Let's Write A Book!

That's right, I'm going be become an author! And it'll be about 3-years in the making, and about a 10-letter word and about 20-players.

Ooh, I guess I must tell:















B-A-S-K-E-T-B-A-L-L!!

I was inspired to write it after a 2-hour catching-up conversation with a teammate on my high school basketball team this past weekend. We were both part of Oklahoma City's Northwest Classen High School class 5A state championship team, and as we talked, the memories just kept flooding back. And, it seems that I have stored them with digital detail that my former teammate pretty much said he was going to hold a gun to my head unless I wrote a book about it--not only about our experience, but about how a bunch of basic no namers took a title that most everybody else thought was going to go to teams that sported some big names--names that would be recognized today, even 27-years later.

Names like Wayman Tisdale (3-time All-American at Oklahoma, 12-years in the NBA, jazz musician), Mark Price (GA Tech All-American, NBA free-three record holder), Steve Hale (4-year starting point guard at North Carolina right after the Michael Jordan era), and Anthony Bowie (Oklahoma and the NBA). Most say the "Class of '82"--all of the above names played Class 5A basketball as seniors that year--was the most celebrated in state history. Yet, not one of those players tasted the sweet nectar of a state title that year. My teammate and 12-others did, and our story--unlike all of those big names above--has yet to be told. Well, I'm going to tell it. And, I'm going to get some of those big names listed above to help me tell it--or at least I'm going to attempt to. They probably don't remember my team winning the title with as much gusto as I do!

For those of you who don't know me as well as others, you may wonder why something that happened 27-years ago is still etched with laser detail in my mind. The answer is simple: it's still the greatest event sports-wise I've ever experienced--and I have a long list of events I've been a part of as a TV Sportscaster the last 21-years: four major college football national championship games, which includes every major bowl game minus the Sugar Bowl, two Cotton Bowls, a Holiday Bowl, an Independence Bowl, a Final Four, a College World Series, a Women's Softball World Series, an NFC Championship game (Cowboys vs. 49ers, 1993), five Dallas Cowboys Training Camps, a Senior PGA Major, just to name a few.

It also helped that I was part of that 1982 "Knights of the Roundball" team--although I admittedly wasn't very good. I was a step slow, couldn't jump very well, and--even though I didn't know it at the time--still growing (I was 6-foot when I graduated, and 6-2 at the end of my freshman year in college). In fact, I rarely played. 28-game schedule, and I played in a grand total of 8-games. A bench warmer, if you will. Those who suffer from polarized thinking would say "scrub"--but you don't count (and if you don't like it, get off my blog. This is America, jack!). But to be fair, I earned the respect of my teammates--most of whom were 10-times better than me-- and my coaches. In those 8-games I played, I scored in 7 of them. I missed only one shot the whole season (Yes, took 8-shots, made 7 of them). And, in my mind, and most important, never once--no, not once--did my coaches say, "Vince, you work hard, thanks for trying out. We're looking at some other guys for your spot. You didn't make the team." Yes, I earned my spot, and just kept after it even though I felt I was overmatched most of the time.

But I wanted to play so bad that I just wouldn't. And, it's that determination that serves me very well to this day. For those of you who know me through my sportscasting career, you would probably have never seen me on the air had it not been for being a part of this team. All that hard work, all those grueling practices, and the determination to just keep going and competing even though I was overmatched? Taught me the value of courage and determination--two things you must have to be successful in broadcasting. Some have said that being me being the only white guy on the team was the biggest challenge--it wasn't. The color thing was a novelty at best. As a senior, I was "Vince" or "Checkmate" (my official nickname), and they were just "The Guys".

A huge milestone in my life came about an hour after we beat Mark Price and Enid High School 81-69 on statewide TV for the title. I was getting dressed into my street clothes, and was brushing my teeth in the locker room at Oral Roberts University's Mabee Center--and I looked in the mirror, and said the following words: "This is what made all that hard work and pain worth it!".

Now, let's fast-forward 27-years, and ask the obvious question: who's going to read such a book? Most aren't going to care as much as I do, that's obvious. But I also believe that there's a part of a lot of folks out there who love to read stories about other people overcoming the odds, who have uttered that sentence I did back in that locker room back in 1982: "This is what made all that hard work and pain worth it!". And just think, my teammates worked just as hard if not harder, suffered even more pain because most of them played a heck of a lot more than I ever did, and were the leaders in what we all accomplished! That's what great true-story books are made of, and if there's some big names involved--and there are, and some controversy involved--and there was (does anybody remember that 6-overtime game with Edmond in our gym? And, how we were seeded incorrectly at state???). I'll illustrate for you all the characters involved--minus myself because the only thing that stood out about me was my white skin--and weave it all together for what is the cornerstone of the American Dream: no matter your background, one can achieve greatness!! And, the Knights of '82 did.

Some of you might say this is shameless promotion. It isn't. At least it's not shameless. This is going to be a 3-year project, and I'm aiming to release it in 2012 for the 30th-anniversary of winning the title. It''ll be a regional release at best. But you know what? To me, it's not whether this future work gets published or not--it's that it gets written, and written well. Everything else is just gravy. That's how I've approached sportscasting for 21-years, and it's served me me well.

Hey, I already have a title: Knights of the Court. The rest? Well, that's yet to come, and I can't wait to relive it all over again!