RIP Wayman Tisdale

I loved when Billy Tubbs said his offense was "get the ball to Wayman and get out of the way .... If you can't get the ball to Wayman, you can't play for our team," or something to that effect.

Great ballplayer. Great musician. Seemed like a good guy. RIP Wayman.

 

RIP. Terrible way to go. Good guy, solid citizen.

But . . .

Based on some of the posts here, some would agree with the Yahoo.com headline identifying him as a "Basketball Great." Absolutely, if you take only his time at Oklahoma into account. He had a nice NBA career, but hardly a "great."

I notice these things because the tendency is often to misidentify in this way. A colleague was doing a (non-sports) story involving Eric Montross last summer, and originally had him identified as "Basketball Great."

I guess I feel that "Great" should be reserved for the all-timers. Overuse just seems to diminish what the word means.

 

In college, he was great.

In the pros, he was a solid pro.

Seems to have been a pro off the court, which is important.

Dude could play a mean bass.

 

Wayman Tisdale was a great college basketball player. He was a solid pro. But by all indications, he was one of the nicest, most caring people that ever picked up a basketball, and he was successful. He may not be a great basketball player when you throw in the pros, but he definitely was a great man.

 

I met Wayman for the first time at one of his recruiting visits to OU. The Sooners were playing an NIT game in Tulsa and Wayman had the opportunity to sit behind the bench for the game. Instead, he sat in the stands with his mother and spent more time making certain she was enjoying herself instead of watching the court. He was one of the kindest souls on campus and he will be sorely missed.

 

My first one-on-one contact with a "pro" athlete was Wayman Tisdale. He came to our middle school to give some talk about drugs (and not doing them ) ... and a bunch of my classmates thought he was lame because he didn't do a 360-helicopter jam when they asked him to dunk it. I remember being amazed at his size.

My parents' best friends lived in a house Wayman built in Carmel, IN, but got traded before he could move into. Had a 30x20 basketball court in the basement with two goals, and was a great place to hang out when I was a kid.

He always seemed like a great guy and I enjoyed him as a player while growing up.

 

He was a great man, which is more important than his legacy as a ballplayer

 

Man, this one really caught me off-guard. I thought the leg amputation restored his good health.

When I was middle school, he was my favorite college player for a couple of years. In pick-up games with my buddies he was the one I would try to emulate -- it didn't matter he was 6-9 and a lefty and could actually play, and I was 6-0 and a righty and still can't dribble behind my back with losing control of the ball.

RIP Wayman. I don't know any of his music, so I think I'll download something off iTunes this weekend.

If anyone has any suggestions, feel free.

 

Wow. Cancer is a heartless bitch.

RIP Wayman.

 

Thank you.

And why does cancer seem to be getting these kind of athletes at a seemingly alarming rate?

 

Sweetest turnaround jumper I've ever seen.

Easy trivia question: Tisdale did not win the Oklahoma HS player of the year award outright as a senior -- he shared it with two other players. Who were they?

 

I used to live by Vern Fleming's house in Indy and I'd walk by Wayman shooting hoops with Vern's kids. RIP to a good guy.