All-State / Faith 7 games - fun memories, but...

[NMSooner'80]

It's become sad to see almost no coverage of those games, which I know is mainly because so many D-1 signees aren't involved like they once were.

I saw some Faith 7 while I was in college, back when that Oklahoma-Texas game was a real showcase. It was still pretty good in the 80's, and it was the first time I saw Stacey King play back in '85. He wasn't as good in the Large School all-state game a few weeks later, but I blame a lot of that on the lousy guards on his West team that wouldn't pass to him or anyone else.

There were some others I saw play back then who signed with OU, including Bo Overton, Snake Gresham (one-and-done at OU and played at more than one NAIA school after that), Kermit Holmes and Mike Harris (who went to JC first), in one or both of those all-star games. The football game, usually the highlight of the all-state weekend, was really a bigger deal.

Now, they had virtually nothing in the local media here in Lawton this week, except for a brief recap of who played in the all-state games. The times, they are a'changin.

 

[jaymOU]

Faith 7 is always in Shawnee. When I worked for the Shawnee News Star - many years ago - I covered the game a couple of times. I think the last one I covered had Jason Yanish - who was OU bound. He was the MVP of the game for Oklahoma and I though he had a chance to be really good. Probably why I am not a sports writer any longer.

 

[NMSooner'80]

Faith 7 is always in Shawnee. When I worked for the Shawnee News Star - many years ago - I covered the game a couple of times. I think the last one I covered had Jason Yanish - who was OU bound. He was the MVP of the game for Oklahoma and I though he had a chance to be really good. Probably why I am not a sports writer any longer.

I think the last Faith 7 game that I ever saw was when Ryan Minor played in it. I was in grad school at Cameron, and one of the kids on the Oklahoma team was from Lawton Ike - Kerry Wright. He lived around the corner from my folks, so I had some interest in seeing how he'd play. The games at OBU were fun. They played the ones in the 1970's in a tiny gym somewhere near downtown Shawnee, as I recall.

I also think one of the East-West All-State basketball games was played at the Myriad around 1986 or '87. Kermit Holmes played well in that one, from what I remember. The '85 game, where Stacey King had an off-night, was at the Mabee Center in Tulsa. Someone I knew from an OKC radio station said out loud, "Man, that Stacey King is terrible." I really think that off-night was partially because he'd suffered a facial burn (car radiator cap blew) and also (like I said) because the West team's guards were trying to show him up since they weren't going D-1. I've seen that happen in New Mexico at the all-state games there as well.

 

[jaymOU]

Games were - in my experience - which dates back to the mid 80's or so - at OBU. Used to be a big deal in Shawnee and the gym was pretty packed for most of the games. They somehow lured most of the bigger D1 kids from Oklahoma and always had some high D1 Texas kids as well during that time. It was usually a free-wheeling, high-scoring, Billy Tubbs kind of game, which is always entertaining.

Seems like it may have lost some of its luster as the rosters aren't as jam packed with the high D1 kids like before. Not sure how well it is attended at this point, either.