More from The Q&A: Darnell Jackson
On the verge of beginning his second season in the NBA, Darnell Jackson returned to Cleveland earlier this week.
Some of his final hours in Oklahoma City, though, were spent giving out backpacks and school supplies to disadvantaged kids at Hillcrest Elementary School. He signed autographs. He took pictures. And in a small way, he let the kids know that a kid from Oklahoma City can achieve anything.
He did.
Jackson played for a national championship team at Kansas, then landed a spot with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Jenni Carlson: Did you have a pinch-me moment this past year as an NBA rookie?
Darnell Jackson: I did. I used to wake up every day when my alarm would go off, and when I’d have an off day, I’d think, “I don’t have anything to do.” I was like, man, I really made it.
JC: Didn’t have to run off to work a job to make ends meet.
DJ: Just work out. That’s my job. I love every minute of it.
JC: You are something of a cult hero in Lawrence, Kan., where you played college ball. What’s it like going back there?
DJ: In Lawrence, I don’t know what it is about that place. When I first watched Kansas play on ESPN, I was watching Drew Gooden. When he scored a basket, the fans just went crazy. I was like, “I want to go there.” When I got there, I was home. It felt comfortable. It felt like I belonged. Every time I go back … the fans, they really support you.
JC: Are there still pinch-me moments with that? You won a championship, for goodness sakes.
DJ: What’s so crazy, I was watching that last night on YouTube, watching the highlights from YouTube. When Mario (Chalmers) hit the shot, I’m standing under the basket watching the ball go in. When it was over, I just remember, Sasha (Kahn) gave me a hug and I jumped over the table and went over to where I my family was. I loved every minute of that.
JC: Have you thought about having that same kind of moment as a pro?
DJ: Definitely. When that happens, I don’t think I’m going to cry. I just might run into the locker room and grab the champagne bottles before everyone else. That’ll be a lot of fun.
JC: You’ve had something of a Cinderella story. Do you take time to appreciate all you’ve done?
DJ: A little bit, I do. I’m kind of weird about that. When I work out, I try to push myself hard. When I’m done, I always feel like, “Man, I could’ve done a little bit more.” All I’m doing is wearing myself out. As long as I’m wearing myself out, I know I’m putting in the time and the hard work because you never know what’s going to happen. I could lose a job at any time. I could blow out an ankle, blow out a knee. But hopefully in a couple years, I think I’m going to write a book. Just get it out there. Put it out in Oklahoma. Put it out in Lawrence. Just tell my story.
JC: You’ve got quite a tale to tell.
DJ: Hopefully, something good will come out of it.
Event ranks high on the cool meter
Over the past decade-plus, I’ve had a chance to cover some big games and some cool moments.
None ranks any higher than the event I attended Friday afternoon. It wasn’t highly publicized. It wasn’t covered by television or broadcast to the masses. But it was something I’ll never forget.
The boys soccer team at Santa Fe South High School received its championship rings.
First, a little background.
Santa Fe South is a charter school on the south side of Oklahoma City. Its student body is largely made up of the children of Mexican immigrants, sons and daughters of blue-collar workers. The school isn’t even a decade old, but already, it has become a pillar in one of the city’s most hard-scrabble areas.
Still, athletic success has been difficult to come by. The football team went several years without a victory. The girls basketball team once lost by 80-plus points.
The boys’ soccer team, though, has become something of a juggernaut. In 2006, it played for a state title, losing to Tulsa Cascia Hall and falling just short. The next two years, the Saints made the playoffs but failed to make the title game.
Then last spring, redemption. Santa Fe South capped a perfect season with a 2-1 victory against Cascia Hall in the Class 4A title game. It was the school’s first team state championship in any sport.
But even as the final seconds ticked away, fans storming the field and players taking a victory lap around the field, Santa Fe South coach Wes Furley had his mind elsewhere.
“My very first concern was, ‘Now, we’ve got to get these guys some rings,’” he said Friday.
Several weeks later, Furley sent an e-mail to a couple of folks, yours truly included. He knew that most of his players didn’t have the means to buy championship rings, and he didn’t have a booster club or a benefactor or anyone who could help. He was asking for help, anything that might make it possible to buy rings.
So, I decided to write a column about it. Those rings, I contended, were important not just so the players could wear them around but so that every kid at Santa Fe South could see them. Those rings were a testament to what the team had accomplished. They were a nod to what was possible. And maybe, just maybe, kids at the school would see that with enough work and dedication, anything was possible.
The column ran in the Tuesday, June 9 edition of The Oklahoman.
Before 9 o’clock that morning, Furley had received more than half a dozen calls from people who wanted to help purchase rings for the team.
One call came from Chip Fudge. The Oklahoma City real estate developer’s son, Banning, was a senior last year on Heritage Hall’s state championship football team.
“His state championship ring is his most prized possession,” Fudge told Furley. “What can I do?”
“Well,” Furley said, “I’m trying to raise money.”
“How much do you need?” Fudge said. “Consider it done.”
Not five minutes after saying goodbye to Fudge, Furley received another call from Karen Horton at National Loan Investors. The Oklahoma City-based company regular reaches out to groups in need of donations.
Furley proposed that the two parties split the cost of the rings equally.
They were amazing gifts to the school, the team and the players.
“They didn’t know where our school was,” Furley said. “I had to give both of them directions to get here.”
But there they were Friday afternoon, Fudge sitting on the side of the school auditorium and Horton sitting in the middle. Both were invited along with yours truly to the school-wide assembly for the ring ceremony. We had the privilege of watching as, one by one, the players were called to the stage to receive their rings. Some wore bright yellow “TAKE STATE” shirts while others sported game jerseys or soccer shorts.
All of them, though, wore a smile as they received their rings.
It was impossible not to smile right along with them.
I may cover sports for many more decades, but I can’t imagine that I’ll cover an event that will be any cooler than the ring ceremony at Santa Fe South. It was a reminder of why we love sports, what is good about sports and why sports matter. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Collison on Twitter = Hilarious
A couple weeks back, I wrote a column about some of Thunder big man Nick Collison’s Twitter posts.
It got certain people unnecessarily riled up, but hey, whatever. Some people get it. Others try to scream loud enough and run NBA players out of town.
(Really? As if that’s going to cause Clay Bennett and Sam Presti to say, ”You know, we need to ship that guy out”? I think not. )
The truth is, Collison is perceptive and intelligent and darn funny. You get to see all of that on his Twitter account. One of his latest posts had me laughing out loud:
From Wednesday: Good day in okc.Good workout @ practice facility w/ByronMullens &Serge Ibaka then had successful day o house hunting.Btw weather is flawless”
Another dark day for former Sooner
Eric Thunander’s life has been filled with many sad chapters.
The latest, though, is the worst.
On Tuesday, the former Oklahoma linebacker was arrested and charged with three counts of lewd acts with a child and one count of possessions of child pornography. Those are felony charges. Those are serious crimes.
According to a court affidavit, Thunander confessed to inappropriately touching a 9-year-old girl on three occasions.
My reporter-source relationship with Thunander pre-dates my time in Oklahoma. I first met him in 1998 when he was a standout at Lee’s Summit High School in suburban Kansas City and I was a high school sports columnist at The Kansas City Star. He had the most unbelievable story — a deaf kid who’d lived in a sexual-abusive, drug-infested home but found solace on the football field.
In early 1999, Thunander committed to play at Oklahoma.
In late 1999, I moved to The Oklahoman.
I had a chance to write about him when he played as a true freshman in 1999, when he became a key reserve on the Sooners’ 2000 national championship team, then when his career was cut short by an inner-ear injury in 2001. The next time I saw Thunander was last summer when he was getting ready to release an autobiography, “Silent Thunder.” It turned out that much had happened in those seven years in between.
Thunander had battled depression, alcohol abuse and even drug use. He contemplated suicide.
But last summer, he was clean and sober and happy. As he went around the state selling his book and telling his story, he said it was the first time he’d been happy in many years. And I was happy for him.
How could you not be?
So to wake this morning to the news that Thunander had been arrested and is now in jail waiting arraignment was sad. The arch of his life story has had many peaks and valleys, but none of the dark days were any darker than this. None of the chapters were any worse.
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OU-FSU rivalry brewing? Hope not
More from The Q&A: Toby Rowland
I’m sure there’s been someone interviewed for The Q&A who’s been more fun than Toby Rowland, but I really can’t think who that would be.
He was a blast, and while he is well-known as a sportscaster at KWTV-9, a sports talk show host on KREF-AM 1400 and the new sideline reporter for Oklahoma football radio broadcasts, there is something about Rowland’s past that not many people know.
Jenni Carlson: Little known fact about you …
Toby Rowland: You did research?
JC: Well, I talked to Berry, so blame him if you want, but your picture is on the most famous wall in all of high school sports.
TR: My high school gymnasium is the largest high school gymnasium in the world. New Castle High School … in Indiana seats over 10,000 people. It’s one of the most historic gyms in Indiana. So, my picture is on the wall of fame as a tennis player. I am up there in short tennis shorts and way too much hair because my tennis team won regionals one year. A lot of people don’t know I have an Andre Agassi side to me.
JC: Could some sort of tennis-related job be far off?
TR: You think John Roddick might hire me at some point? That would be exciting. See, now, OU fans are like, “Great, we’ve hired a fourth-string SNU point guard who played tennis in high school. What are we doing?” (Laughs.)
JC: Seriously, though, what’s bigger — OU football or Indiana basketball?
TR: That is a great comparison. I’d say they’re pretty even. That’s about as straight down the middle as you can get. The mania over OU football and the mania over IU basketball are pretty comparable.
JC: As the sideline reporter for OU football games, what are you hoping to bring to the radio listeners?
TR: What I’m hoping for most is to give people a reason to turn down their TV. I think we have an opportunity, especially on the sidelines to bring them information that perhaps TV can’t provide. Injury information. Communication between coaches and players. At least the stuff that you’re allowed to report on. Television has sideline reporters, but a lot of times, they’re just setting up packages or maybe some special features. We’re a little more in the game. They can come to me as often as they want.
JC: With everything that is going on down there, how challenging is it doing that job on the sideline?
TR: I tell you the trickiest part right now … is what you’re allowed to report injury-wise. With all the new HIPAA rules, the doctors can’t necessarily tell you what’s wrong with the players. That’s something I’m going to have to learn leading up to the season.
JC: What’s going to be more chaotic — two minutes before “The Blitz” or two minutes before kickoff?
TR: Two minutes to “The Blitz,” I think. Two minutes to kick, that’s Bob and Merv’s time. Hopefully I have all my ducks in a row and we’re just waiting for kickoff. Two minutes to “The Blitz” looks a little bit like the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Everybody flying around and running and throwing things — it can be a fun two minutes before “The Blitz” starts.
JC: This is going to sound like a bad journalism class question, but with all the things you do, do you have a favorite?
TR: I’m going to cop out here on you a little bit. Each is a world of fun in their own different way. If I didn’t have one of them, I’d really miss it. I often think, “If I had to pick one, which one would I pick?” That’s a hard question because the TV gig is always what I dreamed of doing. To get to deliver the sports to that many people … is such a great honor. And at the same time, what sports radio provides is an opportunity to give some opinion, which I don’t necessarily get on the television side of things. If I didn’t have that … I’d probably drive my friends crazy if I didn’t have that three and a half hours every day to get to share my opinions on everything. And this new thing, this is going to be a hoot. This is going to be like candy. To be on the sidelines and follow around this team is going to be an honor.
JC: So, you like all your gigs.
TR: I love them all. I’m truly blessed. I’m not just saying that because we’re doing an interview. I pinch myself and keep thinking sooner or later somebody’s going to be on to me and say, “Wait a second. He’s just a fourth-string point guard from Southern Nazarene. Why are we allowing him to have so much fun in his job?” (Laughs.)
JC: Just remember, this is a city where a third-string sportscaster is now the mayor.
TR: (Laughs.) That’s my next goal. I’m going to run for office. I’m going to do all three of these jobs, and then I’m going to try to get Mick Cornett out of his office. (Laughs.)
Golf in the Olympics?
About this time tomorrow morning, the International Olympic Committee will decide which two sports will be presented for inclusion on the Olympic program.
The newbies will join the fun in 2016.
The leading contenders: rugby and golf.
While rugby isn’t wildly popular in the United States, I could support its inclusion. It’s a sport that has broad appeal around the world. It’s played in many countries, and frankly, it’d be a lot of fun to watch.
I think about rugby as the Summer Olympics version of curling — as Americans, we may not know much about it, but every four years, we will become fascinated by it.
Golf, unlike rugby, is a sport that Americans like, but putting it in the Olympics is a horrible idea.
The Olympics are meant to be the pinnacle of the sports that are there. That simply wouldn’t be the case with golf. Winning a major on the PGA Tour would still be a bigger deal than winning a medal at the Olympics.
The reason?
Those majors are the best of the best from around the world.
If the majors only allowed Americans to compete or only allowed golfers from the Western Hemisphere to compete, then having golf at the Olympics would be a fantastic idea. Bring together the greatest from around the world. Put them on the same course. See who is really the best.
But that’s what the PGA Tour does pretty much every week.
Tiger Woods has said he would play in the Olympics. That’s great. That’s fine. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Olympics would not be the pinnacle of his sport. The same goes for tennis and every other individual sport that has an inclusion professional league that allows the world’s best to compete against each other regularly.
The International Olympic Committee needs to add two sports that would see their inclusion in the Olympics as the pinnacle, not just another date on the calendar.
Do you know a HS football idol?
High school football usually isn’t the place that sports fans find their idols.
Those larger-than-life figures are usually come from the college and the professional ranks. That’s where you find the Michael Jordans and the Walter Paytons, the Adrian Petersons and the Kevin Durants.
But the truth is, there are plenty of idols in high school football, young men who show determination and provide inspiration.
I’m looking for one of those youngsters. I want to tell the story of a high school football idol in our annual football preview, and it can’t just be someone who’s really good or amazingly talented. No, this needs to be a young man who we should all idolize for reasons other than football ability.
Perhaps he’s overcome great odds. Maybe he’s demonstrated outstanding character. And just maybe, he’s done it without anyone noticing — an unsung idol who deserves to have his story told.
Oh, we’ll tell the stories of the players who are idols because of their football prowess. Rest assured, DeMarco Cobbs and Bronson Irwin and Co. will not be overlooked. But if you know a high school football idol whose name isn’t well-known or whose story isn’t oft-told, I would love to hear about him.
E-mail me at jcarlson@opubco.com.
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Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/JenniCarlson_OK.
Tough times could improve PGA Tour
Tiger Woods won the 51th annual Buick Open over the weekend.
It might be the last Buick Open, too.
As everyone knows, the auto industry is ailing, and that means their big-money sponsorships are falling by the wayside. That includes sponsorships of professional sporting events, and no sport is feeling the pinch more than golf.
The PGA Tour is looking at the possibility of losing at least five tour stops next year because the sponsor dollars just aren’t there.
I suspect that’ll be a good thing.
Oh, it’s not good that the tour is struggling to find sponsors, but cutting back on the tournaments could be the best thing to happen to the PGA Tour since that Eldrick Woods character burst onto the scene. The PGA Tour has too many stops, and for evidence of that, look no further than this weekend’s Buick Open. Sure, Tiger was there. Sure, he won in typical dominating fashion. Sure, he drew big galleries and good TV ratings.
But look at who he beat. Greg Chalmers. John Senden. Roland Thatcher. Y.E. Yang. Ben Crane. Michael Letzig.
That could just as easily be a list of guys who live on your block or go to church with you as PGA Tour golfers. It’s a non-descript group of players, but the trouble is, it’s not that unusual to see unknowns at the top of the leaderboards of a lot of these tournaments. That’s because the top players only play a limited number of tournaments every year. That keeps them fresh without wearing them out.
But if the number of tournaments was reduced, it would increase the likelihood that every tournament would draw a good field with recognizable faces. It would make for more competitive tournaments. It would make for more exciting golf.
These economic times are putting the PGA Tour in a pinch, but squeezing out some of these tournaments should make the tour leaner and meaner. That means a stronger sport. That means a better product. A much better product.
