Letter from the Editor

My new best friend from South Dakota was waiting in the coffee line Sunday night at the Lloyd Noble Center. Don’t blame him for ordering a large cup of Starbucks coffee. He was dog tired.

 He left home in South Dakota at 4 a.m. Sunday to follow his South Dakota State University Jackrabbits as they took on the Oklahoma Sooners in the first round of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

“That’s a long way to come for one game,” I kidded him a few minutes before the tip-off.

“We plan to be here a few days,” he shot back.

It was about 750 miles, give or take a few detours from a weekend of bad weather. He had intended to go through Kansas City and visit relatives but had to re-route around the storm that threatened central Oklahoma.

He had traveled earlier to follow the Jackrabbits when they played in Hawaii. That’s the kind of loyal fan all teams need. My inlaws have fallen in love with OU women’s basketball. They call all the players and coaches by their first names like they were next-door neighbors.

One winter day, when the Sooners were headed to Lubbock, Texas for a tough game inside the United Spirit Arena, there was a message on our home answering machine. “We are headed to Lubbock for the game. They are going to need all the help they can get,” they said. This was a winter day when the wind chill dropped into the teens.

Women’s basketball seems to attract some really devoted fans. My theory is the players show their personality in their games and don’t mind stopping to appreciate their fans. OU Coach Sherri Coale has made it a habit to get her players out into the community and to realize that there really is more to life than basketball.

The players tutor in schools, deliver meals on wheels or just make appearances and sign autographs. A few days ago, they helped serve meals at Food for Friends. It’s all part of rebuilding a program that was written off 20 years ago this month and reinstated eight days later when far more fans showed up outside Evans Hall to protest than had ever attended a game. Today, OU women are one of the highest-drawing teams in women’s basketball.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.