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Tales of Tisdale
Published: 5/21/2009 8:53 PM
Last Modified: 5/21/2009 8:53 PM

Following are stories about Wayman Tisdale that surfaced before, during or after Thursday's memorial service:

Former Oklahoma football coach John Blake, now an assistant at North Carolina, returned to his home state for the Tisdale memorial service. Blake said he has known Tisdale since high school.
“Wayman always smiled no matter what the situation was,” Blake said. “I think when he was upset he smiled.”
Blake said the spirit that was inside Tisdale could only come from God. Blake said Tisdale never worried about himself and always made sure everyone around him was “lifted up.”

Former Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer never recruited Tisdale. But Switzer heard word of how good Tisdale was supposed to be at basketball, while recruiting Patrick Collins, decided to sneak over to the Booker T. Washington gym to check out Tisdale himself.
“I wanted to see, in my opinion, was he as good as they say he is?” Switzer said.
Switzer said he did the same thing when Alvan Adams was a high school hoopster at Putnam City.
Switzer said he was delighted and excited and entertained by Tisdale when both were at OU.
“He was a great ambassador for our program because he carried himself in a way every coach wants all of his players to carry themselves,” Switzer said.

Former NBA player A.C. Green said he was initially drawn to Tisdale because they share a background in the ministry. They became closer when they were teammates in Phoenix. The Greens and the Tisdales got together for a couples dinner once and Tisdale and Green’s wife started talking music. Tisdale pulled out a device and played a recording for her. He predicted the singer was going to be big-time. The singer’s name was Kelly Clarkson, before she was anyone’s American Idol.

Tulsa 66er and former NBA player Ryan Humphrey said he has known Tisdale since middle school. They both attended Booker T. Washington and Humphrey said Tisdale was one of the last people he consulted before signing a letter of intent with OU.
“I talked with Wayman two weeks ago. I thanked him and told him I loved him. I told him that, without him, there wouldn’t be a lot of other young kids from Tulsa coming up and making it. To me, the world is missing a saint, but God got one of his angels back. I was kind of laying in bed last night thinking that we are missing him, but I’m thinking that God needed a power forward and a bass guitar player -- a lefty. And there was no better one than Wayman Tisdale.”

Former NBA player Darrell Walker said he thinks NBA commissioner David Stern would love to see more guys in the NBA like Wayman Tisdale. Why? Because of the way Tisdale handled himself so well on and off the court.
Walker issued a dare to those who attended a pre-memorial service press conference.
“Find five people that say they would dislike Wayman Tisdale,” Walker said.
“Just think about what I just said. I don’t think you could really get five people to come in here and say ‘I didn’t like Wayman Tisdale. He was a bad guy.’ That’s not going to happen.”

Richard Dumas, like Tisdale, is a Booker T. Washington and NBA alum. Dumas said Tisdale was “like a brother to me.”
“He taught me a lot of things about life, that a lot of people don’t know that he did,” Dumas said.
“Wayman wasn’t about basketball. He loved his bass. He had his focus on his bass. He told me when we went to (the state tournament) down there in Norman -- I stayed in his (OU) dorm room -- he told me that he was playing basketball because he was blessed to play it, but (playing music) is what I do. He had his bass guitar right there sitting in his dorm room. Everybody else had to go back to the hotel. I stayed in his dorm room.”
Dumas was told that thousands of people were expected for the Tisdale memorial service.
“It should be more,” Dumas said. “That was a great individual, a great man.”

A picture commemorating the Tisdale memorial service was splashed on a large screen inside the BOK Center. Annjanette Williams-Birts was among people who stopped to take a picture of the display with a cell phone.
“Wayman was like a brother to me,” she said. “We went to school together. We shared a lot of memories and he is going to be very well missed.”
She wants the snapshot as a keepsake.
“Not only is it a brand new building. They are having something that is very historical, having Wayman’s funeral here. I will always have a memory of him, not only in my heart, but I will always have this photo as well.”

Former NBA player Kenny Gattison said he read Sidney Poitier’s autobiography, which is titled “The Measure of a Man.”
“In my life, (Tisdale) is the measure of a man,” Gattison said. “He is everything that we all aspire to be. You are talking about a guy that was dedicated to his wife and kids. To be around them at the house at dinner or whatever, his energy never stopped. He didn’t turn it on in public. He was that way in his pajamas.”
The subject came up when Gattison was talking about Tisdale’s devotion to his wife and children.
“Those are the things that make a man. Not basketball. Basketball is a sport. Injuries or just getting old, it is going to be taken away from you.”

Pete Vanzant never got the chance to hello to Tisdale at the 1982 Oklahoma All-State basketball game. But Vanzant was present to say goodbye at Tisdale’s memorial service.
Vanzant, a former coach at Pryor and McLain, was the east all-state coach in 1982, when the state produced perhaps its best-ever class of basketball players, including Tisdale, East Central’s Anthony Bowie, Enid’s Mark Price and Jenks’ Steve Hale, who signed with North Carolina.
Tisdale and Hale should have been on the team that Vanzant coached. But, back then, the rules said Oklahoma high school players could participate in only two postseason all-star games.
“Of course, Wayman and Steve decided to play in the McDonald’s game and another all-star game, so they didn’t get to play in the Oklahoma east-west all-star game,” Vanzant said.
“It was a heck of a game still and we got beat one point in overtime. If we would have had Wayman and Steve, I’m sure we would have done a lot better.”
Back then, high school coaches knew Wayman was good, but they didn’t know how good until he got to college and exploded, according to Vanzant.
“Wayman is probably one of the best players, if not the best player, to ever come out of the state of Oklahoma,” Vanzant said. “I wish I would have gotten a chance to coach him.”
Vanzant was in the BOK Center in a working capacity. He’s one of the guys wearing red vests at BOK events.

Jim King, a former TU head coach and NBA player, said Tisdale was in a league of his own.
“We had several good players come through Tulsa, but Wayman was a big guy and he was very mobile,” King said. “We have seen some big guys come through that didn’t have the impact that Wayman did. But he had that Magic Johnson smile and he was contagious. He was very positive and upbeat and, to me, it showed that his own life was one of substance.”
Because Tisdale was so consisent with his energy and smile, that gave King an indication that Tisdale came from a Christian home.
“(That) probably gave him a base to be free and understand what life was about,” King said. “He took everything in stride, it seemed.”
King said Tisdale raised basketball hopes around Tulsa and could have gone to just about any school. King said Tisdale initially could do only a couple of things well, but got better and better as he got older.
“And when he got to college, Billy (Tubbs) used him very well in that fast, up and down game. I thought that brought out the best in him and prepared him for the pros.”
King said Tisdale often was outsized as an NBA power forward, but never refused to play or lobbied to go to a different position.
“He just went out and played because of his attitude,” King said. “I think what he has left us and a lot of young kids is the attitude of gratitude. For anybody that is playing the game, they need to enjoy it and play hard.”




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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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