As I have already mentioned, I went to Wichita State University on a Golf Scholarship. As a member of the golf team I was in a minor sport. The major sports were Football, Basketball and Baseball. Those athletes were actually more important in many ways to the university by virtue of participating in a MAJOR sport. I am not so naïve that I don’t understand the dynamics regarding revenue generated by the major sports and no revenue generated by say golf, tennis, track, etc. Clearly the sports that bring dollars into the university should be recognized for helping keep the lights on and all the other things that improve the financial stability for the athletic department. Each year as a scholarship athlete I had to get an annual physical at the field house. This was also called the “round house”. It was where the basketball team played. At that time the Shockers were one of the best Division I basketball teams in the nation. The Shockers were in the Missouri Valley Conference and the round house was always sold out for every home game and that was nearly 11,000 fans in attendance. Actually, while I was going to WSU our basketball team made it to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament. One year they missed qualifying for the NCAA Tournament… went to the NIT and won. We had players like Dave Stallworth, Nate Bowman and some other notable players… Stallworth was an All American and played in the NBA. We also had a decent football program. While I was going to the school our football team played in a post season bowl named the Sun Bowl. WSU no longer has a football program. It so happens that about 10 years after I graduated the football team was in a plane crash coming back from Colorado and the team was basically wiped out. The WSU football program never recovered. I don’t want to make this event the focus of my story. The reason I am writing this story deals with my “brush with fame”.
At that time our head football coach was a man named Chelo Huerta. He had, on his staff, an offensive line coach. He was offensive in every sense of the word. He really looked down his nose at any of us who were members of any of the minor sports. I really didn’t even want to participate in the annual physical process because I knew that as a member of the golf team I would have to deal with the ridicule from this particular coach. He was required to be there to help get us all through the process. Needless to say he made all of us feel insignificant and unworthy, like we shouldn’t even be labeled athletes if we were in a minor sport. This coach obviously didn’t view the exercise as anything important except for maybe the members of the football team. Who was this OFFENSIVE line coach? None other than Bill Parcells. The real Bill Parcells. To be fair he was pretty young and this may have been one of his first coaching jobs, but it didn’t change the way he made you feel. Obviously, his career path is a thing of legend. His ultimate success as a football coach is well documented. He is in the NFL Hall of Fame for Christ sake. It doesn’t really matter. In any pro sport it comes down to wins and losses, championships, etc. We never really know how someone acts when no one is paying attention. Years later I rooted for Bill’s teams. I did have a brush with fame even though it was fleeting. Who knows, maybe he became a much better person than I remember? It certainly doesn’t make any difference in light of what he ultimately achieved. It makes for an interesting bit of trivia in this insignificant blog – created by a non athlete – from a minor sport.
