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Remembering Mr. Connors
Published: 6/4/2010 10:17 AM
Last Modified: 6/4/2010 10:17 AM

Time flies.

It was 10 years ago this month that Tulsa World icon and former sports editor Bill Connors passed away.

I miss carpooling to games with Mr. Connors not only because he was a supreme gentleman, but because he told great stories about epic games and epic sports figures.

If memory serves correctly, there was one about Barry Switzer trying to pick Woody Hayes' brain during a dinner conversation and instead Switzer got a lecture from Hayes about using too much salt on his food.

There were many tales about the likes of Dean Smith and Darrell Royal and Bob Knight and Henry Iba. You always wanted the commute to last longer because you got treated to more stories.

I was also embarrassed to cover games with Mr. Connors because he saw things no one else saw.

We would watch the same game, seated side-by-side, and he would write something the next day that would make me go "wow, so that's what happened."

At college basketball games, it's easy to get caught up in the pomp and circumstance during timeouts and listen to the band or watch cheerleaders. Instead, Mr. Connors watched the player/coach huddles to see which person on the staff was actually coaching and maybe even which coaches were posturing and pretending to coach.

Some people interviewed with their mouths and ears. He interviewed with his eyes. He looked at the hands of sports figures to see which, if any, of their championship rings they wore. And that often led to a question or two.

Early on in my tour of duty at the Tulsa World, I was dispatched to something called the Cardinal Excursion, where you ride a bus from Tulsa to St. Louis and go to a few Cardinals games.

Connors suggested that I interview Ozzie Smith about a manager's allegation that Smith was not the best influence in the locker room.

I am convinced that Mr. Connors, with his experience, class, diplomacy and tact, could have tackled that issue with Smith and hit a home run. I bombed. I pitched a question about that topic to Smith, he ate a spoonful of what I presume was yogurt and said "Got any questions about baseball?"

That's locker room slang for "I'm not talking about that."

Can I get a do-over? I interviewed Smith again when he was an Iba Awards recipient a few years ago. There was no reason for him to remember me from our earlier meeting and I never brought it up.

Bragging is for goofballs, but if I was going to brag about anything, it would be that I was hired by Mr. Connors.

He never would have known my name except that I was fortunate enough to have been recommended to him by World sports copy editor Bob Colvin, who was the sports editor at a rival newspaper when I worked at the daily paper in Pryor. Thanks, Bob, for the opportunity to know Mr. Connors.

What's the idea behind calling him "Mr. Connors" instead of by his first name?

Former Tulsa coach David Rader explained it best.

In an interview after Mr. Connors passed away, Rader said, "For a lot of us who have been around for the 40 or more years that he has been writing, he is the Tulsa World.... I can't imagine calling him Bill. No matter how many times he said go ahead (and call me Bill), I said 'yes sir, Mr. Connors'. "



Reader Comments 2 Total
Wally 70 (3 years ago)
Great article Jimmie.

MR. Connors was an outstanding writer and but an even better person. I miss his insight.
Kilgore.Trout (3 years ago)
Great guy and a great writer.

good article. We all miss Bill Connors.
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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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