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Remembering Oral Roberts
Published: 12/16/2009 12:43 PM
Last Modified: 12/16/2009 12:43 PM

I was just out of the Army and had landed a job in the sports department at the Tulsa World. As the new young guy, I was assigned the Oral Roberts University basketball beat. ORU was playing a NAIA type schedule then and was not a prestigious beat to cover.

But that changed in a hurry, and I caught the wave. In rapid succession, coach Ken Trickey and sports information director Bob Brooks got the basketball part going strong, the school received its academic accreditation from the North Central Association, which led to membership in the NCAA, then trips to the NIT (a hugely prestigious tournament back then) and an Elite Eight showing in the NCAA tournament.

During a few of those years ORU traveled in its own 50-seat airplane, and I made most of those trips, many to small schools in Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as places such as New York City and Chicago.

I have a couple of enduring memories about those days.

Oral made many of those trips, too. I sort of took his presence for granted until we arrived at one of those 6,000- to 7,000-seat arenas in the South, where Oral would sit in the stands, and literally thousands of people would try to shake his hand before the game, at halftime and after the games. It really got my attention when the same thing happened in Madison Square Garden and Chicago Stadium. I realized what a truly national figure he was.

On some of the trips, his son Richard, a feisty young man, came along as well, and they seemed to enjoy cutting up together. For instance, I remember one flight when Richard was sitting a few rows behind his dad and started peppering Oral with paper wads then ducking behind the seat in front of him. It took only a couple of times for Oral to figure out the source of the paper-wad attack, and he picked them up and started firing back at Richard.

Simple stuff, but it showed a side of the evangelist not everyone got to see.


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Tulsa World restaurant critic Scott Cherry is in his second tour of duty with the Tulsa World. He was a sports writer during his first stop, covering college football and basketball. Since returning to the World in 1992, he has been the food writer and now restaurant critic and wine columnist.

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