July 18, 2008 10:28 am
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TERRELL LESTER Column
Scouting around ... Less than a month after being approved by the board of education, Lance Crawley has backed out of the assistant basketball coaching position at Claremore High School.
The one-time head coach at Fort Gibson had accepted in June the assistant’s post under new coach Tim Stewart.
However, Crawley resigned last week and will remain at Woodall, an independent elementary school near Tahlequah. Crawley was the principal at Woodall when he accepted Stewart’s offer to move to Claremore.
“It put us in a bad spot,” Stewart said this week. “We have several candidates in mind, but nothing is done yet.” ...
Brant Bruner, three-time state championship wrestler at Claremore, is being inducted into the Lindenwood University Athletic Hall of Fame.
Bruner was the St. Charles, Mo., school’s first four-time All-American and one of just two to achieve that status. He won two NAIA national championships, at 125 as a 2000 freshman and at 133 in 2003 as a senior.
Bruner, who has returned to Claremore, won state championships as a Zebra in 1997 (112 pounds), 1998 (112) and 1999 (119). Induction ceremonies will be held in October. ...
Hayley Knife Chief, the former Claremore Progress girls basketball Rogers County Player of the Year who played at Rogers State last season, will be at the University of Oklahoma this fall.
The lights-out shooter who had been named national high school Native American Player of the Year, chose not to return for RSU’s second season, or for her sophomore season. She will join tryouts at OU to earn a chance at walking on. ...
Hall of Fame coach Charlie Cooper is retiring from retirement.
Cooper, who defined his career while coaching the Tahlequah High School football Tigers from 1980 through 1992, retired from coaching in 2002 after spending some time in Rogers, Ark.
He is returning this year to serve as offensive coordinator for Northeastern State under first-year head coach Kenny Evans.
“I never lost my desire to be a football coach, I’m competitive,” Cooper said. “My situation when I retired was ‘well, I could.’ I’ve known coach Evans since my high school days when he used to recruit players from me.”
Cooper sees no big difference between the college game and the high school game, with the exception of speed.
“People think it’s a lot of difference,” he says. “It’s not a lot of difference. You’re dealing with people and you’re dealing with players, and if you treat them with respect, you’re going to get the results you desire.
“There aren’t any secrets in football. If you look at it, what they do in the high school level they do in the college level, and it all comes from the pros. The difference is the skill level.”
Recruiting is the biggest obstacle for college coaches, Cooper says. It’s not just important to get the best players, he said, but it’s important to get the best players who fit at the college itself.
“The biggest key in recruiting players is for them to understand where they can have success,” he said. “That’s the hardest thing to get across to them. Some of them, they don’t need to go to OU because they can’t play there. They need to go where they can have success. As a high school coach, I had a lot of kids that wanted to play college football. We need to counsel them sometimes on where they can go and where they can have some success, and where they can stay in school instead of being a flop and feeling like a failure.”
Cooper played on the 1963 NSU football team that compiled an 11-0 record. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1993. ...
Rotnei Clarke could see some immediate playing time with the Arkansas basketball Razorbacks as a freshman.
New coach John Pelphrey inherits a team that lost six seniors. Aside from three returning juniors, the rest of the team is unproven.
The newcomers might have an immediate chance to crack the rotation. Included in that group is Clarke, the Verdigris product who set the career high school scoring record for Oklahoma.
“It wasn’t too long ago that I was in the same shoes as them,” says Stefan Welsh, who started 21 games but averaged under 20 minutes. “The difference with me was, I had five or six upperclassmen.” ...
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