Eddie Sutton's legacy at Oklahoma State: Excellence was possible for Cowboys

In the final OSU basketball season before the Eddie Sutton era, the Cowboys’ home opener was against Memphis. A crowd of 6,381 showed up.

If that number sounds familiar, it should. That was the capacity of Gallagher-Iba Arena before its 2000 makeover. Leonard Hamilton’s final OSU team played to a bunch of packed houses, even when the talented roster struggled, finishing with a 17-14 record.

Soon enough, of course, Sutton was the coach, the Cowboys were winning big and Gallagher-Iba was the “rowdiest arena in the nation,” in the words of public-address announcer Larry Reece.

Sutton died Saturday at the age of 84; no Cowboy ever stood taller with the OSU throngs. A player for Henry Iba in the glorious 1950s, then a messiah of a coach who brought the Cowboys back to splendor.

The Sutton narrative long has been a coach who in many ways saved OSU athletics, or at least rescued the department from perpetual destitution. And that’s accurate.

But sometimes we think of those early Sutton seasons as bringing back the masses who had drifted away since the Iba days. Between 1958 and 1991, the Cowboys had two NCAA Tournament appearances and one NCAA Tournament victory.

Then Sutton woke up the echoes. He didn’t so much fill up the seats at Gallagher-Iba as much as he filled up the spirits of those who sat in the orange chairs.

“I tell you what he brought back, he brought back pride,” said Reece, a student in Sutton’s first season, 1990-91, and now the Cowboys’ associate athletic director for fund-raising. “He brought back pride almost overnight.”

In 1995, as the Cowboys headed to the Sweet 16 on their way to the Final Four, I wrote about the Sutton transformation. What he did for his alma mater.

A quarter century later, the numbers remain striking. A football turnaround can change an athletic landscape. Boone Pickens’ donations did that at OSU. Bob Stoops did that at OU. Bill Snyder at Kansas State. Art Briles at Baylor.

But basketball? How often does basketball serve as lifeguard at a school in a big-time football conference, especially basketball outside the exclusive blueblood club?

OSU’s athletic debt was $3.5 million when Sutton arrived. Football was on probation and soon enough would embark on an 0-10-1 season. The hallowed wrestling program was on probation.

The Cowboys hung their hat on baseball and golf, but Pistol Pete’s Stetson needed a bigger rack than that. Then along came Sutton.

“People were so excited that one of Mr. Iba’s boys were back,” Reece said. “He lifted Oklahoma State University when we really needed it. I remember a buzz around Stillwater, a buzz around everything OSU basketball.”

A Big Eight title in 1991. Sweet 16s in 1991 and 1992. A Final Four in 1995. And OSU financially climbed out of the pit.

In 1995, Sutton made $85,500. Of Gallagher’s 4,900 public season tickets, 4,300 required a donation, on top of the $200 price. Students entered a lottery for a chance to get a half-season ticket. In ticket sales alone, Sutton made a difference of about $500,000 a year. Plus, OSU’s fundraising increased, as the annual campaigns in spring and summer were coming off basketball success instead of football disappointment.

By 2000, OSU had opened a renovated Gallagher-Iba that more than doubled capacity. In retrospect, it was not a wise move. The university took on $50 million in bond debt for the project, football’s prominence all across the nation soon rose and when Sutton retired after his notorious drunk-driving incident in 2006, even the OSU basketball market softened considerably.

But Reece said he believes the arena project, motivated by Sutton’s success, helped inspire the later donations by Pickens and others that eventually led to a glittering new football stadium and an Athletic Village that is the envy of many schools.

“It made OSU people say, we can do big things here,” Reece said. “If you don’t have Eddie Sutton, I don’t think you have all the athletic facilities we have.”

Sutton often mentioned his pride in helping restore OSU’s basketball tradition. How rewarding it was for the entire family.

But it went beyond basketball. After that 1995 Final Four, then-athletic director Terry Don Phillips talked about Sutton’s impact.

Sutton proved “to Oklahoma State people that this place can have excellence in sports other than golf, wrestling and baseball," Phillips said. "They don't need to short-change themselves. If we're ever going to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, we've got to have some passion for excellence.”

The message was clear. If the right man can do it in basketball, maybe the right man can do it in football. And soon enough, Les Miles laid a solid foundation, Mike Gundy took it to greater heights and today OSU is one of the nation’s top 15 football programs over the last dozen years.

Sutton filled the seats at Gallagher and the coffers of the athletic department and the spirits of all who sing Loyal & True. Few coaches have left a greater mark on a campus.

Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at oklahoman.com/berrytramel.

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