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Why I’m all in now on Sellout Crowd

Sellout crowd video — Berry Tramel joined Sellout Crowd colleagues Bob Stoops (right) and Sam Mayes in a broadcast during the new venture’s Launch Party at The Joinery in Bricktown.

Berry Tramel told a story to a boisterous group of roughly 150 people earlier this week at The Joinery restaurant in Bricktown. Berry tells great stories.

He recalled a phone call a few years ago from a former colleague at The Oklahoman newspaper who sought his interest in joining a new, online only sports reporting venture.

Berry said he was interested. As long as his fellow Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson came along, he was ready to go.

Turns out, the timing wasn’t right for Mike Koehler’s brainstorm. The deal didn’t happen. Berry and Jenni continued to carry The Oklahoman as its lead sports columnists as they had for the past two decades-plus.

Then Berry got another call from Koehler in 2023. This time, Koehler had financial backing for his project and he had a name. Sellout Crowd.

Was Berry still interested? Berry replied that as long as Jenni was still part of the plan, yes he was.

The next thing you know, “Berry Tramel is a Sellout” billboards started appearing across the OKC metro, teasing the launch of Sellout Crowd.

Sellout

That’s the story that Berry told at the Sellout Crowd’s Bricktown launch party, where he was joined by Koehler, Jenni Carlson, Mike Sherman and a host of other Sellout Crowd content “creators” and backers.

All of those folks I just named are former colleagues of mine at The Oklahoman.

The Launch Party also featured Toby Keith and Bob Stoops, celebrity investors in the venture. There was Kris Murray, Koehler’s business partner and son of long-time OKC broadcaster Ed Murray.

And there was a lineup of other content creators that included former Tulsa World columnist Guerin Emig, Brett Dawson, Jon Hamm, Todd Lisenbee, Sam Mayes, brothers Ben and Sam Hutchens, Ed Murray, Bob Stoops and Eli Lederman. The team also includes a couple of other former Oklahoman colleagues of mine, Jay Spears and Jacquelyn Musgrove, both of whom provide technical expertise.

I’m spending time daily on the site and have figured out that I get most of the same type content from Berry and Jenni that I found in the newspaper. There is heavy coverage of OU, OSU and the OKC Thunder.

And video. Lots and lots of video blogs, I guess you call them.

This morning I watched Tramel’s awesome interview with sports radio broadcast star Paul Finebaum.

So, you get the drift of the type of coverage the Sellout Crowd is bringing readers/viewers, and the content is not behind any sort of pay wall. In fact, it appears a number of advertisers have jumped on board, as well.

As I talked to some of the folks who showed up at the Launch Party, one guy said Sellout Crowd reminded him of The Ringer, which is the sports and culture site launched about a decade ago by Bill Simmons. I can see the resemblance, but glad Sellout Crowd has an Oklahoma focus.

Sellout Crowd itself is well put together in my opinion. You can see that lots of thought was put into making each article/post look professional in its presentation.

The Launch Party concluded with a series of remarks from Berry, Koehler and Kris Murray. Koehler also has another thriving business known as Smirk New Media.

Anyway, Koehler made some heartfelt comments, tearfully thanking those who supported his vision and those who have come on board.

Sellout crowd Koehler couple — Sellout Crowd founder Mike Koehler and his wife, Gaylee

“We want to honor the people for the great work they do,” Koehler told the crowd about Sellout Crowd’s presentation of its content creators. “And we got the cream of the crop.”

So, while I was pleading “say it ain’t so” a couple of months ago in a blog post, I’m all in on Sellout Crowd today. It has my favorite writers and focuses on topics in which I’m interested.

Which doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned my first love, the newspaper. I’m still a subscriber and a reader of The Oklahoman every day.

There is room for both.

Sellout crowd jerseys — Special Sellout Crowd jerseys were presented to investors and backers during the venture’s Launch Party

The Baseball 100: Fathers and Sons

For the past five months, I’ve walked around our house carrying a massive tome that resembles those old giant-sized King James Bibles that are cherished possessions of many families.

Only this Good Book is titled The Baseball 100 (2021, The Athletic Media Co.) and written by long-time baseball writer Joe Posnanski. It was a birthday gift last April from my friend Ed Godfrey.

Thank you, Ed.

If you’re not familiar with Posnanski, he made his reputation as the baseball beat writer for the Kansas City Star newspaper before moving on to Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports and The Athletic, among his credits. Today, he’s publishing his prose on his own blog at JoeBlogs.

More about Posnanski’s background here.

It’s obvious that Posnanski’s first love is baseball, and, in fact, his latest best seller in a long line of bestsellers is entitled ‘Why We Love Baseball.’

Anyway, back to The Baseball 100. I read it slowly and savored each individual profile of what Posnanski considers to be the best 100 players in Major League history. When I first opened the book, I flipped hurriedly through the pages until I found the Nolan Ryan chapter, just to make sure Posnanski included Big Tex.

Ryan came in at No. 50, and the logic of that ranking was that about half the baseball world (me included) thinks he’s one of the top pitchers ever, while the other half sees him as vastly overrated.

So, then I went back to the beginning and read the book through. What struck me was how often father-son dynamics played into the development and character of so many players.

For instance, let’s consider Oklahoma native Mickey Mantle. Mantle’s father, Mutt, began pitching to him at their Commerce home when the Mick was 6 years old, making him bat from both sides of the plate. Mickey didn’t exactly want to be a switch hitter and wasn’t certain he wanted to be a baseball player from the start.

But his dad willed it even before he was born.

“Mutt knew with a chilling certainty that his future son would be called Mickey, after his favorite ballplayer, Mickey Cochrane, and that Mickey Mantle would be the best ballplayer of them all,” Posnanski writes.

Mickey Mantle did turn out to be one of the great all-time Major League players. He was the All American boy who led the New York Yankees to seven World Series titles in 12 appearances from 1951 to 1964.

Ranked No. 11 all-time by Posnanski, Mantle also was an alcoholic who cheated on his wife and was mostly absent from the lives of his children. I’m pretty sure Mutt’s obsession shaped Mickey beyond baseball.

You learn how flawed so many of our heroes were in The Baseball 100, from Mantle to Pete Rose to Ted Williams to Barry Bonds to Roger Clemens. The Baseball 100 also shares stories about baseball heroes who were model citizens, like Ozzie Smith, Stan ‘The Man’ Musial, Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols and Brooks Robinson, to name a few.

But the theme of overbearing fathers came up again and again. Consider George Brett, who is a contemporary hero to those of us of a certain age and who comes in at No. 35 in Posnanski’s rankings.

“Fear drove George Brett,” Posnanski writes. “His father, Jack, made sure of that.”

No matter how well Brett played or what amazing stats he put up for the Kansas City Royals, it was never good enough for his father. Never.

In fact, on the night before Jack Brett died of cancer, he spoke to George on the phone and asked him how he did that day. George told him he went 0-for-4. “Well, did you at least hit the ball hard?” his dad asked. “I did, Dad,” George lied to his dying father. “I hit it hard.”

Brett had struck out three times that day.

Then there is Pete Rose at No. 60. We all know how his story played out, the betting on baseball, the relentless chase of the hits record, the womanizing, the Charlie Hustle reputation.

What Posnanski tells us is that Pete’s father, Harry “Big Pete” Rose never gave him the opportunity to develop as a person. Big Pete saw him as a Major League star, and turned him into a switch hitter at 8 years of age. He even demanded that his Little League coach let him switch hit.

It’s the Mickey Mantle story playing out all over again in Cincinnati, Ohio. Except Pete Rose was banned from baseball for life for betting on the game he loved.

And then there was Ted Williams, an all-time player and war hero who fought fans, the media and his own demons. Posnanski doesn’t write about an obsessive father in his life — he barely knew his father — but does quote Williams’ own daughter who said that her father was mentally ill.

“My father was sick,” Bobby Jo (Williams) said. “And it’s a damn shame that, because he was Ted Williams and because nobody wanted to tell him like it was, including myself, he suffered and progressively became more ill by the years.”

In addition to father-son relationships, there is another major theme that runs through the book.

Posnanski writes extensively about the plight of African American stars who never got the chance to play in the Major Leagues. For decades. they were forced to play in the largely invisible (to the white audience) Negro Leagues. Their stories come to life in The Baseball 100, as well.

So, who does Posnanski rank as the No. 1 player of all time? I’ll leave it to you to get a copy of this outstanding book and find out for yourself.

Hint: Say Hey when you finally figure it out

Read The Baseball 100 and savor the stories of the heroes of our youth.

Damar Hamlin: ‘We don’t get to choose our calling’

Damar players — Players huddle in prayer for Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin after he collapsed on the field in January. (New York Times photo)

We’ve all experienced moments in our lives that are burned into our memories, and we’ll always remember exactly where we were when we witnessed it or heard the news.

The Twin Towers. John Lennon’s death. The Kennedy Assassination.

On Jan. 2 of this year, millions of Americans watched as Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin made a tackle in an NFL game vs. the Cincinnati Bengals, stood up, then collapsed on the field.

My wife and I were among those who witnessed it, watching from our living room.

Damar lay motionless on the field as trainers and emergency personnel rushed to his side. I was struck by the reaction of the players, many of whom turned away and appeared to be in grief or in prayer.

Team and security personnel surrounded Damar and blocked any views by intruding network cameras or even his own teammates. Players on both teams gathered in a big prayer circle.

We feared the worst as the minutes passed. My wife speculated that he already could be dead, even though we didn’t know what had happened. Here’s a recap from the New York Times written a few days later.

Damar Hamlin had had a massive heart attack, and his heart stopped. The emergency personnel and training staff used defibrillators and brought him back to life, more than once, apparently. After many minutes, he was loaded into an ambulance and taken to a Cincinnati hospital.

We were as anxious as anyone else and silently praying for his life. We weren’t optimistic.

But you probably know the rest of the story. Damar escaped more near misses with death on the way to — and in — the hospital. Still, he grew stronger by the day and was released nine days later.

He continued to improve, and under doctor’s supervision began working out again and was eventually cleared to rejoin the team this summer.

Damar is again on the Bills roster and played his first minutes of action this past weekend.

Then he flew to Oklahoma City on Tuesday to share his story with an audience of about 1,000 Oklahomans at the annual Champions of Health Awards Presentations at the OKC Convention Center.

Champ Damar1 — Damar Hamlin shares the stage with News9’s Robin Marsh during a ‘fireside chat’ at the Champions of Health Awards Presentations.

I had the good fortune to be in that OKC audience as an employee of Care Providers Oklahoma, one of 11 health care related organizations that comprise the Champions of Health Coalition. All are working to improve health outcomes for Oklahomans, and the Champions of Health Awards recognize organizations or individuals that have devised innovative programs that could be replicated in other communities.

Anyway, the highlight of the night was Damar Hamlin’s presence and the perspective he shared in a “fireside chat” with News9 TV personality Robin Marsh. Check out the video that my CPO colleague Tanecia Davis shot of Damar speaking during the chat.

Robin introduced Damar and told him that millions of Americans had prayed for him that night from their living rooms, just as his teammates did on the field.

Soft spoken, Damar didn’t go into details of the incident, but instead focused on his mission since. Today, he’s working to ensure that the technology that saved his life is available by every sports team nationwide and that people are trained in CPR.

I was struck by one comment in particular by Damar about this mission.

“It’s kind of like a calling, & we don’t get to choose our calling,” he told us.

Amen.

Robin asked Damar about his youth and how he progressed from high school to college to the NFL. He shared the story of his personal journey, and something else stood out.

“I found a mentor,” he said. “I found someone who was older than me and successful and worked with them.”

Amen again.

I’m a big believer in cultivating a mentor and then following their example and advice. Although I never had a formal mentor, I’ve had some folks in my life who provided sage advice along the way.

Like millions of my fellow Americans, I’m so glad that Damar Hamlin survived this near death experience. Survived and emerged with his new mission, his calling.

And we don’t get to choose our calling.

BONUS! Read my blog post over at Care Providers Oklahoma website that provides more details about the Champions of Health Awards Presentations and winners.

‘Family reunion’ for me at i2E anniversary celebration

i2E group — From left, Jim Stafford, David Daviee, Rick Rainey and John Campbell. Photo by Cindy Henson

There was no media coverage, but a milestone celebration occurred last week for i2E, an Oklahoma City-based not-for-profit corporation that has had a major impact on Oklahoma’s innovation economy since its debut in 1998.

Friends and employees — both current and past — celebrated i2E’s 25th anniversary at the City and State Event Center on NE 6th Street.

Roughly 75 of us gathered to catch up with old friends and hear some historical perspective from i2E President Rex Smitherman about the not-for-profit. i2E provides education, business advisory services and investment for Oklahoma’s tech-based entrepreneurs.

I’m a former i2E employee who worked in its marketing office both as full-time employee and contract worker from 2009 to 2022.

So, the anniversary celebration was a homecoming of sorts for me to see my former colleagues.

But first you should know a little more about i2E. It was created in 1998 as the Oklahoma Technology Commercialization Center by the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology, which is the state agency that supports innovation and scientific research across the state.

That original name was unwieldy, so it soon became known as i2E — Innovation to Enterprise. The first CEO was Randy Goldsmith, followed by the late Greg Main, and then Tom Walker.

I entered the picture as an employee just after Tom became CEO and I retired as a newspaper reporter with The Oklahoman. I had become acquainted with Tom when he was i2E’s Chief Operating Officer in the early 2000s and I was the paper’s technology beat reporter.

After Tom moved to Columbus, Ohio, to lead a similar institution, Scott Meacham became CEO, continued to expanded the mission and retired from that position earlier this year. Scott remains Executive Chairman of the Board.

Today, Oklahoma boasts a growing number of venture capital firms and business accelerators, but back in 1998 there was virtually no organized investment capital for entrepreneurs.

That was the bleak landscape that i2E stepped into, thanks to the vision of Sheri Stickley and William Hagstrom. The pair —Stickley with OCAST and Hagstrom an Oklahoma entrepreneur — conceived of the idea of a private company, seeded with public dollars, that would provide assistance to businesses that were spun out of Oklahoma’s universities or the minds of local inventors.

Here’s more perspective on i2E’s history from a column authored by Meacham on the occasion of its 20th anniversary five years ago.

The headline described it was an “Oklahoma success story,” and that’s no exaggeration.

i2E Rex — Rex Smitherman addresses crowd at i2E 25th anniversary celebration

As Rex outlined in his presentation at the anniversary celebration, i2E has provided business advice or investment for over 800 fledgling companies across its history. It has provided more than $83 million of investment capital to Oklahoma ventures.

Here are a few of the high impact success stories for which i2E provided advisory services and investment: WeGoLook, Selexys Pharmaceuticals, Spiers New Technologies and Alkami Technology, a billion dollar public company that was founded in OKC in 2009 by Oklahoman Gary Nelson.

And i2E’s mission continues to expand. In fact, Rex devoted much of his presentation at the anniversary celebration to looking forward to i2E’s future impact through its new programs.

Today, i2E embraces a big educational mission, having launched and managed the statewide Love’s Entrepreneur’s Cup collegiate business plan competition that will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2024. Now, i2E is launching a pilot high school business plan competition in a partnership with the MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor.

There’s more expansion news. i2E developed a popular workshop for new entrepreneurs called E3, which helps them determine whether their venture has a realistic opportunity for success. Joining E3 will be a second program called Bridge2, described as an 8-week ‘pre-accelerator’ that provides $50,000 in convertible debt funding for founders.

In addition, i2E created a subsidiary a few years ago known as Plains Ventures, which now handles virtually all of the investment activities for the company.

But enough of the history and impact of i2E.

For me, the anniversary celebration was a chance to catch up with old friends, even if just for a few moments. Folks like Rick Rainey, Cindy Henson, Mark Lauinger, Srijita Ghosh, Darcy Wilborn, John Campbell, Kevin Moore, Shaun O’Fair, Rex Smitherman and former OCAST executive director Michael Carolina.

I even had the opportunity to share a few moments with our former finance director, David Daviee. My only disappointment was that not all of my former i2E colleagues made it to the event. You know who you are.

Maybe for the next ‘family reunion.’

But life goes on. As i2E’s mission continues to expand, it’s been joined in the space by a host of new Oklahoma investment and accelerator partners, both here in OKC and in Tulsa.

While the investment outlook for new entrepreneurs and ventures in 2023 is far from bleak, the time was right for an i2E when it became a reality in 1998.

It really was an idea whose time had come.

i2E crowd — Crowd shot during the i2E anniversary celebration

BONUS: I came across an old story by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, a conservative research organization that generally attacks any new idea that uses public dollars to advance an innovative concept, no matter how many people benefit. Here’s a sample of the article:

“The Oklahoma Center for Science and Technology (OCAST) should no longer receive state funding for the Oklahoma Technology Commercialization Center (OTCC). This program directly competes with the private sector and existing market participants engaged in business formation and development.”

You get the drift.

My response: Back in 1998 and for many years afterward, there was little private sector investment capital in Oklahoma competing with the i2E concept. Many new ventures likely would not even have been attempted had i2E not been in existence. Oklahoma’s innovation economy expanded because of i2E’s efforts, and now new private ventures are bringing new investment to the state.

Chicago woes, part 2: Cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness

Don Will — Don and Will on the Blue Line before they learned that all their moving plans had turned to dust.

Editor’s Note: Don Mecoy is a friend and former colleague at The Oklahoman who retired as the newspaper’s managing editor at the end of 2022. He shares recent misadventures in Chicago with us in this post.

By Don Mecoy

I love Chicago, even if sometimes it doesn’t love me back.

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders

Regular readers of Jim’s Blog (“Howdy,” Jim’s extended family!) may recall my last post here about spending a night in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Undaunted, I returned to the City of Big Shoulders, and again I experienced the peculiar situation of being homeless without being destitute. Perhaps it would be better to say we were “houseless.” This time, it involved my son’s move from one apartment to another that went awry. Like a big shoulder to the solar plexus.

Here’s the setup: My son, Will, had to be out of his West Loop apartment on Sept. 1. He was scheduled to move into his new Printer’s Row apartment in South Loop the very same day. The lease was signed, the elevators were reserved, the movers were contracted and I showed up a few days early to help out with the packing and cleaning and so forth. He had just started a new job and was understandably reluctant to take much time off, and I’m completely unemployed, so I flew up.

The day before the scheduled move, we went to his new building to drop off a big deposit with the landlord and get the key. That’s when we learned that she would not accept an electronic payment despite the fact that she had previously taken a payment in that form. She wanted a cashier’s check and only a cashier’s check. Unfortunately, my son’s banking account is with an online bank, which made it nearly impossible to get what she wanted in short order. Nevertheless, we said we would obtain one that very day and return to get the key. I should mention all of the communication with the landlord was via email; she never provided Will with her phone number even after they met in person during his tour of the apartment and again when they signed the lease.

Will rushed to open an account at a nearby bricks-and-mortar bank and started trying to fund the account. That wasn’t going to get us a cashier’s check in one day, we learned. I started hitting ATMs to get cash. I called my Oklahoma credit union to see if they had any ideas. My friendly neighborhood banker suggested I could purchase a cashier’s check by taking advantage of a shared branching agreement between credit unions. Unfortunately, the nice folks at the Chicago Patrolmen’s Federal Credit Union said that would violate their policies. A teller’s check was the best they could do. And, they said, even if I showed up with cash in hand, they wouldn’t sell me a cashier’s check unless I had an account.

I was about to go to a check-cashing store to see about getting a cash advance on my credit card. But Will told me the landlord had stopped responding, so we pulled the plug after several hours of frantic money-raising efforts.

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

In the midst of all this chaos, my phone died. I couldn’t field calls from my credit union, or Will, or my wife back in Oklahoma. It also left me far away from Will’s current apartment without the ability to hail an Uber or catch a bus or train because all of my data and payment methods for those forms of transport were in the dang dead phone. I walked about 6 miles that day. At least the weather was nice.

The upshot is that the landlord said she would “review” all of the emails between her and Will to determine what her next step would be. That night, she wrote to Will that she just didn’t find him trustworthy and believed he wouldn’t pay his rent on time, despite the fact that he has lived in apartments for years and never once was late with his rent. She also disputed his claim that she was leaving him homeless because “your dad lives in Chicago.” That was just one of several problems prompted by communicating solely through email. He offered to pay three months rent in advance, but we never heard from her again.

Boxes — All packed up and nowhere to go.

We were tired and disappointed and angry. But we had a lot of work to do. We had to find storage for all his belongings. We had to contact the movers to make sure they would move those belongings to storage instead of to the new apartment. We had to find someplace to stay for the next few days. And we had to start hunting for a new place for Will to live. And we really needed a beer.

More than once during those troubled days I thought about “The Out-of-Towners,” a 1970 Neil Simon movie starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis about an Ohio couple’s disastrous trip to New York City. While we weren’t mugged or left penniless, we were subject to forces beyond our control in a big city.

But after all those repeated disappointments, things started looking up. The movers agreed to take in his belongings, and even store them for up to a month for no charge. We secured a hotel room. Will scheduled an apartment tour on Sept. 2, and the new place in Wicker Park was fine. The owners had planned a kitchen renovation, but when they learned that he needed it immediately they agreed to sign a lease the same day and knock a little off the rent. On Sept. 5, he became a resident of the trendy area with lots of shops and restaurants and tree-lined streets of 3-story walk ups.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Apartment — The new place has great morning light.

Now we see what can be done about the landlord. This fiasco cost Will a fair amount of money. He’s paying more in rent. He had to pay for two moves instead of one. He’s out the cost of the hotel room for four nights. We obviously had no kitchen for several days, and that cost extra. I had to extend my planned stay by five days.

But I got to spend a lot of time with Will — always a good thing. I also loved being in Chicago. It’s a great town mostly filled with good folks.

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

–Carl Sandburg

My first NBA crush

CP3 Hornets — Chris Paul as an OKC Hornet handles the ball vs. the Dallas Mavericks. (Oklahoman photo)

I came across an interesting feature over the weekend in The Oklahoman that ranked the top 15 players in Oklahoma City Thunder history.

We’re roughly five weeks or so from the launch of the 2023-24 NBA season, so the timing of such a list was right to generate clicks from Thunder fans like me.

And of course, it was bound to stir up some passion and some controversy. First of all, the rankings by The Oklahoman beat writer Joe Mussatto had Russell Westbrook at No. 1 and Kevin Durant No. 2.

I posted a link to the story to my Facebook page, and right off the bat a couple of friends took exception.

“Sorry but Durant was the greatest player by far even with his bad exit…,” said Scott Rollins, a local business leader and biotechnology researcher.

“SGA behind Serge?!? Westbrook ahead of Durant, even though he stipulates that Durant is the best player to ever put on a Thunder uniform,” was the response from Tony Thornton, a former colleague at The Oklahoman.

There was one ranking I was happy to see, no matter where the player was ranked.

Chris Paul came in at No. 10, even though he had only one season as an Oklahoma City Thunder. Remember, CP3 willed our team to the playoffs in the 2020 pandemic bubble with outstanding play and leadership.

For me, Paul’s return to OKC was something of a welcome homecoming. He was a member of the New Orleans Hornets when they were forced to play two seasons in OKC in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Along the way, CP3 became my first NBA crush. And I got to meet him for an assignment as a Business News reporter for The Oklahoman.

CP3 was the focus of a special marketing video made by AT&T that featured NBA players and their ‘cribs.’ Most were guys who lived in ostentatious mansions.

CP3 lived with his brother in a modest home just north of 33rd in Edmond.

So, when a film crew flew into town to shoot the video at Paul’s “crib,” my editor sent me out to cover the filming and interview the star. CP3 could not have been more accommodating, patiently answering my questions from the driveway of his home before the filming began.

As a bonus, the video included Prime Time himself, Deion Sanders, who showed up just before the filming started. I did not get to meet the future Coach Prime.

I had a second face-to-face with CP3 a couple weeks later at a Thunder game. My son, Ryan, was the lucky recipient of a drawing that allowed him to go down on the court after the game and have his photo made with Paul.

I accompanied Ryan, and CP3 recognized me from our previous encounter.

(An aside: A series of youth basketball camps were held in the OKC metro using Chris Paul’s name, and my son attended one. He said that CP3 actually showed up at the camp and did one-on-one drills with the campers).

So that’s the story behind why I consider CP3 to be my first NBA crush. And why I was happy to see him included as a top 15 player across Thunder history.

Now, let the critics roar over the rankings.

cp3 3 — CP3 (right) with Deion Sanders (center) and the video director

Some salve for your soul

Recently, my 4-year old grandson complained of a big, red welp on the back of his calf. It was result of a mosquito bite, so I recommended to my wife that she put some salve on it to soothe the itch.

I discovered that I walked into a hornet’s nest with that suggestion.

“What, are you, 90 years old?” she asked. “No one says ‘salve’ any more. It’s ‘cream’ today.”

I wasn’t about to give in so easily.

“My grandmother put salve on every itch and wound I had as a kid,” I protested. “When I had a cold, she would even smear some Vicks VapoRub on my chest. That was the go-to salve in our family.”

The debate goes on today. Cream on one side. Salve on the other. I definitely remain on Team Salve.

So, I pointed her to the definitive statement on salve: The Andy Griffith Show and a wonderful episode about a miracle salve and how it entangled Barney Fife.

I offer it to you in this post for both educational and entertainment purposes.

Enjoy.

Hometown hero and a smile

Pen Woods

The first time I met Col. Pendleton Woods I was judging a high school history event at Oklahoma Christian University in the early 2000s. It was a crowded room, but Pendleton spotted me from a distance and walked over to introduce himself.

Born in 1923, Pen was almost 80 years old at the time. He knew of me because I had been a Business News reporter at The Oklahoman throughout the 1990s before taking a 3-year sabbatical at OC beginning in 2000.

Anyway, Pen introduced himself, and as I looked up from my seat I noticed he was wearing a plaid jacket. tie and a pair of slacks. There was one other detail that stood out.

His fly was open.

I later talked about meeting Pen with my friend Mike Osborne, who also worked at OC at the time. Mike had one question.

“Was his fly open?”

The knowing question made me laugh out loud, and I still smile at the memory today. But I grew to love Col. Pendleton Woods, and slowly came to know his story.

Turns out he was born and raised in Fort Smith, Ark., which is also my hometown. Pen graduated from the University of Arkansas with a journalism degree.

But that’s only the start. He was a military hero from The Greatest Generation.

Pen served in World War II with the 99th Infantry Division and was captured on a reconnaissance patrol on Dec. 10, 1944, during the German build-up to the Battle of the Bulge. He remained a prisoner until he and others escaped after Russian artillery shelled the compound shortly before the war in Europe ended on April 20, 1945.

Pen also served in the Korean War with the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma National Guard. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame in 2002.

After his service in WWII, Pen settled in OKC and worked for Oklahoma Gas and Electric for years. He eventually joined the staff at Oklahoma Christian University and worked there until late in his life.

As a longtime OKC resident, Pen was an incredible community servant, volunteering for the Boy Scouts, helping bring the National Cowboy Hall of Fame to OKC, serving as executive director of the OKC Bicentennial Commission and many, many other endeavors. He authored 15 books.

After I returned to The Oklahoman in 2003, Pen would call me on a regular basis, either to pitch a story or just to catch up for a few moments.

Pen died on Dec. 1, 2014 and left a massive legacy in our local community and beyond. Read his obituary here.

I’ve written all of this about Col. Pendleton Woods because of something that happened this week. I was working on a special project for a friend at a busy local coffee shop when I happened to look down.

My fly was open.

Pen Woods was the first thought that ran across my mind after quickly closing the barn door.

Then I smiled to myself at the memory.

Say it ain’t so

Sellout As I was sitting in the stands at OKC’s All Sports Stadium in roughly 1987 watching the Big 8 baseball tournament with my Daily Oklahoman colleague, Tom Kensler, a lanky young man sat down with us.

Kensler, now deceased, was the paper’s OSU beat writer in 1987. He introduced me to the newcomer.

“Jim, I want you to meet the newest member of our Sports staff, Berry Tramel,” Tom told me as I shook Berry’s hand.

Although I had worked as a copy editor on the Sports desk at the Oklahoman since 1983, I didn’t know Tramel, who worked as a sports writer at the Norman Transcript.

Something happened, however, and Berry did not become a member of The Oklahoman’s Sports staff until 1991. Maybe the Transcript offered him a raise or he still had things to accomplish at the Norman paper.

But Berry eventually joined The Oklahoman staff and became our lead sports columnist. He quickly established himself as one of the top sports writers not only in Oklahoma but across the nation.

I don’t remember much of that first conversation with Berry at the ballpark, but eventually I found him to be warm, empathetic, approachable and the most prolific and hard-working writer I’ve ever known.

Berry writes in what I consider a folksy manner that carries the reader along. He has an incredible ability to uncover the critical issue that may be plaguing — or helping — a team, a coach, a school, a state, whatever. And he’s a walking encyclopedia of sports history.

Berry’s most influential article of them all may be the infamous “Taco Bell” column from the late 1990s when he compared OU’s hiring of John Blake to a company that put a management trainee in charge of the entire business.

You can read the column here.

Berry Taco Bell

Not everyone loves his style — ask my friend, Casey — but he’s attracted a huge following far and near over the years. Including me.

Berry was joined on The Oklahoman Sports staff in the late 1990s by Jenni Carlson, a Kansas native who brings a unique point of view to whatever she’s writing about. I’ve come to know Jenni, as well, and love reading her intriguing takes that often focus on people who have overcome long odds to become successful.

I’ve written all of this because, as most people know by now, both Berry and Jenni are leaving the paper. They’re joining a new online venture called The Sellout, Sellout Crowd, or something like that. It should debut later this month, from what I understand.

I got wind of Berry’s impending exit about three weeks ago and immediately sent him an email with the subject line “Say It Ain’t So.”

Berry responded and said it was so. He said it’s a good thing, not bad, because readers who follow him and Jenni will be able to read their work in a free online newsletter. He even wrote about his impending departure from the paper after billboards appeared saying “Berry Tramel is a Sellout.”

But I’m mourning for the newspaper because of the loss of such immense talent. I was part of that newsroom as a writer and editor for over two decades.

Although I’ve been gone from The Oklahoman for almost 15 years, I’m still a subscriber and a daily reader of the newspaper. I still pick it up off my driveway every morning (except Saturday).

We all know that the Internet has changed the way people consume news, sending the newspaper industry into a long decline, including The Oklahoman. In my opinion, the paper has done a great job of building its online enterprise while still keeping print alive.

For now.

But the loss of Berry and Jenni is a huge blow to readers like me who look forward to unfolding the paper every day (but Saturday) and seeing what one or both have written for us. Who can replace them?

So, what’s next? I’m anxiously watching as the leaves continue to fall from the tree and the newsroom branches become bare.

Say it ain’t so.

Berry Jenni1

Class Reunion, Party of Two

yearbook ppic — A page of the 1971 Southside High School yearbook, ‘Lifestyles’

I walked into Cattlemen’s Steakhouse a few weeks ago, made my way to a back booth and was greeted by someone I had not seen in 52 years. He was an old high school chum, so it was the ultimate class reunion.

We both graduated in 1971 from Southside High School in Fort Smith, Ark. I was astounded by how much he still resembled his youthful high school self, despite now being 70 years old.

I have not aged as gracefully.

Turns out, my friend, whom I will call “Will,” was driving from New Mexico to Fort Smith to visit our home town for a few days. So, he contacted me to see if I would be up for a reunion as he passed through.

Would I? Of course!

We spent a wonderful hour and a half at a back booth catching up on our lives, families and reminiscing about days long past.

The real story is how Will found me. He told me he stumbled across this blog as he was searching for some high school classmates he had not seen in years. After reading a few BlogOKC posts, he decided to reach out, although he has no social media presence at all.

So his wife looked me up and discovered my Twitter profile. She sent me a direct message asking if I would be interested in meeting Will when he was passing through OKC.

I’ve thought of Will often over the years. He was from a well established Fort Smith family and had gone to public schools there since first grade. I moved into the school district my sophomore year only because my dad was in the Army and his military assignments took us as a family around the world. We came to Fort Smith when Dad went to Vietnam in 1969.

Being a ‘move-in’ with no local history in an old Southern town like Fort Smith was a big challenge for me. Making friends, eating lunch in the cafeteria, having a social life after school.

For some reason, Will sort of took me in. We played basketball on his driveway and connected in classes. As I recall, he was a member of the National Honor Society, wrote a column for the student newspaper and was on the Student Council, among many other school activities.

By contrast, I was sort of the Invisible Man at Southside. I had only heard of the National Honor Society, but had a secret dream to become a newspaper reporter some day. So, we had that in common.

Anyway, Will showed kindness and attention to me. After high school, he went on to college, eventually earning a master’s degree, moving to a distant state and working for social change.

I wandered aimlessly for a few years before gaining some direction by attending Abilene Christian University and earning a journalism degree. My secret dream actually came true.

Since I have never attended a single high school class reunion, I lost touch with Will along with the rest of my senior classmates.

Then he called.

There’s a lot of space to fill and life to live in 52 years. But reconnecting with my old classmate was the feel good event of the summer for me.

So good to see you, Will.