What Goes Around, Comes Around!

With little fanfare, a new basketball coach was hired at a special meeting of the Ketchum School board held March 24th. Granted, the hiring of a basketball coach at a 2A high school in rural northeastern Oklahoma probably won’t stop the presses in many places, but in this South Grand Lake school district it was significant news. It’s not every day a coaching legend like Larry Callison returns to resurrect a basketball program, which he molded into something very special from 1985 through the 1997 season. He was initially hired as the girl’s basketball coach, but was appointed to head up the boys program the following year. From the time the school had been formed until Larry Callison showed up, the Warriors had made two state tournament appearances with no state titles to show for their efforts. During Callison’s 12 year stint in Ketchum, he led the Warriors to seven “Big House” appearances with an unbelievable six in a row beginning with the ’90-91 campaign. And most importantly a State Championship in March of ’95. I can still remember clinching that first State Tournament appearance of the first Callison era. The entire area went bonkers….As the team returned from the Muskogee Civic Center , late on a Saturday night having captured the Consolation Championship over Leflore, cars lined Highway 85 all the way from “Two Mile Corner” into Ketchum. Pandemonium reined as the team bus entered the high school parking lot. As Holmes, McGlasson, Mouse, Cheezem, James, and yes Fleming, exited the bus into the arms of their cheering fans, the foundation of a dynasty was set into motion. When the Warriors returned home in March of 1997, having clinched their sixth straight trip to the State Tournament, it was just another Friday night in Ketchum. The expected had happened, as it had the previous five seasons, the Warriors were headed to another State Tournament appearance in the Callison era and our community’s complacency was never more apparent. But I can’t cast stones because I wasn’t there either. Callison resigned following that season and the Ketchum Warriors haven’t even sniffed a State Tournament appearance since. Callison continued his coaching career in places like Vian, Eufaula, Stillwell and even coached, one year in the virtually all black community of Boynton. For those detractors, who whispered the highly successful coach had just been blessed with some outstanding basketball talent, he went on to take six more teams to the State Tournament before his retirement two years ago. Callison, a young guy by my standards, 53, I think, has been feeling the itch to get back into coaching for sometime now. His youngest son, Grant, who referees a lot of high school games, would keep his Dad up-to-date on coaching vacancies where he might rekindle his career. When the Ketchum job opened up, I can only imagine how the wheels started to turn. The “Old Coach” talked to several of his long-time friends and former players in the community about the possibilities. He got every kind of advice from “Are you crazy” to “Hell yes.” Discussions with School Superintendent Rick Pool proved productive and as they say, the rest is history. The entire board is to be commended for taking a step in the right direction. During a golf outing this week at The Coves, compliments of Jim Gray, Coach Larr as some of his former players call him, looked back at that first year as Ketchum’s coach. “Personally, we were miserable at best. We had no friends here, had moved out of a new home in Gore and into a trailer here and we were just plain home sick.” The new coach added, “If it hadn’t been for the support of the people, like Joe and Janie Schumacher, I feel certain we would have returned to Gore.” But they didn’t and became deeply entrenched in the Grand Lake community. Callison still can’t believe that first team went undefeated in regular season play before being eliminated in the Area Tournament. “That was Preston Rash’s group. He’s still the best floor leader I ever coached. He along with Todd Coulston, Eric Mouse, Gary Sutton, Kevin McGlasson, Dandy Risman and others made up a team of tremendous overachievers. What a year that was.” That first year fanned the fires of basketball expectations on the shores of Grand Lake. In 1988, starters Eric Mouse and Kevin McGlasson were joined by Coy Cheezem, Gary James and two 6’5’ move ins, Jay Fleming and Derek Holmes to catapult the Warriors to their first State Tournament appearance since 1979. So, just what are ingredients Larry Joe Callison has use throughout his career that have brought about success? According to Coach Callison, you have to be in the right community with three key elements…kids, parents and a supportive administration. This humble coach describes his style like this; “I try to treat my players with respect, demand they play hard, feature team goals and emphasize fundamentals from the grade school level up.” That philosophy was successful once and many feel it will be again. But unlike when he arrived the first time, the Warriors have been in the midst of a nearly 13 year basketball depression. Although they hadn’t been to the State Tournament since 1979, there had been some solid coaching in the likes of Pete Evans and Pete Heisely. This time will be a more difficult challenge, but for those of us who know this coach well, we expect him to enjoy success again in Ketchum, Oklahoma. As my friend and fellow Poke fan, David Sturgeon, a vet in Cordell, Oklahoma likes to say, “You never wear tennis shoes to a butt kickin’ contest!” The tools for success have come home to roost. Welcome home Larry Joe! See Ya’ Around the Pond!