked if he has mellowed over the years, said “Absolutely.” Once Leitner became the lead broadcaster instead of the backup guy, he understood that it was part of his job to promote Padres baseball and be positive.

The Padres haven’t exactly been a wellspring of positivity. In Leitner’s 41 seasons, there have been five postseason trips — 1984, 1996, 1998, 2005 and 2006 — and two World Series appearances.

The topic led to Leitner recalling a conversation with St. Louis Cardinals broadcasting legend Jack Buck, who died in 2002. Leitner said he was whining about the Padres’ lack of winning during a dinner chat with Buck, who stood up, took out his wallet and slammed $100 on the table.

“Ted, you still getting that?” Buck asked Leitner.

“Yes.” “You in the major leagues?”

“Yes.” Buck made his point.

46

WINTER 2021

“I said Jack, ‘You know me. I’m from New York. I’ve got to be complaining about something.’ And he was right. You are in the Major Leagues, and you’re getting paid more than teachers, who should get paid more than you are. Police officers. Fire department. They should all be making twice what you make, but it’s the other way around.”

It wasn’t a conversation between new acquaintances. Buck was among Leitner’s mentors when he was a student at OSU. Lacy knew Buck and arranged for Leitner and Buck to speak via telephone. Leitner thanked Buck when they finally met as big league broadcasters.

“He was just so nice,” Leitner said. “I miss Jack so much. It was just another guy that was there for me and none of them ever said, ‘Hey kid, do what you want to do’ or ‘You are on your own.’ It was always somebody helping, all the way from Bob Lacy to present day.”

During a phone interview with Leitner for this story, he was asked if there was anything he wanted to say about his OSU experience that hadn’t been talked about yet. How does he feel about Oklahoma State? He spoke, without interruption, for another 11 minutes.

Leitner began by talking about the time another OSU alum (maybe you’ve heard of him), Garth Brooks, worked out with the Padres during spring training in the 1990s.

Leitner spotted Brooks in the clubhouse. Leitner stopped and said, “Garth, 254 East Bennett Hall, OSU.” There was an instant connection.

Brooks invited Leitner to sit down and chat.

“He was the biggest celebrity who never knew he was a celebrity, the way he acts,” Leitner said. “He’s the greatest, most downto-earth human being that ever lived. I sat there with him for one hour, and he is signing balls the entire time for everybody that wanted one to make sure they all got his autograph — everybody, fans, the rest of the ballplayers who worshipped him and loved him.”

Leitner said Brooks treated him like they had known each other for five years, and they mostly talked about OSU. Cool, right?

“That’s the kind of stuff that has happened to me in addition to the breaks and the advice and the dumb luck that I have had in the business,” Leitner said. “Never mind the money and how much I looooove the work, it’s because I am in this business that I am sitting in the Padres’ broadcast booth with Jerry Lewis for dozens of games.”

Yes, that Jerry Lewis.

Leitner said Lewis would leave Las Vegas in the heat of the summer and stay on a boat in San Diego. Lewis loved baseball. He made arrangements to come to a Padres game and was asked if he wanted to sit in with the broadcasters. It appealed to Lewis because he used to watch Jerry Coleman play for the Yankees, and, while on the boat, had watched Leitner do sportscasts.

“That’s how I became friends with Jerry Lewis,” Leitner said. “When I was kid, he hung the moon. Nobody made me laugh more than him. But because of this wonderful business,

“All of this, when I look back, every single bit of it is Oklahoma State. There’s no way this happens without Oklahoma State.”

Jerry was a friend to me until the very end of his life, and I got to meet his new wife and I got to meet (his son) Gary Lewis and the Playboys.”

Here comes another highlight.

Before Leitner shared it, he wanted to clarify that he wasn’t name-dropping or bragging.

It’s more a matter of how do all of these great things happen to some kid from New York whose father never made more than $10,000 a year.

Anyhow, Leitner was walking in a mall in San Diego and bumped into someone. That someone said, “I watch you on TV at night.

You are Ted Leitner.” It wasn’t just any someone. It was Wally Schirra, one of the seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, the United States’ first put-people-in-space mission. Leitner was thrilled.

“I’m thinking ‘Pinch me, God, because I wish my parents were here to see this conversation,’” Leitner said, adding that he watched a parade with the Project Mercury astronauts when he was a youth in New York. “I worshipped this guy. And here I am standing with Wally, and he is saying he watches me on television.

That’s the amazing blessing you don’t think of that you get by being in this business. He

introduced me later on to John Glenn and other people. It was just, look at you. You don’t deserve this. You are no more important than anybody else, and now you are having Wally on and all these other people and entertainers and military heroes. Just absolutely unbelievable.”

Leitner called it — all of the above — the blessing of his life.

“The money is nothing compared to being able to meet people who are just basically your heroes,” he said. “All of this, when I look back, every single bit of it is Oklahoma State. There’s no way this happens without Oklahoma State.

You’re at the right place at the right time, and suddenly you make it. Many, many others with as much or more talent don’t make it. I’m convinced. This goes for singers. It goes for broadcasters. It goes for insurance salesmen.

Whatever. There are people who are better than me, and they never ‘made it’ as much as I did or as successfully just because of dumb luck and great people who take you under their wing. I try to do that with young broadcasters now any time I can.”

Leitner said that if he had gone to a school other than OSU, there might not have been

faculty members like Lacy or Jack Deskin or Mal Topping. They impacted his life and many others.

“They always talk about the University of Missouri journalism school,” Leitner said. “They talk about Syracuse now with Bob Costas and Marv Albert and all those guys. They all went to Syracuse. I would put Oklahoma State and what I went through up there with any school in the country in terms of the professors, the orientation, the opportunities on the campus ... and I would put them up there with any school in the United States, ever. And that’s a fact. It couldn’t get any better.

You were on the level with these (professors).

You called them by their first name. They treated you like equals, and they had tremendous communication and people skills. They got the most out of you. If you had any problem you could go talk to them. You think I would have gotten that at other schools? I doubt it.

Opportunities like that? I doubt it.

“I look back at OSU, and I think thank you, thank you, thank you.”

POSSE 47

48

WINTER 2021

good hands Senior Tylan Wallace shows the hands that made him an AllAmerican and Biletnikoff Award finalist (given annually to the nation’s top wide receiver). A native of Ft. Worth, Texas, Wallace has hauled in 199 passes for 3,389 yards, 26 touchdowns and countless jaw-dropping catches in his career. A member of the OSU Class of 2020, Wallace earned a degree in Sports Management this fall.

D

FIEL

TO PHO

R ATE CE W BRU

POSSE 49

King of The Colvin recollections from a cowboy olympian STORY BY HALLIE HART

50

WINTER 2021

Ross Seymour paused his Oklahoma State swimming career because of a longtime dream to compete at the world’s highest level.

During the summer of 1976, five OSU student-athletes participated in the Olympic Games in Montréal, Canada. The Cowboy wrestling dynasty continued its Olympic tradition — two grapplers made the United States team and one qualified for the Canadian squad.

The other two competitors had a strikingly different story.

They excelled on a collegiate team that never previously had any Olympians on its roster, and they were the first Cowboys to represent Australia in the Games. One was Paul Nash, who swam the 1500-meter freestyle in Montréal before he traveled to Stillwater to start his freshman year. The other was Seymour, the standout swimmer from Melbourne who redshirted before his senior season so he could train for his oncein-a-lifetime opportunity.

Seymour, a qualifier in the 100-meter butterfly and 200meter butterfly, recalled fond memories of experiencing the Opening Ceremonies and swimming in an authentic Olympic pool, but the moment when he earned a spot on Australia’s team gave him his greatest sense of fulfillment.

“That’s what I really wanted,” Seymour said, “and then everything else was like icing on the cake.”

While Seymour treasured his achievement, he also filled his fellow Cowboys with pride. Nash hadn’t yet joined them on campus so Seymour was the team’s superstar, the familiar face in the international spotlight.

Established in 1963, OSU’s now-defunct men’s swim team didn’t have the rich history of programs such as wrestling and basketball, but the guys could look to Seymour as a source of inspiration. At the same time, Seymour appreciated the swim team for bringing him to the college town where his career path and family life began to take shape, the place that gave him his road map for adulthood.

“If I hadn’t come over here, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” Seymour said.

Because of OSU, Seymour met his wife, Mina, and married her at Bennett Memorial Chapel on campus. He graduated in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in education, which set him up for a career of teaching college courses and coaching after obtaining a master’s from Florida State. Now, as a businessman in Aurora, Illinois, and a father of two daughters who followed his example and swam for college teams, he continues to treasure his memories of OSU. It all started when he boarded a Boeing 707 jetliner and left his home nation for Oklahoma in 1972.

POSSE 51

The Recruit Seymour realized he needed to get away from the beach.

He grew up in the southeastern state of Victoria, Australia, with the numerous beaches of Port Phillip Bay nearby, but he recognized college would be no vacation. If he wanted to focus on his studies and a competitive swimming career then he couldn’t afford to spend too much time relaxing by the shore. To avoid that potential diversion from his goals, Seymour ruled out UCLA, one of the schools that showed interest in him.

Instead, he chose to go to a landlocked state. But Oklahoma’s geography wasn’t the only factor that drew him there.

One year before Seymour came to OSU on a swimming scholarship, another Melbourne native became a Cowboy. In a serendipitous encounter at a track meet in Australia, high school senior Gene Jackson started talking to Tom Von Ruden, an OSU assistant track coach and 1968 Olympic runner. Jackson wasn’t a contender at the meet — he was watching with a friend and doing odd jobs such as picking up hurdles after races — but when Von

Ruden learned that Jackson competed in a pool instead of on a track, he opened the door to an opportunity.

Von Ruden told OSU’s swim coach, a hardnosed but compassionate World War II veteran named James Cutter, about Jackson.

Soon, Cutter, the team’s founder, initiated the recruiting process.

“I didn’t know much about OSU or Oklahoma,” Jackson said. “I didn’t know anybody, to be honest with you, but it was always a dream of mine to go over there. I was lucky that it worked out.”

During the next several years, a bustling recruiting pipeline from Australia to Stillwater bolstered Cutter’s squad, and it happened partly because of a prior connection between athletes. Although Jackson and Seymour met as teenagers who swam for opposing Aussie clubs, Jackson couldn’t help but befriend his so-called “rival.”

“He was always very confident,” Jackson said. “And he was the type of person that you instantly liked.”

Years of experience contributed to Seymour’s self-assurance. His father, Ken, was a swimmer who tied Australia’s 110-yard breaststroke record, according to a 1948 Adelaide

newspaper article, and it didn’t take long for young Ross to carry on the family tradition.

Seymour said he learned to swim when he was about three or four. A few years later, he was already zooming through the water to win youth titles.

“I was in the right place at the right time, and that was my destiny,” Seymour said.

As the time neared for Seymour to start his college career, Cutter enlisted Jackson’s help, wondering if he would reach out to his friend.

Without the group text messages and Twitter conversations popular among recruits today, Jackson composed a letter to Seymour.

“I just said he would love it and he wouldn’t regret coming over, and it turned out that way,” Jackson said.

Cutter also used letters to communicate with Seymour, and after about six months, they solidified the plan for Seymour to attend OSU on a swim scholarship. Seymour left the port city he called home, traveling about 9,000 miles and jumping to a time zone 15 hours behind the one he knew, but he quickly embraced life as a Cowboy.

The grueling early practices and the tough collegiate swim meets prepared him for his future as an Olympian, and his combination of athleticism and tenacity motivated his friends as well.

“I was in the right place at the right time, and that was my destiny.”

ROSS SEYMOUR

52

WINTER 2021

The Teammate Rock singer Steven Tyler’s high-pitched scream blared through the speakers in Seymour and Jackson’s dorm room at about 5 a.m.

The Cowboy swimmers, who shared the second floor of Iba Hall with wrestlers and track-and-field athletes, had to wake up for practice then, but swimmer Tom Grula joked that he didn’t need to rely on an alarm clock.

He lived in a room adjacent to Seymour and Jackson’s, and they often kick-started their mornings with some popular 1970s tunes, including Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” “I wished I could have dreamt on and stayed in bed,” Grula said. “But that meant I had to get up out of bed and go to practice.”

At 5:30 in the morning, the sleepy swimmers slogged along their path to the Colvin Recreation Center, bundled up as they sometimes plodded across snow and ice.

Although the group had to cross only one street to reach the building that housed their indoor pool and locker room, the Australian students were accustomed to mild winters in their home nation, so chilly days were sometimes shocking. Jackson said the winter walks seemed like Arctic expeditions, but despite frigid weather and early mornings, the athletes dedicated themselves to their routine.

When they plunged into the pool, Seymour’s talent pushed others to work on their skills and speed.

Craig Shelton, a swimmer from Stillwater, said Seymour likely could have held his own in every event, but butterfly and freestyle were his strongest strokes. Shelton competed in the individual medley, which involves four strokes, and he could gauge his progress according to his distance from Seymour.

“If you love swimming and you really love competing, someone like Ross helps you rise to the occasion,” Shelton said. “You might not get to that level, and you probably won’t, but it makes you be better for you. And of course, that makes it better for the team.”

At swim meets, the team showcased its unique blend of Stillwater and Melbourne influences. Shelton remembered how the athletes sported straw cowboy hats on the swim deck and energized themselves with rally chants that were popular in Australia, putting their spin on one with an emphatic “O-S-U” at the end. Seymour was a pillar of their group, earning the accolades to prove it.

He became the Cowboys’ first All-American, an honor he received twice, and he broke the Big Eight Conference’s 200 fly record. Swimming season typically started toward the end of the fall semester and concluded with NCAA championships in March, but Seymour kept competing during college breaks. He traveled to nations that included Yugoslavia, New Zealand and Colombia to swim in the World Championships and Commonwealth Games.

“He had already worked hard his whole life in swimming, even before he got to OSU,” Grula said. “But at OSU, he was one of the hardest workers, and he is very determined.”

Despite his professional-like approach to swimming, Seymour made the most of college life.

He and Jackson took out-of-state road trips in Seymour’s car, a retro vehicle that Jackson said was “as big as a boat.” Team members played practical jokes on one another in the dorm and in the Colvin Center, where some sneaked up on others to douse them with chilly water, jolting them out of their half-asleep states. The swimmers supported their peers at events such as football games, wrestling duels and basketball games.

Seymour also had some time to go on dates.

When he met fellow student Mina Strong, the daughter of OSU men’s basketball coach Guy Strong, he had the same confidence that propelled him to six Big Eight gold medals.

“I'm thinking back (to) when he first saw her, and he told me he knew she was the one,” Jackson said. “And he was right.”

Seymour married Strong in October 1975, about three years after he first set foot on OSU’s campus. He had a wife and was close to earning his college degree, but postgraduate life would have to wait a little longer.

The Olympic trials were calling.

POSSE 53

“I could have gone to many other different places, but I would not change a thing.

I was just so happy to have gone to Stillwater.�

Coach James Cutter

The Olympian Seymour said he wouldn’t want to repeat the experience.

Stress weighed on him as he readied himself to vie for a spot on his home country’s Olympic team. During his redshirt season, he returned to Australia with a laser-like focus on his goal. Lofty expectations surrounded him, but perhaps no one had higher standards for his trial performance than Seymour himself. He said he had always wanted to compete in the Games, and a few fleeting moments in the pool, short races, would soon determine whether he would bring his plan to fruition or fall short of his dream.

“Then it comes down to it, eating the proper food and prepping right and getting ready for the events and how nervous you are,” Seymour said. “Maintaining your progress was very challenging.”

Although his work wasn’t easy, he said practicing with his OSU teammates and swimming in the NCAA Championships had contributed to his preparation before he started training during his redshirt year.

Back in Stillwater, the Cowboys eagerly awaited updates, which often arrived in the form of newspaper articles sent from Australia or phone calls Cutter received. Seymour’s orange-tinted, grinning headshot appeared on a 1976 OSU men’s swim team prospectus that read, “Olympic Bound ROSS SEYMOUR,” proclaiming the news that delighted his friends despite his noticeable absence from practices and meets.

“We were focused on Ross, and really, we were all so excited that he was doing that,” Grula said. “We all kind of tried to follow his every move.”

At the 1976 trials in Sydney, Seymour not only pushed past his nerves to qualify in two events, but also cemented his legacy in his nation’s swimming history, shattering the Australian record in the 200 fly.

In Montréal, Seymour was one of 184 competitors to represent his country, according to the Australian Olympic Committee website.

When the Games concluded in August, he traveled back to Stillwater for his senior year.

Although he didn’t return with a shiny medal, he brought experience and a sense of achievement to his teammates, who relished his journey as if he was a family member.

“He was a globally elite swimmer,” Grula said. “And from my perspective … I was just proud that he was on the team.”

Other Australian stars, including Nash and a Melbourne native named Michael Scott, continued to boost the Cowboys in the 1970s, and OSU formed a women’s swim team, too.

However, the rise of the Cowboy and Cowgirl “tankers,” as the university’s yearbooks called them, couldn’t last forever.

For the 1979-80 season, the Campus Activity Fee Allocation Committee provided the Athletic Department with funds that were “at least” $275,000 below the amount the department had asked for, and the varsity swimming program “was chosen to be dropped because of several coaches and swimmers not returning this fall,” according to the OSU yearbook.

Although 41 years have passed since the swim teams were cut, Seymour and other Cowboy and Cowgirl swimmers have taken steps to preserve the legacy of a program that is somewhat like a hidden gem in OSU’s history.

An OSU swim website (osuswimteam.com) serves as a virtual scrapbook filled with team pictures, information and updates on the annual reunions, which started in 2009. Seymour attended that inaugural reunion — the website even mentions how he shared many stories, contributing to the sentimental atmosphere as the group gathered for pizza at The Hideaway.

Seymour’s passion for his sport remains.

He runs a business called Swimming Pool Management Systems Inc., as well as the DuPage Swimming Center, where children and adults can take lessons. In his office, pictures of his college buddies always remind him of OSU, the place where he inspired fellow swimmers, improved his craft and found constant joy in spending time with friends.

And now, more than 48 years after he hopped on the jet that brought him to Oklahoma, he has no regrets about choosing a college town that is nowhere close to a beach.

“I could have gone to many other different places, but I would not change a thing,” Seymour said. “I was just so happy to have gone to Stillwater.”

Today, swimming exists only as a club sport at OSU.

POSSE 55

56

WINTER 2021

title run Led by junior Isai Rodriguez (2nd place overall), the Cowboy Cross Country team claimed the 2020 Big 12 Championship in dramatic fashion at the Rim Rock Farm course in Lawrence, Kansas. OSU and Iowa State finished the 8K race with 31 points each, with the Pokes taking the trophy on tiebreaker criteria, as three of their top-five finishers placed ahead of the Cyclones. It was the Cowboys’ 10th conference title under head coach Dave Smith.

AN

LLM

BI LAY OC T O H

P

POSSE 57

Baseball

10.25

When OSU announced its scholarship endowment initiative, the athletic program was last in the Big 12. Now, more than halfway through the 10-year program, OSU leads the conference.

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

Dennis and Karen Wing (2) | Hal Tompkins Sandy Lee | Jennifer and Steven Grigsby Mike Bode and Preston Carrier (2) David and Julie Ronck

But we’re not finished yet.

HALF SCHOLARSHIP Sally Graham Skaggs

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

OSU awards 229 full scholarships to student-athletes each year at a cost of $4.5 million. Each dollar freed up through endowed scholarships goes back into our programs. Better equipment. Better facilities. Better support. Each dollar has a direct impact on the lives of our student-athletes.

Bryant and Carla Coffman David and Grace Helmer | Jill Rooker Martha Seabolt | Dr. Scott Anthony John and Beverly Williams Richard and Lawana Kunze

Equestrian

1.25

“Each scholarship we endow secures the future of OSU athletics and provides more opportunities for our student-athletes on and off the field,” says Mike Holder, Vice President for Athletic Programs and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics.

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP David and Gina Dabney

Football

33.0

This is the list of all the generous supporters who have helped to provide a bright Orange future.

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

PHOTO / BRUCE WATERFIELD

They are our Honor Roll.

Bob and Kay Norris Bryant and Carla Coffman / The Merkel Foundation David LeNorman | Dennis and Karen Wing (2) Dr. Mark and Beth Brewer Jack and Carol Corgan Jim Click | John and Gail Shaw Ken and Jimi Davidson | Leslie Dunavant Mike and Kristen Gundy Mike and Robbie Holder Ron Stewart | Ross and Billie McKnight Sandy Lee | Tom and Sandra Wilson Wray and Julie Valentine James and Mary Barnes

HALF SCHOLARSHIP

Cindy Hughes | Donald Coplin Doug Thompson | Ed and Helen Wallace Greg Casillas | Ike and Marybeth Glass Jim and Lynne Williams / John and Patti Brett Mike and Judy Johnson | Sally Graham Skaggs State Rangers | Tom Naugle | Nate Watson

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

Al and Martha Strecker Arthur “Andy” Johnson, Jr. Arthur Couch | Barry and Roxanne Pollard Bill and Ruth Starr | Brad and Leah Gungoll Brian K. Pauling Bridgecreek Investment Management LLC Bryan Close | David and Cindy Waits David and Gina Dabney | Dr. Berno Ebbesson Dr. Ron and Marilynn McAfee Eddy and Deniece Ditzler | Flintco

58

WINTER 2019

Fred and Janice Gibson | Fred and Karen Hall Howard Thill | James and LaVerna Cobb Jerry and Lynda Baker | John P. Melot Jerry and Rae Winchester John S. Clark | Ken and Leitner Greiner Kent and Margo Dunbar | Paul and Mona Pitts R. Kirk Whitman | Randall and Carol White Roger and Laura Demaree | Shelli Osborn Steve and Diane Tuttle Tony and Finetta Banfield

General

1.25

HALF SCHOLARSHIP

Terry and Martha Barker

Men's Golf

5.25

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

David and Julie Ronck Dennis and Karen Wing Jack and Carol Corgan Men’s Golf Scholarship Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam

HALF SCHOLARSHIP Simmons Bank

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP Bob and Elizabeth Nickles Garland and Penny Cupp Richard and Joan Welborn

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

Bill and Roberta Armstrong Bill and Sally Cunningham Donald Coplin | Jill Rooker Richard and Linda Rodgers Jo Hughes and Deborah J. Ernst Richard Melot

Women’s Golf

2.0

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam

HALF SCHOLARSHIP David and Julie Ronck

Men's Tennis

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

Women’s Tennis

0.75

HALF SCHOLARSHIP

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

Men's Track

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP David and Judy Powell Kenneth and Susan Crouch Sally Graham Skaggs

Graduate Athlete Bob and Joan Hert | Neal Seidle Tom and Cheryl Hamilton

Men's Basketball

23.5

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam A.J. and Susan Jacques Bill and Marsha Barnes Brett and Amy Jameson Calvin and Linda Anthony Chuck and Kim Watson David and Julie Ronck (1.25) Dennis and Karen Wing (2) Douglas and Nickie Burns Griff and Mindi Jones James and Mary Barnes | Jim Vallion Ken and Jimi Davidson Kent and Margo Dunbar | KimRay Inc. Sandy Lee | Mitch Jones Memorial

HALF SCHOLARSHIP

David and Julie Ronck Dr. Mark and Susan Morrow Jay and Connie Wiese | Sally Graham Skaggs Stan Clark | Billy Wayne Travis Holloman Family

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

Dr. Scott and Lynne Anthony Gary and Sue Homsey Michael and Heather Grismore Rick and Suzanne Maxwell Robert and Sharon Keating Steve and Suzie Crowder Terry and Donna Tippens

0.75

Tom and Cheryl Hamilton

Jim McDowell Men's

0.75

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

Dr. Mark and Susan Morrow Susan Anderson | Ken and Leitner Greiner

HALF SCHOLARSHIP

Mary Jane and Brent Wooten

Soccer

1.0

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

James and Mary Barnes

Softball

0.75

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP Tom and Cheryl Hamilton Richard Melot Ann Dyer

Women’s Basketball

7.25

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

Brad and Margie Schultz Ken and Jimi Davidson Mike Bode and Preston Carrier

HALF SCHOLARSHIP

Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam Don and Mary McCall John and Caroline Linehan Calvin and Linda Anthony Mike Bode and Preston Carrier

Amy Weeks | Kent and Margo Dunbar

0.5

Jamie Maher Richard Melot

Wrestling

10.75

FULL SCHOLARSHIP

A.J. and Susan Jacques Bruce and Nancy Smith Chuck and Kim Watson Lon and Jane Winton OSU Wrestling – White Jacket Club / Gallagher Endowed Wrestling Scholarship OSU Wrestling – White Jacket Club / Myron Roderick Endowed Wrestling Scholarship OSU Wrestling – White Jacket Club / Ray Murphy Endowed Wrestling Scholarship OSU Wrestling – White Jacket Club / Tommy Chesbro Endowed Wrestling Scholarship The Cobb Family

HALF SCHOLARSHIP

Mark and Lisa Snell Bobby and Michelle Marandi

QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP

Danny and Dana Baze / Cory and Mindy Baze John and Beverly Williams | R.K. Winters

To learn more about scholarship opportunities and how you may contribute, please contact: Larry Reece (405-744-2824), Matt Grantham (405-744-5938), Shawn Taylor (405-744-3002).

POSSE 59

60

WINTER 2021

dominant defense Oklahoma State Soccer finished No. 12 in the United Soccer Coaches Fall College Rankings.

Playing a schedule limited to conference-only games due to the COVID-19 pandemic, OSU went 6-2-1 in Big 12 Conference action to finish third in the league standings. Senior defender Hannah Webb played a key role in the final match of the fall, as the Cowgirls capped off the season with a 1-0 win over their Bedlam rivals in Norman.

D

FIEL

TO PHO

CE BRU

TER WA

POSSE 61

IF YOU THINK YOU CAN I went to visit my mother the other day. It’s a trip I have made mindlessly, thousands of times. But I’ve started thinking of it differently as I travel there nowadays. I’m glad that trip is still possible.

For many of you reading this, those drives down memory lane to your parents’ homes are just that. Memories.

They have long since vanished with time.

We lost my father in 2007 after a long and bitter battle with multiple sclerosis.

Each year during the holiday season, I literally go over the river and through the woods, and all of the childhood memories I was enthralled by as a boy come rushing past me. If you are like me, you would trade every Christmas present you ever received to have the person you lost here again. I would give back the Coleco electronic quarterback, OJ Simpson football and tee, Pete Rose baseball glove, Old Timer pocket knife, Remington .22 pump rifle and my first pair of Justin cowboy boots to see his face again on Christmas morning. We have all had to learn how to appreciate things and people when they are right in front of us rather than wait until time changes things. I’ll Be Home for Christmas

by Johnny Mathis just hits differently now.

We have not been able to see as many of you this year as we do normally.

Pandemics will do that. Large events, including our glorious football games, have been restricted or canceled altogether. And we have started thinking differently about how much we all like being around one another. Those trips to Stillwater we have all mindlessly made thousands of times were not possible. COVID-19 has left all of us fondly remembering fall seasons from yesteryear. Being able to see Theta Pond, colorful falling leaves, the best tailgating in America and a bursting Boone Pickens

62

WINTER 2021

Stadium are all on our wish list. The lifeblood of the OSU campus and any of our events is students, alumni, supporters and fans of everything from athletics to chef series dinners. However, COVID-19 has made those things impossible.

For now.

But don’t count us out. How many times have we all been to ballgames where things looked and felt bleak and all of the breaks seemed to be going against us? Then something positive happened.

A Cowgirl or Cowboy made a play that turns the tide. Momentum shifted, and it felt as though you were able to will your team to victory from your seat.

Things fell into place and the hardships from earlier in the game were replaced by ... hope. Remember all of the western movies we have discussed in the pages of this magazine in years past? In the end, the cowboys win. We will win against this pandemic as well. There is still time left on the clock. It will take intelligent planning, diligent effort on our part and hopefully, a vaccine.

As I was leaving my mother’s house, she gave me a file folder of some of my personal things from my childhood. Some old report cards and notes from teachers.

A few predictions for me and my high school classmates at graduation. One of the pages in the folder contained a poem of encouragement and perseverance. My parents were always supportive of me and my sister Cathy. They often gave us poems which other people had written, but somehow fit our particular situation at the time. It seemed ironic to be reading it in these troubling times, and I feel obliged to share it with you here.

We will get all of this behind us.

Someday soon. Wait and see. Then we can all do what cowboys do. Victorious, we will throw a leg over a saddle and ride off into the sunset — a nice ORANGE one.

IF YOU THINK YOU CAN If you think you are beaten, you are; If you think you dare not, you don’t.

If you like to win, and don’t think you can, It’s almost a cinch you won’t.

If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost; For out in the world we find, Success begins with a person’s will; It’s all in the state of mind.

For many a race is lost Before even a step is run, And many a coward fails, Before even the work is begun.

Think big and your deeds will grow, Think small and you’ll fall behind; Think that you can and you will ...

It’s all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are; You’ve got to think high and rise, You’ve got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win the prize.

Life’s battles don’t always go To the stronger or faster man; But usually the person who wins Is the one who thinks they can!

Walter D. Wintle

GO POKES!

KYLE WRAY

Vice President Enrollment & Brand Management Kyle Wray OSU

@KyleWrayOSU

A Nike Womens Black Dry Crew Tee XS-XXL | $30 B Nike Womens White College Breathe Long Sleeve Tee XS-XXL | $45 C Nike Stripe Pom Beanie 2020 $30 D Nike Vault Brand Hoody S-XXL | $62 E Nike Zoom Pegasus 37 OK State Shoe 3.5 - 14 | $130 F Nike Dry Polo 2 S-3XL | $75 G Adversary Basketball Sticker $4.95 H Nike Womens Black One Tight XS-XL | $60

I Nike Long Sleeve DFCT Lockup Tee S-3XL | $32 J Nike Flex Polo S-3XL | $80 K Nike Therma Hoodie PO S-3XL | $80 L Nike Youth Knows Basketball Tee S-XL | $22 M Nike Campus OK ST Cap $24 N Wrestling Pete Keychain $9.99 O Nike Replica Basketball Jersey S-XXL | $75 P Nike DFCT Team Issue Tee 2020 S-3XL | $30

ALUMNI A S S O C I AT I O N

SUBSCRIBE AT SHOPOKSTATE.COM TO RECEIVE 10% OFF YOUR FIRST ORDER!

Let Pete pay.

Apply for a Pistol Pete Credit Card today!* midfirst.com /cowboys

*Subject to credit approval