Basic Course: Friendship 101 - Time Out #260

Happy Labor Day weekend to all, and the usual, unofficial, end of summer. With this installment, #260, I begin my 6th year of fulfilling my passion of writing a weekly commentary, and covering a myriad of topics. As always, a "shout out" to the Stillwater NewsPress, specifically editor Beau Simmons, for all he has done to assist me weekly for the past 5 years in getting my thoughts printed and distributed to Our Town and far beyond. Here's to many more years for me to continue livin' my dreams!!! On this special edition, I am going to relate to a topic that absolutely touched me to the core. For the past several weeks, I have had people ask me both in person and on the phone if I had watched the two-hour ESPN-2 documentary, with the one-word title, "Eddie"? Various people had given me short sketches of the gripping film, and one dear friend actually e-mailed me the next time the piece was scheduled to be aired. I programmed my recorder to copy it, but when my bride asked me this afternoon about the documentary 5 minutes before it began showing, I asked her if she would like to watch it "live" with me? She did, and we totally were absorbed from 2-4 p.m. today. It truly is a film experience I will remember for years to come! For purposes of review, dear readers, I was extremely fortunate to watch the Bucklin, Kansas, farm resident, then Oklahoma A&M basketball player, small forward Eddie Sutton, play for our local Aggies, 1955-58. He was one of legendary Coach Henry P. Iba's better players, possessing an accurate outside/deep corner jump shot, along with always playing classic Mr. Iba punishing man-to-man defense. As mentioned several times in previous writings, my late father, Col. C.H. Breedlove, and iconic Mr. Iba, were good friends, and he frequently took me to Mr. Iba's practice sessions inside old Gallagher Hall (GH).There, I was able to watch and meet the Aggie players, and we also had first row center outstanding seats for all home games. The greatest basketball game I ever watched in person was in GH, February, 1958, when Eddie, teammate Mel Wright, and the rest of our home squad took down Goliath (aka Kansas University's Wilt Chamberlain), 56-54. The game was tied, until Wright made his famous front-facing outside jump shot with seconds left, sending the partisan home crowd into an absolute frenzy. What a memory for my then 10-year-old mind to keep forever! The current documentary skillfully molds the relationship Mr. Iba had with Eddie, and the rest of the Aggie basketball family. It explains how Mr. Iba helped the recent college graduate and coaching hopeful, Eddie, land his first head coaching job at Tulsa Central High School. From that coaching start, the film traces Eddie's successful coaching staircase to Southern Idaho Jr. College, Creighton University (Omaha, NE), the University of Arkansas, and the University of Kentucky, before returning to his alma mater in Stillwater. It shows, once again, Mr. Iba being very involved in bringing Eddie "home again" to thrill our OSU faithful, 1990-2006. Of course, human frailties are everywhere , and Eddie's are on full display in the film. His decision to leave Arkansas after 11 mega-successful years, the basketball recruiting quicksand he fell into during his brief tenure as Kentucky's head hoops man, the awful 2001 OSU airplane crash that killed 10 basketball-affiliated men in rural Colorado, and Eddie's ill-fated DUI auto accident, effectively ending his OSU coaching career in 2006. There are also several powerful interviews with his son, Sean. Sean displays a great deal of emotion and fortitude, carefully explaining how his idol and alcoholic father caused so much pain for him, his mother, Patsy, and his brothers, Steve and Scott. For me, it is the good and the bad, carefully blended together, that makes this film so powerful, clearly showing the highs and lows of human emotions, frailty and deep love. Because of the availability of hundreds of channels to watch in today's world on television, computer, phone, etc., our choices of what to view are almost limitless 24/7/365. Please find 2 hours to watch, "Eddie". In my opinion, it is certainly one film you will remember for a long, long time!