OKLAHOMA CITY (Nov. 1, 2018) – A half-century ago, tiny Oklahoma Christian College – located on the fringes of Oklahoma City and accessible only by two-lane roads – still was trying to establish its reputation in its new hometown.
Like all of the college's programs, OCC's athletic teams had fought to earn respect from their peers for the better part of a decade, since the college's move from Bartlesville and transition from a junior college to four-year academic status. The struggle had been mighty at times – and then a basketball team came along that forever changed the college's image.
The 1967-68 Eagles put OCC on the figurative athletic map, twice stunning the nation's No. 1-ranked team to earn a surprise berth into the NAIA national tournament in Kansas City, Mo. That team's achievement earned the college local, state and national recognition and helped Oklahoma Christian establish what's now a well-known brand.
Oklahoma Christian University never forgot that team's contributions and will recognize it again Saturday as it becomes OC's first "Team of Distinction," a new award created by the university's Athletic Hall of Fame committee.
It's difficult to overstate just how much that team's success meant to the university, coming at a key, formative time in its history. Frank Davis, OC's first basketball star in the early 1960s, coached the 1968 team and describes it thus:
"To those of us in the Oklahoma Christian community, the 1968 team was the vindication and validation of our founders' hopes and dreams of Oklahoma Christian achieving excellence in everything, including athletics," he said.
"At its heart the drive and the success of that basketball team represented the quest of our college of becoming – becoming an institution that our students and our Christian community could be proud of, becoming an institution that appealed to future students for its excellence in all things, becoming an institution that commanded the respect of other well-established, highly respected academic institutions. In the beginning, there was no guarantee that this little college would endure."
OC began competing at the four-year level in athletics with the 1960-61 basketball season, and like the rest of the campus, the Eagles faced an uphill climb to earn respect. Despite success in the program's first few years under coaches Ray Vaughn Sr. and Haskell Sinclair – with Davis as the standout – OC's teams weren't considered by outsiders to be the equal of established NAIA programs in the state.
The university had sought membership in the NAIA's Oklahoma Collegiate Conference but was denied. But even without a conference affiliation, when OC had achieved full NAIA membership, the Eagles couldn't be kept out of the District 9 playoffs, which determined the state's representative to the nation's oldest postseason basketball tournament, conducted by the NAIA.
Davis knew he'd have a good team for the 1966-67 season, one led by a couple of junior-college transfers from Alabama via Freed-Hardeman (Tenn.), David Smith and J.D. Moomaw, and Bennie Price of Memphis, Tenn.
Not long after arriving from Tennessee, Smith – who became a two-time NAIA All-America selection – had a conversation with Davis in which the coach explained just what the Eagles had to do to make the District 9 playoffs and then try to qualify for the national tournament.
"We had to win 80-plus percent of our games," Smith said. "We had to beat the Collegiate Conference champion twice on their home court. It seemed like it was totally impossible. But I remember after talking to coach Davis – he met me down at the laundry room on a Saturday morning and explained all of it to me – I took it back to my room and I just studied it. My goal was to accomplish that and we accomplished that both years. It was really a great accomplishment for the university."
The Eagles went 20-5 during the regular season and finished among the top three highest-rated teams in District 9. Their reward was a road playoff game against mighty Oklahoma Baptist, a team that had won the 1966 NAIA title and had played in the 1965 NAIA championship game.
OC jumped to a 20-11 lead, but OBU rallied and downed the Eagles 76-64. The Bison eventually reached the national championship game for a third straight year, but after escaping against the Eagles, OBU's coach, Bob Bass, said, "All I can say is never underestimate OCC." That comment provided confirmation that the Eagles rapidly were closing the gap.
The next season, the Eagles knew going in that they'd need to win 18 of their 22 games in order to post an .800 regular-season winning percentage. They started 8-1 before suffering consecutive losses to Southwestern Oklahoma State and Oral Roberts. With little margin for error, OC reeled off nine straight wins to move to 17-3 but stumbled against Langston, falling 88-76. Needing to beat Oral Roberts to make the postseason, OC avenged its earlier loss by downing the Titans 89-78.
That put the Eagles into a one-game playoff against nationally ranked Southwestern – a team they'd split with during the regular season – at a neutral site in El Reno. The Eagles trailed 63-59 with seven minutes remaining and Southwestern went into its delay-game offense (back in an era before the shot clock), but OC guard Billy Brooks – a transfer from Cameron Junior College – came up with a steal and a layup.
Thirty seconds later, Moomaw drilled a 20-foot jumper to tie the game, and he soon scored again to put the Eagles ahead for good. Led by Price's 24-point performance, OC won 79-71.
That earned OC a best-of-three series against Northeastern State, the NAIA's No. 1-ranked team. "That was almost like a mountain that you can't climb," Smith recalled.
But the Eagles did.
In game one in Tahlequah, the Eagles downed Northeastern 80-70 thanks to 25 points from Brooks. Game two should have been played in The Barn on OC's campus, but NAIA officials – throwing yet another roadblock in the Eagles' path – deemed the facility unsuitable to host a postseason game. That forced the Eagles to play their first NAIA "home" playoff game at what is now Central Oklahoma's Hamilton Field House in Edmond.
Despite 23 points from Brooks, the Eagles dropped a heartbreaking 74-72 decision to Northeastern to send the series back to Tahlequah. But the Eagles proved resilient and came through with a 74-69 win that sent the OC campus into a frenzy. Frank Boggs, a legendary sports writer for
The Oklahoman, described the scene in the state newspaper.
"A campus in orbit is a sight to behold but that's what has happened at Oklahoma Christian College, now that the Eagles have beheld Northeastern in the playoff to determine this state's NAIA contestant," Boggs wrote.
"The only thing higher is the flag which was flying Tuesday. It says TU Tuff, which is what the box scores indicated the Eagles were when knocking off the NAIA's top-ranked team in a two-of-three playoff. It is not the fanciest flag ever to be run up a pole, unless red paint on frazzled bed sheet appeals to you. But it has meaning."
The series win over Northeastern caught the attention of the NAIA, which made the Eagles – who before had been mostly unknown at the national level – the No. 4 seed in the 32-team national tournament to be played at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo. (Northeastern, as the highest-ranked team to not win a district title, received the tournament's lone at-large bid. The next team in line for that bid? Eastern New Mexico, which had a star player named Dan Hays – who later became a legendary coach of the Eagles.)
OC's first-round opponent in Kansas City was Fairmont State (W.Va.) and the Falcons did the job on the boards, outrebounding OC 51-37. The Eagles struggled from the free-throw line, making only 15 of 23 attempts, but Brooks' late heroics pulled them even and forced a 71-71 tie at the end of regulation.
In overtime, the Eagles twice led by two points, but a foul against Smith on a jump ball resulted in free throws that put Fairmont State ahead 76-75. Officials called Brooks for an offensive foul with six seconds left and the Falcons converted both free throws to win 78-75. In a tournament of upsets, the top two seeds also lost in the first round and Fairmont State advanced all the way to the NAIA championship game before falling to Central State (Ohio).
When it was all over, and as the disappointment of their loss gradually faded, there was a sense of appreciation for what the Eagles had accomplished, Davis said.
"For us, those who were there as players and coaches, I sense that we all feel a deep sense of gratitude for those who rooted for us and believed in us even when the odds against us were so great," he said. "When I think of our school spirit, I remember how it was way back in the 1960s, when our hopes and dreams were seen only through faith. I think of those who put their hopes and confidence in us and our school, long before we accomplished anything of significance!
"When the team hurt as a result of a loss, everybody on campus hurt. Those groups of believers were just as important in the big picture as any one player or coach. Their support, their friendships and their innocent hopes and cautious optimism inspired those of us who represented them out on the basketball court to give our all, to dig deeper into our potential, to commit to working as a team of hope and faith that took up the cause of doing something that had never been done before … and that was not for us as a team, it was for 'us' as a community of believers."
It took until 1982 before an Oklahoma Christian team again advanced to the NAIA tournament – highlighting just what a significant accomplishment the 1968 squad achieved. Most of those players went on to successful careers, in business and industry, in education and coaching and in other fields.
Smith, who averaged 18.3 points and 10.6 rebounds as a senior before starting what is now one of the nation's largest awards companies – MTM Recognition in Del City – is in the Oklahoma Christian Athletic Hall of Fame. So is Tom Heath, a freshman who left the team at the semester to focus on playing baseball at OC, then carved out a decades-long career at the university, the last 24 as the founder and first coach of the softball program.
Players like Price, Moomaw and Ancil Johnson – another Alabamian who followed Smith and Moomaw to Oklahoma – established themselves as all-time program greats. Johnson earned NAIA All-America honors in 1969. Price continued playing Amateur Athletic Union basketball and in 1984, he was inducted into the Conoco AAU Invitational Basketball Tournament Hall of Fame after his teams won five tournament titles in 12 years.
Davis went on to coach at Georgia State and Southeastern Oklahoma State before becoming a successful businessman, but he'll tell you it's hard to top the good memories of 1968.
"Those men of destiny of that day were truly champions," he said. "They earned their place in Oklahoma Christian's legacy and in the state of Oklahoma's record book of champions. Some of the best games I saw in my coaching career were our scrimmage games in The Barn between our second team and our starting team! Those men loved to compete with one another against their opponents, and in practice, against one another under game conditions. They responded to challenges and greeted pressure with the ease of naturally confident athletes. Those were fun times!"
