Wednesday paper

Rally together forever Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Remembering Budke and Serna a decade after tragic plane crash

Courtesy of OSU Athletics

team meeting shortly after. Players were contacted and all had no idea what the meeting was for. Some players, like Liz DonohoePatman, were still asleep when they were called to the gym. They eventually woke up to team managers banging on Davis Cordova their doors at 4 a.m. Staff Reporter “We know it is serious, and you’re kind of nervous,” Donohoe-Patman Many team members didn’t know said. “We were like, is this a practice of the recruiting trip coach Kurt Budke thing? Or something serious, for them and assistant coach Miranda Serna took to do this.” on the evening of Nov. 17, 2011. The meeting was to inform the Lindsey Keller, a player on team Budke and Serna passed away the 2011 Oklahoma State women’s in a plane crash during their trip to basketball team, was one of many who Arkansas. were out of the loop. “I was completely shocked.” The morning of Nov. 18, then Keller said. “Most of us didn’t even assistant coach Jim Littell was woken know they were going on a recruiting by OSU police at 3:01 a.m. and called a trip in general. We didn’t know they

were traveling.” Devastation took over the Cowgirl locker room. No direction for the next steps of the season. “Basketball seems to take a backseat at that point and you’re just kind of worried about your team and their families, and just how things are going to go from here,” Keller said. The Cowgirls still had a whole season ahead of them. Only one game was played before the crash. Littell was appointed as interim head coach, and received help from two former Cowboy head coaches, Travis Ford and Eddie Sutton. “Coach Sutton had told me on his experience of ‘Remember the Ten’ and that, ‘You need to get them (the players) active as quickly as possible. Get them back on the floor.’” Littell said. “Travis

Ford was here at the time and there was no one more gracious than he and his wife. He had our team over to their house, he rented the bowling alley for both programs. He was just very, very good at helping us try to get the kids’ minds elsewhere.” It was difficult for Littell, who had to coach basketball directly after the event. The Cowgirls strung together seven straight wins by a margin of 28 points with wins over Missouri State, Indiana and Mississippi State. The team would finish seventh in the Big 12, and compile a 16-11 record. With a loss to Missouri in the first round of the Big 12 tournament, the NCAA Tournament was in doubt. See Rally on 2

Everything Barry Sanders said after statue unveiling

“Well, I think, fortunately for me, there’s a couple good shots to choose from. So you can only choose one but if they want to choose another (pose), put another (statue) up somewhere else knock yourself out.” How does the culture you Ben Hutchens experienced in your time as an athlete Digital Editor compare to the culture all these years later? How do you feel the statue “Oh, It’s hard for me to speak to captured your essence? that. There’s still just a great excitement “Oh yeah, it’s a great action shot. and it is such a great college football I could see the young Barry doing that.” atmosphere and I know for me I was Is there any part of you that just very comfortable here as a student maybe thinks it should have been the athlete. Loved the community and it Colorado dive or any other play, or do was really hard for me to leave. So, in you like the pose? that sense there’s some similarities.

The differences I really don’t know. Obviously its 30-something years later and a lot of things have changed, stadium looks a lot nicer.” What has it been like for you to get to know the running backs who are on the team now? “You know I enjoyed talking to them a little bit. Telling them how those moments like the night before a game for me are special memories, just the butterflies and the tension and playing over the game in your mind. It almost made me feel like back in that setting so I enjoyed it.” What are the memories and things that do come back to mind? “Well, things like my dad

Chris Becker

dropping me off here in the summer of ‘86 and just the excitement of having the opportunity to play Big 8 college football. Practicing with guys like Thurman Thomas, Mark Moore, Mike Gundy. For me it was just step-by-step progression, like they said earlier, no one knew who I was when I got here, I was just excited to be here. Going from that to being an All-American kick returner as a sophomore and thinking ‘Man, I don’t know if it can get any better than this.’”

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