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Milwaukee and gone too soon
Published: 3/16/2010 11:48 AM
Last Modified: 3/16/2010 11:48 AM

Oklahoma State is heading to Milwaukee for a first-round NCAA Tournament game against Georgia Tech.

Some people think about bratwurst and beverages when you mention Milwaukee. I think about Dewayne Bonner.

Tulsa was sent to Milwaukee for a first-round game against Louisville in 1996 and the Golden Hurricane let a 12-point lead slip away in the last 3:41 of regulation. TU was beaten by two points in overtime and Bonner sat in the locker room after the game and tried to take all the blame for the defeat.

TU did not have an experienced point guard that season (Pooh Williamson had completed his eligibility the season before and Rod Thompson was still the new kid on the block), so Bonner essentially took one for the team and played out of position at point guard.

Coach Steve Robinson refused to let Bonner take the blame for the loss, saying that the team would never have reached the NCAA Tournament without him. And Robinson was right.

Six years later, Bonner lost a long battle with cancer.

Sports figures make headlines all the time for failing to be accountable. Bonner tried to be more accountable than he should have been back in ‘96. It’s always horrible when someone young goes before their time, but the tragedy somehow seems compounded when it’s someone like Bonner.

Tubby Smith, who was Bonner’s first coach at TU, once described Bonner as “a quiet, unassuming-type kid and he would do anything you ask him to do. He was a great student-athlete.”



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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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