ELI REPORT

click to enlarge Krista Ragan-Binam • Jim Kane • Tom Nieto • Bryan Norton

Winning Our Hearts

Valentine’s Day came ten days early for four former ORU athletes.There was lots of love on the court as Krista Ragan-Binam, Tom Nieto, Jim Kane, and Bryan Norton were officially inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame.

You gotta love’em…

Ragan-Binam File

click to enlarge Ragan-Binam took what she learned on and off the court at ORU to share with her high school basketball players.

Keep the Ball Rolling
By Ginger Shepherd

As a basketball player at ORU, Krista Ragan-Binam 02 saw unprecedented success. That’s what made her a slam-dunk choice for the ORU Athletics Hall of Fame.

During her time at ORU, Ragan-Binam was named Mid-Continent Conference Player of the Year three times — in 1999, 2001, and 2002. She became ORU’s second All-American woman basketball player and was first-team All-Conference for four straight years.

If that isn’t enough to wow you: Ragan-Binam is the conference’s all-time leading scorer, with 2,105 points under her belt. She is in ORU’s Career Top 10: second in scoring, sixth in scoring average, second in field goals, third in three-pointers, third in three-point percentage, fourth in assists, and fifth in steals.

“Probably the two trips to the NCAA tournament, [however], are my best memories,” Ragan-Binam said.

Although honored and excited about the induction, finding time to return for the Feb. 4 ceremony proved to be a bit more of a challenge; it happened in the middle of basketball season. Toward the end of January and the start of February, Ragan-Binam had about three to four basketball games a week.

For those games, Ragan-Binam wasn’t stepping up to the line to take a shot. She was giving encourage-ment from the sidelines. She is serving as the head coach of the Glenpool High School women’s basket-ball team.

Her success from ORU has followed and touched her coaching. In the 2004-5 season, Ragan-Binam’s Lady Warriors went undefeated and won both the regional and district championships.

Around the time of her induction, her team was ranked in the top ten for Oklahoma’s Class 4A and holding onto a 14-2 record.

There are a couple things that can explain Ragan-Binam’s success, outside of her natural talent. There is the coaching and there is the support.

“Actually, I did sign with Coach (Jerry) Finkbeiner at SNU (Southern Nazarene University), but I followed him when he left to come to ORU,” Ragan-Binam said. And it proved to be a good learning experience for the coach-to-be. “It was a great opportunity to learn in my — not four years, but six — years here, especially the two years I sat out. It was a chance to observe Coach Finkbeiner help the team.”

Ragan-Binam missed the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons after suffering torn ligaments and tendons in her left ankle, a torn ACL, and a broken arm.

A great coach wasn’t the only thing that Ragan-Binam found at ORU. She said the university is a great place that has good Christian values, and a natural support system.

“We got great support,” she said. “President [Richard] Roberts really supported us. He came to all the games that he could.”

And she met her husband, Nathan Binam, a player on the men’s team (1997-00) at ORU. He might be an equal partner in the marriage, but as Ragan-Binam noted at the pre-game dinner on the 4th, “We coach the Glenpool team together, but I’m the head coach; he’s my assistant!”

On April 27, it was announced that Ragan-Binam had accepted the head coaching job at Coweta High School. Her husband, Nathan, is signing on at Coweta, too, as her assistant coach and as an assistant football coach.

Jim Kane File

click to enlarge Jim Kane

The Right Choice
By Ginger Shepherd

Choosing the school with just the right golf program was no easy chore for ORU Hall of Fame inductee Jim Kane. He had some very enticing choices. In the end, however, it came down to the influence of ORU’s head coach, Bill Brogden.

At the time Kane was looking at colleges, Stanford and Brigham Young University had made it onto his short list. Both schools could offer a very solid golf program.

“I had been accepted into Stanford and was then offered a full scholarship,” Kane said. “Not only was Stanford a great educational institution but they were in the process of rebuilding their golf program and [I] wanted to be a part of that process.”

Stanford had an added benefit for the young Kane: It was close to home — just 15 miles from his home-town of San Mateo, Calif.

In addition to being a powerhouse, BYU appealed to Kane because his best friend at the time, Bobby Clampett, was planning to attend the Utah-based school.

A third option emerged while Kane was playing in the U.S. Open Qualifying in San Jose. At the match, he ran into his friend, Joey Rassett.

“Joey had just committed to ORU and asked me if I had signed with any college yet. I said no but was leaning toward Stanford or BYU,” Kane said. “Joey immediately convinced me not to sign any letters of intent until I had an opportunity to speak with Bill Brogden and visit ORU. The rest, [as] they say, is history.”

It was a choice that provided Kane with an endless supply of experiences and memories, that even 25-plus years later are still vivid in his mind. He said some of his best memories are of when the ORU golf team would defeat national powerhouses, such as Oklahoma State University, in tournaments.

“It was always great to hear people say, ‘That ORU team is REALLY good,’ or words to that effect,” Kane said. While playing at ORU, Kane and his team took second place in the 1981 NCAA golf championships and third place in 1980. Kane was also a four-time All-American.

One memory that is Kane’s best — and worst — is the 1981 championship. He can recall Coach Brogden on the 18th tee telling him he needed a par, indicating the team was either tied with BYU or ahead by a couple of strokes. He shot well, and was excited; however, about 20 minutes later when Rassett was putting, the team learned they had lost the championship by two strokes.

“It was difficult ending my career that way. We all had worked so hard to bring a national championship to ORU,” Kane said.

At the Feb. 4 Golden Eagle Club dinner, Kane described something more positive that took place dur-ing his senior year. Teammate Bryan Norton invited the team to his family’s home in Salina, Kan. It was culture shock for the California boys — Kane, Rassett, and Bill Glasson. “I had never shot a gun, gone fishing, or ridden a horse,” Kane said. “We did all of that. It was one of the most memorable times I had at ORU.”

Kane played golf professionally following his four seasons at ORU (1978-81), but returned to complete his degree in 1986. He said without the support and the patience he received from the university’s recreation department, he would not have been able to do that.

Once a golfer, always a golfer: Kane is currently the head golf pro at Eagle Bend Golf Course in Lawrence, Kan.

(Editor's Note: Since we went to press, Kane has resigned his position at Eagle Bend in order to join the PGA Champions Tour, beginning June 2. The tour is the top professional circuit for golfers age 50 and up.)

Bryan Norton File

click to enlarge In describing himself and his teammates, Norton said, “We were a competitive bunch.”

Shades of Bill Brogden
By Ginger Shepherd

Like his teammate Jim Kane, Bryan Norton 82 did not put ORU at the top of his list of “colleges I’d like to attend” back in the late 1970s. He wouldn’t have described himself as a very spiritual person, so ORU was not anywhere on his radar screen.

So what brought the Kansas golfer to Tulsa? It was an encounter with ORU head coach Bill Brogden at a golf camp where Norton was a counselor. “He was wear-ing his groovy sunglasses,” Norton said at the Hall of Fame Night dinner, drawing laughter from Golden Eagle Club members. After five recruiting trips — none of them to ORU — Norton had found the coach he wanted to play for.

The coach made an impression on the young man. The two of them simply “clicked.”

“He was young,” Norton said of Brogden. “We (my teammates and I) related to him.”

At that time, many of ORU’s golfers were away from home for the first time, and Coach Brogden knew and understood what they were going through, Norton explained, adding that several of his teammates were from the West Coast.

“Oklahoma was a different experience,” Norton said. “He took us under his wing and helped us through it.”

Although he was understanding, that doesn’t mean Coach Brogden wasn’t tough on them. Norton said their coach pushed them to be a successful team. The pressure paid off for Norton, who was a two-time second-team All-American (1980, 1981). He also tied for fourth at the 1980 NCAA championships.

Coach Brogden wasn’t the only person that made Norton think ORU should be his college home.

“I had a chance to speak with President Oral Roberts,” Norton said, and that truly inspired him. In Roberts, Norton found a man who believed in his athletes and wanted his athletic programs to succeed.

“Roberts funded the golf program like no other school at the time,” he said.

In the late 1970s, there weren’t many restrictions on a college golf team’s travel, Norton explained. Many teams traveled by van to tournaments around the country and would eat McDonald’s all the way. That wasn’t the case for ORU’s Titans.

“ORU provided flights on commercial airlines,” Norton said. “And Coach Brogden treated us first class with a meal at a nice restaurant.”

Playing golf at ORU, he continued, was a chance to become well-traveled, with trips to Mexico, Pine Hurst, and Athens, Ga., for the NCAA tournament. At the time, he said, those places were exotic to him, being from a small town in Kansas (Salinas) and having little travel experience. Another appeal ORU had for Norton was that it was still close to home.

ORU was more than just a place to play golf for Norton. It was a place to learn, to gain experience, and to succeed.

“I came here a kid from a bumpkin little town,” Norton said. “When I left, I was an experienced person. I grew up.”

Part of his growth as a person involved learning to focus, a lesson he mastered. He excelled on the golf course and in the classroom, graduating with honors.

Norton explained that it wasn’t unusual for the golf team to be traveling four to five weeks a semester…and then there was practice. However, one of the advantages of a school like ORU, he said, was that there weren’t the same “social sideline” distractions that other schools’ athletes contend with.

Today, Norton is focused on his work as a vice president for Lockton Companies, insurance brokers in Kansas City. He still has sharp memories, however, of funny things that happened at college tournaments, like the time he swung too hard, missed a shot, knelt down on the ground, and proceeded to give vent to his anger.

“A lady came up to me afterwards and said, ‘That’s so neat how you guys pray after you hit a shot.’” Too far away to hear what Norton was saying, she jumped to what seemed like a logical conclusion.

As Norton learned, “You’re really in the spotlight when you go to a school like Oral Roberts.”

Tom Nieto File

click to enlarge Former Titan catcher and current New York Mets coach Tom Nieto

Catching Up with Tom Nieto
By Elissa K. Harvill

For the first time in 24 years, former Titan catcher Tom Nieto was back on campus, this time with his son, Marcus. The occasion was Nieto’s induction into the ORU Athletics Hall of Fame.

“The school hasn’t changed a bit,” Nieto said. “We were wanting to get to the bookstore, and stopped and asked a couple of students who were walking by [for directions], and the students are just as I remembered them: the most polite, nice people, just as they were when I was at ORU — just fantastic people who go there to get a great education. It’s still a wonderful school.”

In 1981, after a stellar year of catching for ORU and earning All-American honors, Nieto was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. Soon after, he was making the winning play in Game 4 of the ’84 World Series. Nieto also played for the Minnesota Twins in the ’87 Series and served as a coach in four other World Series, with defensive catching being his specialty. He’s now a coach with the New York Mets.

“I’ll always remember my first day in the big leagues…after playing Little League baseball and playing in high school and college, hoping someday — not thinking you would — but hoping someday you’d be playing in the major leagues…when I had the chance to do that in 1984 with the St. Louis Cardinals, that was really something,” Nieto said. “I’ve been really fortunate with the way things have turned out, and I truly believe that Oral Roberts University was an important part of getting me there.”

Before he settled on ORU, Nieto was considering other scholarship offers and had made up his mind to play for California State-Fullerton. But then Larry Cochell (former ORU head coach) called.

“My dad convinced me to go check [ORU] out. I had never been out of the state of California at that point, but I went out there and Larry Cochell and some other players showed me around, and about two hours into it, I had decided that I wanted to play for Oral Roberts — probably the best decision, as far as my future and career [were concerned], that I ever made. I didn’t know it at the time, but I sure know it now,” Nieto said.

Nieto describes his role on the Titan team as “just a small piece of a puzzle that really fit together well.” That year, eight ORU players were drafted by major league teams. This year, as a Hall of Fame honoree, Nieto spoke to current players about what it meant to him to play for ORU, and the traditions he and his teammates had built. He encouraged the players to keep these traditions going.

“I know I was always a part of that Oral Roberts family, but with the way my career went and not getting a chance to come back for a long time, it feels really good to be back in the ORU family,” Nieto said. “I will definitely make it a habit to come back every year.”

At the Hall of Fame banquet, Nieto, who has experienced the World Series twice as a player and four times as a coach, shared: “From the bottom of my heart, this is the proudest moment of my life.”

Today, Nieto lives with his wife of 23 years, Karen, and their two children, Nicole, 19, and Marcus, 15, in Land O’ Lakes, Fla. (Marcus plays baseball, of course.)