Faith 7 memories

[NMSooner'80]

I've been to seven Faith 7 games, including three in the late 70's when the games were played in a small mid-school gym in Shawnee.

Probably my favorite memory was from the first one I saw, in 1977. Texas was supposed to wipe the floor with the smallish Oklahoma squad. But, an OU football recruit named Frank Moore, a 6-5 lineman, played center against 6-11 Notre Dame-bound Gil Salinas and just dominated him. OU-bound Snake Gresham (who unfortunately became a vagabond and played for at least two NAIA schools after one OU season) also played well.

My main other Faith 7 memory came when I saw Stacey King play for the first time in 1985. He had a tall Afro that made him look about 7-3. But, he could run the court and block shots like he was that tall. Later that summer, he got burned by water from a car radiator and wasn't healed in time to do much in the East-West All-State game. That caused a prep journalist to declare that "Man, that Stacey King is terrible...."

The last one I saw was when Ryan Minor played for the Oklahoma team (1992). I believe they lost in overtime. A kid from my parents' neighborhood, Lawton Ike grad Kerry Wright, played center for the Oklahoma team and did pretty well. He signed with Tulsa but wound up eventually at Western Carolina. Saw him at the Pit in '96 play against Purdue in a 1/16 matchup, and his team lost by one.

 

[NMSooner'80]

Thought of a couple more:

- in '86, the Oklahoma team had a kid named Lance Kroll on the team. He had signed with OU but was going to be a Prop 48. The big thing about that was that he'd said publicly that he wanted to go one year to an NAIA school and then transfer to OU, once it became evident that he wasn't going to qualify. It was a shame at the time, too, because he really played well for the Oklahoma team.

- when Stacey King played so well in the '85 game, it was against a much-hyped Houston product, via the Dominican Republic, named Tito Horford. Horford didn't do as well in college as King did, but he did become a father fairly early in life - and his kid became Al Horford of Florida fame.

 

[brettromar]

My favorite memory was actually playing the faith 7 game. Now I have players playing in that game. Makes me feel old.

 

[gracefor24]

NMSooner, was Leonard Flowers in that Faith 7 game with King? That guy was a beast, he could have easily played in the NBA if he had a brain.

 

[BigTime]

Willie's 41 last year was pretty special!

 

[pillmanj]

Willie's 41 last year was pretty special!

And his dunk contest win

 

[NMSooner'80]

NMSooner, was Leonard Flowers in that Faith 7 game with King? That guy was a beast, he could have easily played in the NBA if he had a brain.

I can't remember for sure if Flowers played in the Faith 7 or not. I think he did.

He did play in the Large East-West game and also in that all-metro game in Yukon that year.

I really don't know Flowers, but he gave all indications back then for being a head case. Some reliable scuttlebutt was that he had a 24-year-old gal-pal who kept telling him he was better than Choo Kennedy (a junior-to-be). He also left OU for Southwestern Louisiana, quit there, transferred to Redlands (when it was still called El Reno JC) and quit there also.

About Flowers' only accomplishment of that time was turning the town of El Reno against OU basketball, which was a joke because Tubbs and OU didn't do him wrong.

 

[brettromar]

Anybody else here get to play in the faith 7 game?

I honestly had a lot of fun playing in that game and felt it was the best allstar game in the state of Oklahoma because most of us played harder in that game than the other all state games and what not.

 

[gracefor24]

I played against a lot of guys that played in the Faith 7.

 

[brettromar]

I played against a lot of guys that played in the Faith 7.

Grace I wish you could have played in the game. It is a lot of fun and you get to meet and hang out with guys from Texas you don't know.

 

[playmakr]

I wish I went to high school in Oklahoma just to play in the Faith 7 game. I should have.

 

[brettromar]

I wish I went to high school in Oklahoma just to play in the Faith 7 game. I should have.

haha.

I got my dates mixed up and didn't see this one. I had a kid playing and didn't go. I had to apologize to him.

 

[gracefor24]

Grace I wish you could have played in the game. It is a lot of fun and you get to meet and hang out with guys from Texas you don't know.

Yeah, it would have been a blast. My SR year was loaded in OK: Joe Adkins, Estell Laster, Deon Luton, Derrick Thomas, Derrick Taylor, Eric Perry, John Hart, Renzi Stone, Tony Heard, Robert Fomby.

At the time they were saying it was one of the best classes in OK ever.