Several of you read my Big House memories in the last edition.

It was basically some very basic and broad memories of the old building because there’s just not enough space in the newspaper to cover 28 years worth of recall.

In other words, it was a generalization of my time there and not a whole lot of specific.

But there are a couple of things I’d like to touch on in this Part II, if you will…

•••

I wrote a series of columns in 2021 after the Kingfisher boys had just won their third state championship in five years.

It was a gushing, glowing series of thoughts about what the KHS boys and coaching staff had accomplished during the previous historic stretch, especially from 2018-21.

There was one tidbit I wrote that didn’t make it into the series. I’m not sure why…I guess I just didn’t find the right spot for it.

But I held onto it just in case I could use it down the road. It’s been sitting on my desktop for four years now. Here’s what I wrote in March 2021:

After photos and hugs and interviews and the now-famous pose with fans in the stands, the Kingfi sher team had left the State Fair Arena floor and made its way to the locker room.

Two members - Chase Davis and Caden Kitchens - had to come running back to the bench area.

Apparently in all the craziness after the fact, they had forgotten their water bottles. You can’t soak everyone else in the locker room celebration without your water bottle.

So they came running back for their weaponry.

As he crossed my path on his way back to the locker room, Kitchens had a message:

“You’ve got two more years of this, Swish.”

Strong statement. As I said in the very first installment of this series, we’ll never see this again.

107-4 just won’t happen again, especially in 4A at a stand-alone community.

But that doesn’t mean Kingfisher has to disappear... and it won’t.

Kingfisher was good before Trevor Buckner and Marco Charqueño and Haynes Lafferty and Reece Lafferty and Trey Green and Jett Sternberger and this year’s group of seniors.

KHS had trips to the state tournament. It had state tournament wins.

It will have all that again now that they’re all gone.

It’s going to be a completely different look next year.

Davis and Kitchens. Mason Snider. Maddox Mecklenburg. Cash Slezickey. Xavier Ridenour. Jax Sternberger. Jud Birdwell. Noah Schaefer. Drake Friesen. Braxton Mecklenburg.

That’s the future for the next couple of years.

The guys can play. They beat some small-school state tournament teams over at Seiling.

They lost one JV game all year (Carl Albert). Lord knows they got some playing time in some of those blowouts.

Oh, and they’ve only been practicing against Maverick, Jarret, Ian, Stoney and Bijan every day in practice for the last couple of years.

You think that helps? So, yeah, Kingfisher should be just fine.

What I didn’t write back in 2021 was that while I applauded Kitchens’ confi dence, I also doubted it.

I wanted him to be right, but our view of reality in Class 4A boys basketball had been extremely distorted by what those previous teams accomplished.

Wanting to be there isn’t enough. Expecting to be there isn’t enough. Being good isn’t enough. And, sometimes, being really good isn’t enough.

Take the Weatherford boys who won the title this year, for example. They’ve got three Division I-level players on their team who have been playing together for four years and have been surrounded by other players who do or will play at the collegiate level.

Weatherford has been as good as anyone the last four years…and won one title. And had to scratch and claw for every inch of that one.

It’s just tough. So while I wanted Kitchens to be right in 2021, I didn’t think he was.

He. Was. Right.

Kitchens made some of the biggest plays as the Jackets found ways to down Crossings Christian School in the semifinals and then Victory Christian in the championship as the Jackets won the 2022 championship.

Five new starters. Same result.

It was unreal. The MVP? It was Chase Davis, the kid who had returned back to the arena floor with Kitchens to get his water bottle.

The Jackets were right back in the hunt in 2023 and probably a torn ACL from being right back in the championship game.

It was truly a magical run from 2017 to 2021, but Caden Kitchens was absolutely correct: I still had two more years of it.

•••

It was during that 2022 state basketball tournament that yours truly was honored by the OSSAA.

I was presented the “Media Excellence Award” which was “for many years of Outstanding Media Coverage of OSSAA activities.”

I’m not bringing that up to toot my own horn, but to recall who was on the court to present it to me.

It was David Glover, then one of the OSSAA’s directors.

Before we left the court - after he’d taken all of his quiet jabs at me while the public address announcer was reading my bio to the crowd…and after he “accidentally” dropped one of his walking sticks so I’d have to bend over and pick it up - Glover patted me on the back and told me he appreciated my friendship.

During his time in charge of small school basketball and therefore running the state tournaments - Glover always made sure I never did without.

He snuck me a parking pass (don’t tell anyone), he made sure I was invited up to the room to eat with tournament staff between sessions and he always made sure Maya and my nephew, Braxton, had a pass into the games.

I should have been the one thanking HIM for HIS friendship.

As we all know, Glover went on to become Kingfisher’s superintendent before passing away last fall.

This year was the first state tournament without him in, well, forever.

Many, many, many people made mention of it over those two weeks. I just nodded along and tried to not think too much of it.

Glover loved basketball. He loved the state tournaments. He loved the kids. He loved the coaches. He intertwined all that with his family, who was ever-present.

It definitely wasn’t the same without him there.

•••

On the Sundays after area tournaments end, all the coaches whose teams qualify for state meet up at State Fair Arena at 1 p.m. to meet with OSSAA staff.

They go over all the guidelines for the upcoming week and it’s also when the state brackets are released.

(Note: There’s a quasi- science to determining the matchups and one I had mastered over the years. I mentioned in last week’s column that I took a butt chewing because I didn’t tell the then-director [not Glover] that a quarterfinal matchup was wrong. He was the man in charge. I just guessed I had gotten it wrong, but the coaches were quick to correct him. Still not sure why it was my fault.)

Whether I had a county team at state or not - and I usually did - I attended these meetings whether it be for CoachesAid or Skordle.

It was a great chance to catch up with some coaches and get a first glimpse at those brackets.

These trips also started a tradition of sorts.

If the Okarche boys were in state, that meant Ray West was there. It also meant we had a date.

After the meeting concluded and he made all his plans to swap tapes (back in the tape swapping days… and nobody swapped more than Ray), he would treat me to lunch at On the Border just down the road from the arena.

It was set in stone. If he was there and I was there, we were going to eat afterward. He insisted and he paid.

(Note: I didn’t pass up a lot of free meals.)

We would talk more about his area games, his state matchups, his chances of winning and he’d even break down some of the other A and B brackets.

The man lived and breathed basketball and that was the greatest time of the year.

And those were some of my greatest lunches.

Ray never got to win a state championship. His teams got close. Oh so close.

During one stretch of his Okarche tenure, the Lady Warriors were ultra-successful under coach Cherie Myers.

The Lady Warriors were almost locks to be in the state finals and they won titles in 2010, 2013 and 2014.

During those games, Ray was ever-present at the end of the floor seating (where the students and craziest of parents sit), his hands and one foot resting on the rail.

I knew how proud he was of those ladies for winning; heck, we’d already broken down their path to the title at On the Border.

But I also knew how badly he wanted one for his team.

I wish so badly he would have realized that dream.

•••

The next best thing, of course, is Aaron West winning a title.

The Warriors won the last two at The Big House, including going 32-0 this season.

What a fantastic tribute not only to the current players and staff, but also to the legacy of Ray.

•••

One of the privileges of my media pass - and maybe it wasn’t supposed to be one - is that I didn’t have to congregate with you regular folk in the restrooms.

Yeah, that was a weird sentence, but just making sure you were still paying attention.

But, yes, I was able to use my pass to go back into the area where the OSSAA and tournament employees ate and, to put it bluntly, used the restroom.

You couldn’t just waltz into this area. It was heavily guarded. Well, sort of.

Bill was stationed at that door. I stopped and chatted with Bill daily and usually multiple times a day.

It was his job to keep people from going back into that area without a proper pass and also to keep folks who were over at OYE from sneaking into the arena.

Sometimes the combination of those duties had Bill pretty fired up and he needed to vent to someone. I tried to be a good sounding board.

Bill had his chair, his snacks, his lunch and his crossword puzzles and was mostly pretty content in his little area of the arena.

He did have to miss a couple days this year during the small school tournament. A family member passed away and he and his wife had to fly to the funeral.

Upon his return, we talked about his adventures in flying. They weren’t so fun.

I’m sure I’m one of hundreds of people Bill talked to daily. Like I said, all the OSSAA staff and tournament workers made their way through his door, but so did all the tournament officials.

But he always recognized me and always made the time to chat, so that made me feel important in Bill’s eyes. Hopefully I’ll be running into Bill for many more years to come at the new arena.

•••

Oh, that music.

For years and years I sat on press row and quietly cussed the man playing the music at State Fair Arena.

As the years progressed and I had other means such as the CoachesAid Forums or social media - I not-so-quietly cussed the man playing the music.

Once my disdain for the tunes became public, I realized I wasn’t alone.

His name was Charles Heatly, a legend in Oklahoma high school girls basketball.

He won nearly 700 games, two state championships, had one of the most popular camps and helped found the OGBCA.

But his taste in music wasn’t for the masses and the masses were at his mercy during state tournament games at the arena.

It was Charles’ job for years to play the tunes during timeouts, halftimes, between games, etc.

He pulled in some old favorites like “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Rocky Top.”

Those are great, classic mix-ins with contemporary music.

But those were his contemporary songs. The closest thing to modern Charles had in his arsenal was a “Cotton Eye Joe” remix that most people despised (but I secretly did enjoy).

I came to learn Charles was a big Pete Fountain fan.

Pete Fountain was a jazz clarinetist.

How did I learn that Charles loved him?

Because Charles played Pete Fountain all the time.

How did I know it was Pete Fountain?

One day I used the “Shazam” app on my phone to learn just exactly what I was listening to.

It’s perfectly lovely music... for an elevator or a department store.

It wasn’t great for a state tournament setting.

But Charles was a legend and everyone loved Charles, so we lived with it.

We didn’t necessarily like it, but we lived with it.

In 2014, Glover got the unenviable task of graciously asking Charles to step away from the music. Charles obliged and Glover called upon Booker Blakley to become the new Big House DJ.

Blakley, now the softball coach at Bethany, coached in Okarche when Glover was the superintendent there and he played music at Warrior games.

And so, for the most part, the job of entertaining the crowds at The Big House has fallen squarely on Blakley’s shoulders ever since.

He does so with a nice mix of modern music of all types and even throws in a few classics here and there.

It’s something for just about everyone.

Who knows, maybe one day some young, snot-nosed reporter will despise his outdated music and will voice his disdain on TikTok or Snapchat.

•••

As I stated, there are 12 high school teams I cover. They are the boys and girls of Cashion, Dover, Hennessey, Kingfisher, Lomega and Okarche.

It took 28 full years, but I finally got to cover each one of them at the state tournament.

The Dover boys finally made that happen this year with their first appearance since 1993.

Everyone else had already been to state during my era of coverage…and all of them multiple times.

The Cashion girls? 10 times. Cashion’s boys? This year was their fourth.

Dover’s girls have made nine trips.

Hennessey’s girls have been to state three times and the boys nine times.

Kingfisher’s girls made their ninth trip this year since I began covering. The KHS boys have been there 11 times.

The Lomega boys punched their tickets four times and the girls 17 times.

The Okarche boys have been 13 times and the Lady Warriors have been the most during my tenure… an amazing 21 times in my 28 years.

The last two holdouts were the Cashion and Dover boys.

The poor Wildcats were mired in a stretch of 23 years of not even being able to make it out of the regional.

That ended in 2020… when Cashion also made it to state.

That left Dover’s boys, the program I was once a part of, as the lone holdout.

Had I stayed in Dover and not moved to Alabama before starting high school, I would have been a member of that last team to make it to state in 1993.

Truth be told, if I was here, Dover would have been undefeated and won all three state games by 25 or more points.

Now, back to reality... During the last 28 years, the Longhorns really only got close to state once as they made it to the area consolation final in 2014 (I still insist that team makes it to state and probably wins a quarterfinal game if it goes to any other area).

Most other years, the Longhorns didn’t sniff state.

But this year’s Dover team made it complete.

The Longhorns won an area title for the first time ever and won a quarterfinal game for just the second time in program history.

The void has been filled. All of my teams have been to the state tournament.

•••

And, if you’re curious, Kingfisher County’s 12 teams have combined for 108 trips to the state tournament since I began covering in 1997-98.