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EVERYONE’S MOM BY KEVIN KLINTWORTH Senior Associate Athletic Director
Unfortunately for the world of college athletics, and OSU Athletics in particular, Dr. Marilyn Middlebrook has announced her retirement from our department after overseeing academic support for the Cowboys and Cowgirls since 1997. The massive change truly ends an era. Literally thousands of our former studentathletes know Dr. Middlebrook as “Mom,” and her long-term influence is evidenced by their life updates, which are posted throughout her office. It is evidenced by the barrage of phone calls and emails she received (and still receives) from those athletes when her decision was made public. Some of those former students are nearing their sixth decade on the planet. And yes, they had her phone number. Dr. Middlebrook has been a steady hand in the department and on campus through coaching changes, changes in the athletic director’s chair, changes in the president’s office and even changes in OSU’s conference membership. For athletes from the 1980s and most of the 1990s, she has served as the one true constant link to OSU. Dr. Middlebrook first stuck her toe in the OSU Athletics water in the 1980s serving as a temporary academic counselor for OSU’s student-athletes on a one-year basis. Those athletes were people like Hart Lee Dykes, Thurman Thomas and Mike Gundy. When her temp job was over and she moved back across campus to the College of Education, several (maybe many) OSU athletes followed her there so she could continue to navigate their academic path.
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When the 1997 football season rolled around, optimism was high for Bob Simmons’ team. But the wind went out of the sails during fall camp when multiple OSU football players were declared academically ineligible just days before the season opener. In the middle of the storm, President James Halligan summoned Dr. Middlebrook about a return to Athletics to help with the chaos. She’s been here ever since. To the athletes she is part family member, part principal, and part North Star, while always serving as the conscience of OSU Athletics. In a time in which the portal and the new transactional nature of college athletics have seemingly diminished the core mission of any campus, Dr. Middlebrook has remained focused on the academic well-being of the student-athletes through graduation and into their various stages of life. Along with Dr. Middlebrook, Agatha Adams, a long-time counselor who has been with Mom every step of the way, is also retiring. They will leave behind a void in experience, institutional knowledge and focus that will be incredibly hard to replace. We can only be hopeful that the future Moms and Agathas of the industry will take the academic mission of a campus to heart as much as they did. We can only be hopeful that the future of college athletics still has a place for the student part of student-athlete and that there are those who still comprehend what a difference a college degree can make in the real world — like those in their sixth decades.
Former offensive lineman Johnny Wilson visits with Dr. Marilyn Middlebrook. After more than 30 years with Oklahoma State Athletics, Middlebrook is retiring in December of 2026. While Middlebrook's professional title is Associate Athletic Director for Academic Affairs, generations of OSU student-athletes simply refer to her as "Mom" because of the level of care she provided.
Spirit of 76
LOOKING BACK AT THE 1976 BIG EIGHT AND TANGERINE BOWL CHAMPIONS
Big Game Hunter
NATIONAL CHAMPION PRESTON STOUT FINDS A PERFECT FIT IN STILLWATER
Dr. Middlebrook with Julian Richardson, Stephen Graham and Joey Graham in 2003.
Walking the Tightrope
ORGANIZING THE CHAOS OF A FOOTBALL OFFICIAL VISIT RECRUITING WEEKEND
Advantage Adamovic
KAT ADAMOVIC’S JOURNEY TO HEAD COACH OF COWGIRL TENNIS
Common Threads
OSU’S PARTNERSHIP WITH THE OSAGE NATION IS BUILT ON SHARED VALUES Dr. Middlebrook with Cowboy Football’s Ashton Lampkin.
Cowboy Chief
PRINCIPAL CHIEF JOE TILLMAN REFLECTS ON HIS COWBOY FOOTBALL CAREER
From Hunter to Hunted
COWGIRL BASKETBALL PREPARES TO TAKE ITS PLACE AMONG THE NATION’S ELITE
46 Dr. Middlebrook was selected to serve as the honorary Orange Power VIP before Cowboy Football’s 2025 season opener.
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DEPARTMENTS
The Honor Roll
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Parting Shot
COVER PHOTO AARON WITT
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Oklahoma State's Billah Jepkirui raced into the history books at the 2026 Cowboy Jamboree. The graduate student not only ran away with the victory, but broke the Greiner Family OSU Cross Country Course record with her 6K time of 19:24.4. The previous mark of 19:27.7 was set by national champion Katelyn Tuohy of North Carolina State at the 2022 NCAA Championships.
POSSE MAGAZINE
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POSSE Magazine Staff KEVIN KLINTWORTH
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / SENIOR ASSOCIATE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR SENIOR ASSOCIATE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR
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RYLEE COHEN, CHASE DAVIS, RAINE FARRAR, KYLIE GRANDELL, MASON HARBOUR, BRAYDEN HARTMAN, KATE HODGES, TARYN LAWLER, ABBY RICHARDSON
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
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At Oklahoma State University, compliance with NCAA, Big 12 and institutional rules is of the utmost importance. As a supporter of OSU, please remember that maintaining the integrity of the University and the Athletic Department is your fi rst responsibility. As a donor, and therefore booster of OSU, NCAA rules apply to you. If you have any questions, feel free to call the OSU Offi ce of Athletic Compliance at 405-744-7862. Additional information can also be found by clicking on the Compliance tab of the Athletic Department web-site at okstate.com. Remember to always “Ask Before You Act.” Respectfully, BEN DYSON
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PHOTO MASON HARBOUR
Donations received may be transferred to Cowboy Athletics, Inc. in accordance with the Joint Resolution among Oklahoma State University, the Oklahoma State University Foundation, and Cowboy Athletics, Inc. POSSE magazine is published three times a year (Fall, Winter, Spring) by the Oklahoma State University Athletic Department and the POSSE, and is provided to current members of the POSSE in print or digital format based on annual giving level. Magazine subscriptions available by membership in the POSSE only. For membership information, visit okstate.com/posse. To change a mailing address, call 405-744-7301 or email posse@okstate.edu. Postage paid at Stillwater, OK, and additional mailing offices. Oklahoma State University, in compliance with Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 11246 as amended, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Higher Education Act), the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other federal and state laws and regulations, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, genetic information, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, or status as a veteran, in any of its policies, practices or procedures. This provision includes, but is not limited to admissions, employment, financial aid, and educational services. The Director of Equal Opportunity, 401 General Academics Building, OSU, Stillwater, OK 74078-4069; Phone 405-744-1156; email: eeo@okstate.edu has been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies. Any person (student, faculty or staff) who believes they are experiencing discrimination may discuss his or her concerns and file informal or formal complaints of possible violations of Title IX with OSU's Title IX Coordinator, 405-744-1156. This publication, issued by Oklahoma State University as authorized by the Senior Associate Athletic Director, was printed by Modern Litho at a cost of $2.78 per issue: 2,750. | October 2026 | Copyright 2026, POSSE magazine. All rights reserved.
DREAMS DON’T WAIT. COWBOYS DON’T EITHER. Know a student ready to rise? OSU’s scholarship opportunities fuel the fire of future Cowboys. By walking the Cowboy way, our students dare to think bigger and build what’s next, forging their character, passion and grit to achieve excellence.
For maximum scholarship consideration, encourage the high school senior you know to apply by Feb. 1.
apply.okstate.edu
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LEADING THE CHARGE Oklahoma State team captains Drew Mestemaker (17) and Ethan Wesloski (32), along with flag-bearer Carson Kolb (44), bring the Cowboys onto the field before the 2026 home opener against Oregon. Head Coach Eric Morris and his new-look OSU squad gave the sold-out Boone Pickens Stadium crowd a performance that will go down as one of the biggest wins in school history. Featuring an explosive offense led by Mestemaker and a determined defense anchored by Wesloski, the Pokes downed the Ducks 39-31 and catapulted the Cowboys into the national spotlight.
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The Cowboys’ 31-24 win in Norman was one of three OSU victories over AP top-10 opponents in 1976.
Fifty years have passed since former Cowboy running back Terry Miller rushed for 1,887 yards and 27 touchdowns, both school records at the time, which resulted in a fourth-place finish for the Heisman. It’s easy to picture Miller as the king of campus during that run, but when asked to sum up what it was like “to be Terry Miller” that fall, the running back has his response locked and loaded. “Sore,” Miller laughed. “It is the other players around me that allow you to do things,” he continued. “I mean, I just do what they let me, and I mean, there’s an assigned play. They do their job, I do mine. The better they do theirs, the better I can do mine.” In 1976, the Cowboys happened to do their jobs extremely well, earning the program its only Big Eight Conference championship, which the team accomplished despite facing a still-standing school-record six opponents ranked by the Associated Press. That gauntlet has been matched only twice since then (2014, 2021). That ’76 team finished 9-3 overall and 5-2 in the conference to earn a No. 14 ranking in the final AP poll. Only seven Cowboys teams have finished the season higher in the polls.
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The 1976 team was designated as the Team of Special Recognition during the 2026 football reunion in September. It is a team that continues to be celebrated for its very special place in OSU history.
GOING BERSERK IN BEDLAM
There are a lot of accomplishments from that season deserving of recognition, but it certainly sounds like one play in Norman is guaranteed to come up when the Cowboys reunite. “That seems to be the only run I made in my career,” Miller said. “But it’s certainly memorable from my standpoint.” Miller was referring to his 72-yard touchdown jaunt off a pitch on the game’s third play. The legendary play was never supposed to happen, at least not that way. OSU coach Jim Stanley sprung a surprise by starting freshman quarterback Harold Bailey. Miller said the game plan was to have Bailey play a starring role in the ground attack. “Somebody on their defense, I think, ended up making a mistake, but it was a costly mistake,” Miller said. “Because they allowed Harold to get the ball to me, whereas we were
anticipating them allowing whoever the quarterback was to run the ball.” All-Big Eight first-team defensive end Daria Butler can still vividly remember the moment when Miller went racing past the Cowboy sideline. “Right away, we (players on the sideline) start cheering and jumping up and down and talking a bunch of crap,” Butler said. “How we’re gonna stomp them down here in Norman. You know, I think berserk would be the best way to describe the sideline.” There was a little more drama to it than that, considering Oklahoma State had to come from behind in the fourth quarter for the then-unranked Cowboys to beat the No. 5 Sooners on their home turf. The OSU win ended its nine-game losing streak in the rivalry. “One of those moments in history that we were able to take advantage of,” Miller said.
Fullback Robert Turner (left) poses with running back Terry Miller (right).
It’s hard for Miller to say exactly what the team felt in the days that followed, but he does think that win was a big confidence boost for the Cowboys, who entered the AP poll at No. 16 following the win. “You don’t generally win by luck,” he said. “You know, proper preparation, when it meets with opportunity, you get a chance to win. We made a few mistakes. They made a few mistakes, and we were just able to come out on top.”
CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDER
The conference title chase almost collapsed as soon as it started when the Cowboys fell into a 16-point deficit the very next week — during Homecoming no less — to No. 10 Missouri. Instead, Miller rushed for 228 yards, the second-highest single-game total of his career, and tied for 26th all-time at OSU, to help the Cowboys eke out a 20-19 win. It gave the Cowboys three wins over AP top-10 opponents, producing an unmatched program record persisting to this day. The other was a 21-14 victory over No. 8 Kansas, which was led by quarterback Nolan Cromwell. Former Oklahoma State right tackle Derrel Gofourth described Cromwell as “still probably the best all-around athlete I’ve ever met.” It was an opinion validated by the fact that Cromwell went 31st overall in the 1977 NFL Draft. Gofourth also uses Cromwell as an example of how tough the Cowboys’ schedule was that fall, as the Kansas quarterback suffered a right knee injury against Oklahoma the very next week and was ruled out for the rest of the season, meaning only the Cowboys faced him for an entire conference game. What was a 4-0 Kansas team that traveled to Stillwater, finished the season 6-5 and averaged just over nine points less per game without Cromwell. After surviving Missouri, Oklahoma State traveled to No. 9 Nebraska, where the Cowboys faced their fourth top-10 opponent in five weeks. OSU outrushed Nebraska, 291-121, but couldn’t overcome being outgained through the air by 201 yards. Cornhusker quarterback Vince Ferragamo hit Ken Spaeth for a 6-yard game-winner with just under 12 minutes left in the game for a 14-10 win that put the Cowboys on the outside looking in when it came to the conference title possibilities. Oklahoma State’s first loss the season had come back in week two against an Arkansas team then ranked No. 12. The only other loss was a 10-point defeat to Colorado in October to a Buffaloes team that finished 8-4 and ranked 16th in the final AP poll. While those losses surely stung, dropping three games by a total of 20 points, all to opponents either ranked at the time or destined to finish the season ranked, was no small thing.
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Oklahoma State’s opponents following the loss at Nebraska weren’t so lucky. None of them tested the motivated Cowboys, who blazed through the rest of the season, beating Kansas State, UTEP, and an Iowa State group that finished 19th in the final poll, by an average score of 43-18. Those victories allowed the program to claim a share of the Big Eight crown for the first and final time, alongside the Buffaloes and the Sooners. “We talk about that all the time when we see each other,” Butler said. “Periodically we call each other on the phone, and you know guys just relive that, man. It’s almost like you’re back in Stillwater.”
TANGERINE DREAMS
The bowl footprint was much smaller in those days, as the 1975 Cowboys can attest after being left out following a 7-4 season in which every loss came against an opponent ranked 14th or higher. OSU beat BYU 16-6 in the Fiesta Bowl following the 1974 season, but that was the program’s first time in the postseason since 1958. The program’s next bowl drought wasn’t nearly as long, as the 1976 squad got invited to the Tangerine Bowl to once again face the Cougars. “Oh man, it was tremendous,” Butler said. “I couldn’t stop writing and calling home and telling people that I was going to be doing this or that … You know the things you see on TV with that when you’re a kid growing up, that all these guys are being flown to this place and such and such. Once we got there, it was just tremendous to kind of get that red carpet treatment.” Both Miller and Gofourth said the Cowboys had been hoping for an Orange Bowl invitation, which would have put them up against an Ohio State team which ended the season ranked sixth. Instead the ’76 squad looked at the Tangerine Bowl as a business trip. “I was playing another game,” Gofourth said, summing up his final time in a Cowboys uniform. “Yeah, you had a game to play, and you just went and did what you were supposed to do.” And then some, considering Oklahoma State beat BYU 49-21, still the fifth-largest scoring margin in all of OSU’s 22 bowl victories. BYU quarterback Gifford Nielsen finished sixth in the Heisman vote after leading the NCAA in touchdown passes (29) and yards (3,192). He was later drafted 73rd overall in the 1978 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers. In the final 14 games of his college career, outside of the Tangerine Bowl, Nielsen averaged 296 passing yards, 3.1 passing touchdowns per game. Against the Cowboys, he finished 23-of-34 for 209 yards, a lone touchdown and four picks courtesy of a quartet of Cowboys including Chris Dawson, Gary Irons, Milton
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Terry Miller rushed for 1,887 yards and 27 touchdowns during the 1976 season.
“ we went in there and just put some good old-fashioned defense on him.” — DARIA BUTLER Daria Butler terrorizes BYU quarterback Gifford Nielsen. The constant pressure on Nielsen resulted in a Tangerine Bowlrecord four interceptions.
Kirven and Jerry Cramer. Those interceptions resulted in 110 return yards for the Cowboys, including a 36-yard return for a touchdown by Dawson, a defensive lineman, in the first quarter. Those four picks put the ’76 team in a tie for most interceptions by an OSU team in a bowl alongside the 2010 Cotton Bowl team. “We held him down, and you know he had a lot of publicity going in,” Butler said. “He was a big-time guy with all the name recognition, and we went in there and just put some good old-fashioned defense on him.” Oklahoma State traded scores for most of the first half until Miller ripped off a 78-yard touchdown run with 40 seconds left in the first half to put the Cowboys up 28-14. It remains the Cowboys’ second-longest run in a bowl game ever. The Cougars found the end zone one more time in the third quarter on a 102-yard kick return, but OSU back Robert Turner scored from a yard out before Miller closed the quarter with two more touchdown runs of 1 and 6 yards, giving him four for the day on his way to bowl MVP honors. His 24 points scored and four rushing touchdowns in the Fiesta Bowl are still second all-time in OSU’s bowl history, matched only by Thurman Thomas in the 1987 Sun Bowl. The only thing keeping those guys from sharing the top spot is Barry Sanders’ five-touchdown performance in the 1988 Holiday Bowl. Miller’s 173 rushing yards against BYU still ranks third among OSU bowl performances, and his 7.5 average yards per carry ranks sixth. All of which would be impressive on its own. It looks even better considering Miller was far from healthy leading up to the game. “I had the flu most of the week, and it rained most of the week,” Miller said. “I know that I had the flu, and I think there were a couple other players that were under the weather. But we were able to pull it together and get the job done.” Talk about an understatement. As good as he was in his flu game, it wasn’t just Miller that day. Turner added 80 yards on 22 carries and Farland Dindy added 68. In total, the Cowboys rushed for an all-time OSU bowl record of 375 yards. The ’76 Cowboys also set another still-standing program record, averaging 5.4 yards per carry and matching the program record for rushing touchdowns in a bowl at six. “You had guys that’d been with each other for a while,” Gofourth said of the offensive line. “So you had continuity. And you knew the guy next to you, and you knew what the guy next to you could do, and you relied on them, and you knew they had your back. You know that’s what mattered to me, that you went up to the line every time trusting the guy beside you.”
Gofourth praised each of his fellow starting linemen, including center Michael Ritz, left guard Jim Ledford, left tackle Mark Perrelli and right guard Ron Baker, who played in at least 160 games in the NFL, starting 111 of them over an 11-year career following his selection in the 10th round of the 1977 NFL Draft. “Baker had a hell of an NFL career,” Gofourth said. “I mean, he finally gained some weight. He was a rail (in college), you know, he’s 6-5 and maybe weighed 240.” Miller, too, deferred a lot of the credit to his blockers, including the right tackle who sprung him for so many big plays highlighted by the big one in Norman. “Derrel was one of the better offensive linemen that I had the opportunity to play behind,” Miller said. “And when I say people do their job, that’s who I’m talking about.”
A LEGACY THAT LASTS
When the season ended, Gofourth wasn’t sure what his future held. “I didn’t know if I could play pros,” he said. “Coming out of high school … did I have a lot of confidence I could play even college? I didn’t know.” Despite his modesty, the OSU tackle was the team’s only consensus first-team All-American in 1976 and was later drafted in the NFL’s seventh round and played at least 116 games. Three other Cowboys joined him and fellow O-lineman Baker in the draft that year, starting with first-round defensive tackle Phillip Dokes, who finished the ’76 season with 14 tackles for loss, 106 total tackles, two forced fumbles and six fumble recoveries. Butler joked that Dokes, who passed away in 1989, used to put on a real tough guy act for the freshmen on the team. “One of these guys that had a personality that was bigger than life … He was a character,” Butler said. “But he didn’t have a mean bone in his body.” The other two guys drafted that season were punter Cliff Parlsey, an all-Big Eight first-teamer, and Turner, who was nicknamed “Buffalo.” “Everybody knew, particularly on defense … they all got introduced to roll-blocking, because Robert would stand us on our head,” Butler said. “He was tremendous blocker, tremendous. He had such a low trajectory running, you know that it was hard to get down there and get under him. He was quite the player.” He was closely followed on the ground by quarterback Charlie Weatherbie and fellow back Skip Taylor. “One of those brainy quarterbacks,” Butler said of Weatherbie, who would go on to serve as head coach at
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Utah State, Louisiana-Monroe and Navy. “Not to say he wasn’t athletic, but he understood the option very well. He ran it very well. Receiver Sam Lisle accounted for nearly half of the team’s receiving stats across the board when he finished with 21 catches for 360 yards and two touchdowns. Butler described Lisle as “sturdy” and praised a number of other Cowboys that season, including fellow defenders John Corker, Clifton Sullivan, Willie Lester, Lorenzo Turner and Richard Allen. “It was euphoric,” Butler said, describing the ’76 season. “And we had such a good tight group of guys. Really did, and you know, coach Stanley, of course, he worked us into that tight group of guys.” Butler rounded out a trio of Cowboys to get selected in the 1978 NFL Draft. He wrapped up his college career with back-to-back first-team all-conference honors. “He was a team leader on defense,” Miller said. “He and I were captains in 1977, tri-captains with Joe Avanzini. Daria was the motivator of getting the defense fired up, and he was that guy on that side of the ball.” Buddy Hardaway went 41st overall in the 1978 draft, and Butler praised the 6-9, 300-plus-pounder as “one of the biggest guys on any football field.” Miller’s selection at fifth overall in ’78 gave the program first-round picks in back-to-back years. Although the Cowboys had two first-rounders in 1989, the program didn’t produce first-rounders in consecutive drafts again until 2003 and 2004. “Number one thing made him special: speed,” Gofourth said of Miller. “He had speed, and like I said, not to knock Terry, but his freshman year he had speed. His sophomore year he became more of a full player. His junior year he became a great player by open-field running, not just using his speed but his other athletic ability … He just improved every year.” Miller finished his career as a Heisman runner-up in 1977 behind Texas legend Earl Campbell. The Cowboy back finished with a commanding edge over third place. “Well, I tell you, coming off the ’76 season and finishing fourth, you know that gave a leap towards the next year of being a candidate,” Miller said. “But here’s the thing with those awards is it can never be overlooked that it is a team award,” Miller said. “That is not an individual award.” Speaking of the team, Oklahoma State’s defense allowed just 3,430 total yards, which ranks seventh in the school’s single-season record books. And the Cowboys forced 30 fumbles and recovered 31, both good enough to remain school records 50 years later.
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Not to be outdone, OSU rushed for 3,085 yards, sixth in school history, and scored 39 rushing touchdowns, ranking second. Miller’s 1976 season still ranks highly among single-season records, including second in total touchdowns (27), rushing touchdowns (27) and third in rushing yards (1,887). The way the sport is increasingly shifting to the pass, Miller’s records, and by extension the reflection those have on his teammates, might remain near the top for decades to come. “That’s a testament to a career and what talent you have surrounding you,” Miller said. “Yeah, we ran the football. That’s what we did. Now they try to throw the football. So, statistically speaking, if it continues in the manner that it is, perhaps I’ll be there 1,000 years from now. Who knows? But at this point, we were built to run the football, and that’s what we did.” They ran it all the way to the Big Eight title.
Top to bottom: Head coach Jim Stanley, John Corker, Derrel Gofourth, Charlie Weatherbie and Phillip Dokes.
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COLD SHOULDERS Cowgirl Soccer Head Coach Colin Carmichael can run, but he can't hide, from a chilly ice water bath following Oklahoma State's 3-1 upset win over No. 14 TCU at Neal Patterson Stadium. After a scoreless first half, the Cowgirls struck quickly in the second frame with goals from Sonora DeFini and Keaton Mitchell. Emmy Hedden added an insurance goal in the 67th minute to put the match out of reach. On the defensive end of the pitch, goalkeeper Avery Bass notched a career-high seven saves to help ice the victory.
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Big Game
Hunter Ryan Cameron Photos By Chase Davis and Bruce Waterfield Story By
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Physical skill, work ethic, mental fortitude, relentless drive — all traits of a highly successful athlete. Oklahoma State’s Preston Stout possesses all four and each has been integral in his ascension to becoming the top-ranked amateur golfer in the world. However, it was a deer stand, not the golf course, during the winter of Stout’s freshman season where he exhibited those qualities for the first time as a Cowboy. With wind chills plunging well below zero, Stout spent between seven to nine hours for five consecutive days in search of a deer so elusive it earned the name “Houdini.” “We had a couple of encounters with him. It seemed like whenever we were in the stand, he wasn’t there, and whenever we weren’t there, he was always showing up in daylight,” Stout recalled. Exhausted and nearing the last day of the season, Stout’s dad, Chris, presented the option of sleeping in, but Stout would have none of it, insisting they return to the stand one final time. “I think we woke up and the wind chill was like 15 below. I have never been that cold in my life,” Stout said. “It was pretty rewarding. It was a long week and a hard week, but when I want something, I am going to go get it.” With time winding down, he scored his prized buck. “I don’t know anybody on earth that would hunt in those conditions with a bow to shoot a deer, but he was determined to get him. That is the type of grit he has,” Chris said. Chris knew early on he had an athlete on his hands. Shortly after Stout had learned to walk, the family had a miniature basketball goal on its back porch, and when enticed to shoot from a few feet away, he opted to turn and launch the ball about 25 feet into the yard. “I called my dad and told him we either have a quarterback or pitcher. I wasn’t sure yet, but I knew he was going to be one hell of an athlete,” Chris said. Throughout his childhood, that prediction appeared to be spot on as Stout’s days were filled with football, baseball and basketball. However, dreams of a Major League Baseball career would fade as burnout set in. When one door closes, another opens. There had been occasional father-son trips to the driving range, but it was a summer camp with his brother, Brayden, where Stout became enamored with golf. An infatuation fed by the difficulty involved in mastering the sport. “It seemed like everything else kind of came easy to me, but golf is hard, and it was humbling,” Stout explained. From that point on, very few days would pass at Canyon Creek Country Club in Richardson, Texas, without Stout on the driving range or course.
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Two years after catching the golf bug, Stout would give up baseball at age 13 before walking away from football as a high school sophomore to devote his full attention to golf. “I put all of my focus into golf and started seeing some good results fairly quick in that time around my sophomore/ junior year of high school. I think that is kind of when I realized that I could actually do this for real and hopefully play college golf and beyond,” Stout said. One of the nation’s most highly-sought prospects coming out of J.J. Pearce High School, Stout made history in 2023 when he joined Jordan Spieth as the only other player to win the Byron Nelson Junior Championship three times. Among those suitors was OSU head coach Alan Bratton, who aimed to add the first-team AJGA AllAmerican to a lengthy list of Cowboy standouts from the Lone Star State — a pipeline of stars which includes Lindy Miller, Scott Verplank, Brian Watts, Trip Kuehne, Edward Loar, Hunter Mahan and Bratton himself. With future Cowboy Gaven Lane already committed, Bratton asked the fellow Texan for input on potential teammates. Lane immediately told his future head coach to look at Stout, who he thought would be a great addition to the program. “I watched him play at the Byron Nelson, and he ended up winning. I really liked what I saw, he was a very good athlete. When I got to talk to him, he was a perfect fit for Oklahoma State,” Bratton said. “Then we got to know his family, and it was just a really, really good fit. The things that he was interested in just meshed with everything we have.” Like so many Cowboys before him, Stout aspires to play the game at the highest level, and it quickly became clear Stillwater would be his destination. “My first visit was during the Pro-Am weekend, and that was really cool to see all the support our golf team has and how much the donors and the school really care about the golf program here. You don’t really see that at a lot of other places,” Stout said. The epitome of a college town, Stillwater is a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the big city. Exactly what Stout desired away from the course as well. “Stillwater itself, I love it. I call it my home now, and I get to do everything I love here. I love that it is a small town, and it feels like family. It is such a good community, so many good people,” Stout said. “There aren’t many distractions. I think that is huge and another reason why our program has been so good for so long.” The opportunities to pursue trophies of another kind is readily available in Payne County as well for somebody with Stout’s passion for the outdoors.
“I love it here and loved it when I came on my visits. I just knew immediately where I wanted to be. I wanted to go to a school where I could make sure I was going be able to keep doing what I love and being in the outdoors,” Stout said. The ability to escape the grind and enjoy interests outside of the game have been equally import to his success as the environment the Cowboy golf program provides. “Being able to take my mind off the course and do things that I love has been a big part of my success here. And it is really just good therapy for me,” Stout said. “Some of my earliest memories are being out in West Texas with my dad and my brother deer hunting and dove hunting. I thank my dad all the time for introducing me to the outdoors. It really is my absolute favorite thing to do.” Not everything about becoming the top player in college golf has been seamless. In his debut at the Sahalee Players Championship, Stout opened with a 72 before rounds of 77 and 83 landed him in a tie for 56th place. “His very first tournament for us was a big wakeup call. It was set up like a major championship. Preston hadn’t matured enough to realize you can’t just shoot at every pin. You know, you have to be able to measure a course and do what it is calling for that week,” Bratton said. “He is super competitive, very coachable and driven and realized, ‘I have to get a lot better.’ And he did.”
His first round of the spring in 2024 showed glimpses of the player he could become when he fired a 62 at the Amer Ari Intercollegiate to match the school’s 18-hole scoring record after posting an 8-under 28 on the closing nine with an eagle and a run of six consecutive birdies. “I started out the spring playing well and was just not able to close out those final rounds,” Stout said. Then the Big 12 Championship happened. After an opening 74 in his home state of Texas, he made his move with a 69 during the second round. Stout would blitz Whispering Pines Golf Club with an eight-birdie performance in the third round to move into second place, just two shots off the pace heading into the final round. Not only did Stout close, he showcased a flair for the dramatic as well, making a 30-foot birdie putt on the final hole to cap a bogey-free 69 and earn his first career victory. “I definitely had a rough year. It’s hard coming from junior golf and high school golf and having a lot of success and then coming into college and getting knocked on my butt right off the bat. It was difficult,” Stout said. “Showing myself I could compete at this level and win was huge for my confidence.” After winning on a Wednesday, Stout turned around and made a Korn Ferry Tour start the next day at the Veritex Bank Championship, tying for 22nd place with an 18-under total of 266.
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Bratton believes the experience was vital in his star’s development as he got an up-close look at what it takes to succeed at the professional level. “The Korn Ferry event was a good education for him because he saw how low guys go out there and not every professional golfer looks like a superstar on the driving range,” Bratton said. “You see different kinds of actions, some guys you don’t think look like they are all that good, but at the end of the day, the score adds up to a really low number.” Stout returned to campus for his sophomore campaign determined to right the ship from a substandard rookie season both team-wise and individually. With California transfers Ethan Fang and Eric Lee joining Stout and Lane, the quartet set out to erase the disappointment of the prior season. “We weren’t very good and did not have very much success my first year. It seemed like we could never all click at
“We want to do things that no one has ever done. That is how people remember your name.” — PRESTON STOUT
the same time. I think Eric and Ethan kind of experienced the same at Cal their freshman year,” Stout said. Stout and the Cowboys logged their first win of the year in the fall finale at the Jackson T. Stephens Cup, setting the scene for a memorable run during the new calendar year. After opening the spring with their second win of the year in Hawaii, the Cowboys’ next win would come in early April. They wouldn’t lose again, reeling off five consecutive victories to close the season. A remarkable run capped with the program’s 12th national title, an impressive feat made more so by the fact it was achieved by a lineup consisting of four sophomores and a freshman. “To get it going and go on a run like we did was just awesome. We were all playing well. We were all playing confident. It seemed like whenever we teed it up, we knew we were the best team there and were going to get it done.”
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Preston Stout celebrates with his father, Chris, after winning the 2026 individual NCAA championship.
Stout became Cowboy Golf’s 10th individual NCAA champion.
Individually, his return to Hawaii once again produced a scorching 62, but victory eluded him. It would not be long before he returned to the winner’s circle, doing so two events later at the Cabo Collegiate. Stout would be a mainstay at the top of leaderboards the rest of the way with three top 10s before repeating at the Big 12 Championship. Battling illness during the final round, Stout closed with an impressive 3-under 67 at a major championship-caliber test in Southern Hills Country Club before finishing his season with a third-place showing at the NCAA Championship. Naturally, the fear of any coach after reaching college golf’s pinnacle would be that of apathy setting in for a collegiate player. “I think as a coach, any time you achieve a goal like that, there is always a concern for yourself and your team,” Bratton said. “I have not seen that in Preston at all. He has definitely been a shining example of exactly what you are supposed to do. That is something that has separated all of our best players, the drive to always want to continue to improve.” Far from content, Stout parlayed the momentum from OSU’s title run into a dominant victory over the summer at the prestigious Northeast Amateur before claiming medalist honors at the U.S. Amateur. Additionally, he would represent the United States on three occasions throughout the summer and fall, doing so at the Arnold Palmer Cup, the Walker Cup and the World Amateur Team Championship. The upward trajectory continued throughout Stout’s junior season as he focused on helping the Cowboys repeat as NCAA champions for the first time in program history. Along the way, he became the first player in Big 12 history to capture three individual titles. Making Stout’s feat even more impressive was doing so on three prestigious, yet very different styles of tracks after adding Prairie Dunes Country Club to his list of conquered venues. Conference title No. 3 put Stout in the rarest of company as he became the first Cowboy since Lindy Miller’s run from 1976 to 1978 to win three consecutive league crowns. While OSU’s quest to repeat came to an end in the NCAA semifinals, Stout did not walk away empty handed, becoming the program’s 10th individual national champion. With his victory at La Costa, Stout set the school mark for a junior with his fifth win of the season and continued his ascent up the school’s all-time wins list. With eight through his first three seasons, he is now just three shy of matching Miller’s standard, which has stood since 1978. While much has been accomplished, there is plenty yet to achieve.
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“Preston has definitely paid attention and is aware of our history and he is making noise in our record books. That has helped him, and I know that is a good drive for him,” Bratton said. This past summer was filled with on-the-job training as Stout made five starts on the PGA Tour. That run included a start at the U.S. Open, a tie for 15th place at the John Deere Classic, as well as a made cut at the ISCO Championship. “I tell him he is already a professional golfer, and he needs to understand that. He is working at it like a pro, and he just needs to keep understanding and gaining that self-belief when he goes out there, so he can transition in and know he is ready to go,” Bratton said. “Preston will come into his senior year as the guy, and everyone is going to be chasing him. That is a great thing to learn now, so when you turn pro you play your way into the same kind of spot.” With a summer’s worth of tour starts under his belt, Stout has taken that professional mindset to heart as he heads into his senior campaign. “I like to look at it as a job, and I know where I want to go with my career. I want to be the best player in the world, I want to win majors and to get to that point, I can never be content with where my game is. I can just get so much better, and there’s so much room for growth for me,” Stout said. “My dad has always instilled that in me. He is the reason for my work ethic.” While professional golf is inevitably in Stout’s future, there is plenty of business to tend to beforehand in Stillwater. Fully aware of the stature the program possesses within the place he cares deeply about, Stout knows the opportunity is there to cement his place among the program’s greats, a difficult task in a program dripping with achievement. “I wanted to come here because you could tell how important golf is. When we say it is a golf school, people think that is said jokingly, but it is real and people care about golf here,” Stout said. “We want to do things that no one has ever done. That is how people remember your name.”
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HAUL OF FAME The Oklahoma State football equipment trailer got a glow-up during the offseason. Featuring a freshly branded look and a new partnership with Love's Travel Stops, the orange and black big rig will log about 10,000 highway miles this fall, traveling as far as Morgantown, W. Va., and Tempe, Ariz. Packed with nearly 100 sets of helmets, shoulder pads, uniforms and cleats, along with athletic training essentials, video equipment and more, the trailer carries everything needed to keep Cowboy Football rolling on the road.
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KYLE BOONE PHOTOS BY BRUCE WATERFIELD STORY BY
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There is a weekend-long itinerary down to the nitty gritty detail for every single recruit who makes an official visit to Oklahoma State, meticulously culled together with thoughtfulness and intentionality by a small team inside the west end zone of Boone Pickens Stadium. They make up the secret sauce to recruiting success under first-year Cowboy head football coach Eric Morris. On the logistical side, former staffer O’nalisa Hall (that’s Mona Lisa without the M) helped build and oversee the operation during a pivotal stretch for Oklahoma State recruiting. Working alongside Hall was Meghan Bartlett, who assisted in the oversight of event-day logistics and now helps carry that framework forward. There’s also a cadre of fellow Cowboys and Cowgirls behind the scenes working as student interns and acting as a human Flex Seal, slapping fixes on potential logistical cracks of official visits, seeing around corners to ensure every recruit’s time in Stillwater is treated with tender love and care, and assisting in carrying out the vision of an official visit weekend. On the personnel side, the operation starts with Ethan Russo, the executive director of player personnel. His team handles the recruiting strategy and evaluation. He and the recruiting staff work closely all year, including — and especially — during official visit season. For every planned
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visit, they will brainstorm the essentials for each player’s short stint in town — what they must see, what they must eat, what connections need to be made. When a brainstorm session wraps, they get right to work. Russo, who arrived in December 2025, says the goal is to translate that recruiting strategy into an unforgettable on-campus experience for prospects and their families. “It’s definitely a combination of flair and creativity.”
WE LIKE YOU
Making each visit a hit is OSU’s calling card. But it is a process. And let’s italicize for emphasis: a process. First order of business: a full evaluation of a player by Russo and his team — of a recruit’s skills, character, their production and even financial fit — must be conducted. Those evaluations get reviewed and kicked all the way up to the top of the organization. Russo’s team works diligently to evaluate players as far in advance as possible. Visits are typically locked in by March or April for a given recruit. For a summer official visit, one could be looking at months of runway between identifying a player as a target and having them actually stepping onto campus. That’s the heavy lift of Russo and company during that phase.
An awesome visit doesn’t come together with some Butch Wax and a prayer, so that’s when the on-campus recruiting team kicks into gear. The staff coordinates everything from travel logistics to individualized visit experiences. As soon as they get the green light, flights are booked, car services are scheduled and hotels are reserved. They also reach out to recruits and their families to gather information about the player’s vision for his visit, such as who they may bring and any specific places they want to visit. As part of the process, OSU stays attuned to social media throughout planning to ensure no one misses a beat on what’s happening with each potential student-athlete. Then there’s the meat and potatoes (sometimes literally). Each visit has a template, if you will, with the essentials included for every recruit. But each recruit has his own special touch, too. Regardless of if it’s a five-star from Dallas, a three-star from Kansas or a no-star from Timbuktu, they all get a custom work-up and personal touches — like remembering teammates’ names, family members, pets and other odds and ends — that can be layered into conversation to make the visitor feel at home. “From a template perspective, we typically know when everyone will arrive and when everyone will leave,” Bartlett said. “But when it comes to a specific schedule, we go to great lengths to make sure we’re customizing it to the player.”
For those who follow recruiting on social media, that once looked like a loaded bed full of goodies as a recruit arrives at their hotel. Cookie cake. Clothes. Swag. But gone are those days. New rules stipulate that nothing can be placed into rooms anymore. Instead, the staff meets recruits at their hotel downstairs to hand-deliver goodies and swag. “Our staff is usually at the hotel to greet them and make them feel loved,” Bartlett said. “Just so they get that warm welcome when they do arrive. We’re a very tight-knit family. When you’re here, you can tell that’s what our staff is about. That’s a very big emphasis and priority for us.” The culture, the personal touch, the relationships all still matter in high-major college football, too. There is a personal side OSU’s staff shows to recruits and families that aligns with the small-town feel of Stillwater. The goal is authenticity. Rather than presenting a carefully manufactured version of campus life, the staff emphasizes genuine relationships and a realistic picture of the Oklahoma State experience. “What you see is what you get,” Bartlett said. Big-time college football in the era of Name, Image and Likeness is also a business. If recruiting rankings were a 1:1 correlation to the congeniality of its head coach, OSU might have the No. 1 class in the country. But the money is not an
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insignificant part of the equation now when it comes to attracting — and retaining — talent.
LET’S TALK TURKEY
“It’s business-like when you’re interacting with an agent and understanding, okay, what is a player’s market?” Russo said. “What other offers do they have? What’s the type of package the player would be interested in? Are they open to a two-year deal? Would they consider an incentivebased contract?” Keeping a constant line of communication with the player’s family or agent is critical in the recruiting process — and doubly so on the financial front. The opportunities on the field, the development plan and the academics are important, to be sure. But everyone has to be on the same page about where things stand on the financial front for visits. “At the end of the day,” Russo said, “money is the deciding factor nine times out of ten with this stuff now. But when the money is close or even, it goes back to, ‘Hey, who’s got the better relationship with the kid? Does he feel comfortable here?’” That’s where OSU hopes to win. That’s where OSU has almost always had to win. Each school pulls out its own special stops for recruits to highlight the uniqueness of the town and campus. That takes shape in different ways at different times at OSU but has included Brandon Weeden stopping in after a dinner to share his story, and even bringing in horses — yes, literally, horses — for recruits to hop on inside Boone Pickens Stadium. In a photo shared by a recruit who visited in the spring and subsequently made a verbal commitment, the recruit is captured — on horseback — leaning down to gather a fist-bump from Morris, who is also saddled up behind him — with each rocking matching black cowboy hats. One visit even featured four live horses on the field as part of a custom photoshoot setup. Among other OSU-centric twists on visit weekends includes a rotating cast of captivating cars — a 1969 black Ford Mustang Mach 1 with orange stripes, an orange Jeep Rubicon with the license tag “GO2OSU,” and a 1930s style orange Ford Coupe, among others — to amp up the aura for photoshoots. OSU even rolls out an orange carpet, red carpet style, to showcase the locker room and alter the ambiance to a more formal setting. OSU famously has “Bullet” on game days. But because there are rules blocking any sort of game-day simulations, the real Bullet cannot be used as a recruiting tool. Only Bullet lookalikes.
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Mose Phillips III during a recruiting visit prior to signing with the Cowboy Football team.
HEAT CHECK The level of detail involved in planning a visit is exhaustive. But even with weeks and sometimes months to check and re-check, confirm and re-confirm, visits can be a highwire act. “I always say the schedule’s a draft,” Bartlett said. “It is constantly changing. Even on event day, we can pivot at any second.” Each recruit is assigned a staff host with the goal of helping shepherd them through their personalized itinerary. The host serves as the eyes and ears on the ground. If they hear something that makes their eyes sparkle — like, say, a family member mentioning mid-visit that they refuse to leave town without having cheese fries from Eskimo Joe’s — that information flows to the people who can help make things happen, and they work it in on the fly. Russo stays in constant contact with the host and likes to check the temperature in real time. “I’m in communications with the hosts saying, ‘Okay, how do we feel like the visit’s going,’” Russo said. “Are there any talking points we need to make sure our staff emphasizes? Is there anything we haven’t hit that we need to hit? What do you get from a vibe standpoint as the kid’s decision-making factor? Do we need to sell our development more?” Russo — whose job it is to gather and act on intel — uses this information to run up the flagpole. It gets packaged and sent all the way up the chain to the head coach, the position coach and coordinators, and into the room where financial negotiations happen. It’s a modernized operation for a modern world. “I can feed the information and create reports for coach Morris, our coordinators and Raj [Murti], whenever he’s going through the negotiation process,” Russo said of OSU’s first general manager. “We take all that and tailor our pitch to make sure we emphasize our strengths. Each pitch is so unique with respect to who each family and player is and what they prioritize.” Through all of it — months and sometimes years spent evaluating, hours upon hours planning visits, constant communications with families and the players — sometimes a bigger paycheck from another school wins out. Sometimes, though, the late nights, the early mornings and the painstaking attention to tiny details proves worth it. A commitment turns into a signing; a recruit transitions to becoming a player. The cycle continues. Russo said he doesn’t celebrate commitments like some might think. In today’s age, he acknowledges that nothing is final until the ink is dry. “Until you get them to signing day, you never know,” Russo said. The real payoff, and when Russo finally celebrates, comes later.
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“The real joy comes from being able to watch those guys play on Saturdays and seeing it all come together,” he said. “That’s the big moment for me. Getting them in the building, seeing them developed by our coaches and strength staff, and then putting that all together on the field.” The framework Hall helped establish remains in place today, even as she has moved on to a new opportunity within the recruiting industry. Bartlett, recruiting staff members and an army of interns handle the planning. Russo and his team evaluate and make decisions in coordination with the GM. It’s a multi-departmental undertaking that exists with one goal in mind: putting together a team so undeniable that it will make the walls of Boone Pickens Stadium reverberate louder than the Paddle People on Saturdays. That is evidenced by the genuineness of the staff, the sincerity of their purpose, and the familial culture ready to lift OSU back to prominence. In a big-business sport like college football driven by financial packages, two-year deals and licensing contracts, Oklahoma State believes genuine relationships and personal connections can still make a difference, one official visit at a time. That might be the most radical thing Oklahoma State can offer.
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RUSH HOUR Thousands of Cowboy fans flooded the field at Boone Pickens Stadium following Oklahoma State's 39-31 win over Oregon on Sept. 12. The first victory of the Eric Morris Era was one for the ages, as the Pokes outplayed the sixth-ranked Ducks in nearly all facets of the game. The decisive win gave the fans a reason to celebrate and provided much-needed momentum for the resurgent program. The west goal post would eventually topple and was carried to Theta Pond where the celebration continued.
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Kat Comes Back to Lead Cowgirl Tennis Story by Gavin Lang Photos by Bruce Waterfield
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The vision was always clear for Katarina Adamovic — until it wasn’t. As a six-year-old in Čačak, Serbia — which Adamovic says is similar in size to Stillwater — she was introduced to tennis. Most of her childhood revolved around the sport and she developed into a standout. Her parents encouraged her to pursue the game but gave her enough space and freedom to do it on her own terms. At age 12, she left her parents to train in Spain, then there was a similar move to Germany and another to London. She grew as a player, but it was at the expense of some of the best years of her life. It meant being displaced from her friends, her country, her parents and her home. Despite that, the vision was clear — Kat Adamovic was on a path to being a professional tennis player. While Adamovic’s parents had enough confidence to let her make many of her own decisions, her mother, Olivera, drew one clear line. “You’re going to college in the U.S., and you’re never going to look back,” Adamovic recalled. It was a noble thought, but doing so would not be consistent with the path of many aspiring professionals on the European youth tennis circuit. And Kat knew it. “I didn’t want to come to college at all,” Adamovic said. Adamovic is as strong-willed, gritty and confident as they come, but she was no match for the resilience and toughness of her mother on this one. After the death of her father when she was just six years old, Olivera was raised by her widowed mother. Her experiences along the way built toughness and made clear the importance of a good education as a path to a better life. Fast forward to the late ’90s, with war raging in Serbia. The Adamovic family had become familiar with the sights and sounds of bombings. Kat specifically recalls seeing one from the family’s backyard. With their second-floor bedroom a dangerous place to be, Olivera and her husband, Goran, slept in a downstairs living room while young Kat slept in a basement that was only big enough for one. Her parents were choosing to serve as a layer of protection between Kat and potential bombs. There was another time during the war when Kat and Olivera were out for an evening walk. They got about a half mile away from home when the sirens sounded, which generally preceded bombing threats by about 30 minutes. Olivera immediately picked Kat up from the ground and ran the full distance back. “My mom is strong, but I didn’t think she was that strong to carry me the whole way,” Kat said. “As a kid you don’t know what’s going on, but that is such a vivid memory for me, even now.”
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With that as the background, and contrary to Kat’s clear vision of turning pro, when Olivera said Kat was going to the United States for college, Kat was going to the United States for college, period. But where?
COURTING KAT
By the time Kat was looking at potential college landing spots, she was a swashbuckling star. Intense competitive fire, demonstrative emotion and remarkable athleticism were her signature traits. She was a roaring lion who was everywhere on the court and had developed into one of Europe’s top youth players. While she didn’t want to go to college, she did always have a dream of coming to America. She had watched enough movies and TV to know that the U.S. appealed to her. She researched what American college tennis looked like and learned about the top programs. Influenced by her own research, and also in part by the entertainment industry, a preferred school emerged. When the word got out that she was coming to the U.S., top programs lined up. Her preferred school was one of them, and they offered. UCLA. Texas, too. She was getting the kind of interest that a top recruit would get, and her options were clear. Until they weren’t. Adamovic spurned both the Bruins and the Longhorns during a visit with then Oklahoma State coach Chris Young. Young traveled to Serbia to meet with Kat and her father, and after laying out what his expectations would be for her, he made the pitch — she would be an important player for an Oklahoma State program that was moving into a glistening new facility and that she, along with already-committed Cowgirl Viktoriya Lushkova, would elevate OSU into the national elite. What hooked Adamovic was the idea of doing something that hadn’t been done before. Through her research, she figured that at UCLA or Texas, she would be one of many good players charged with upholding an established standard. At Oklahoma State, she had a chance to do something truly special. Adamovic knew of Lushkova, a dominating Ukrainian wrecking ball who was a well-known figure on the European youth scene. She said in her mind, it went something like this: “I trust the Oklahoma State coaches, and a team with Vik and me probably just needs a few more puzzle pieces to be one of the
Adamovic’s journey from the European youth tennis circuit to Stillwater brought her together with fellow OSU standout Viktoriya Lushkova.
best in the country.” She committed to Oklahoma State on the spot.
MATCHING UP
Kat Adamovic and Viktoriya Lushkova would be responsible for turning Cowgirl Tennis into a powerhouse and from there, Adamovic would go pro. The vision was clear. Until it wasn’t. “I was expecting to be one of the top two players from the start, right?” Adamovic said. “I skipped the fall and showed up in January. Viktoriya did, too.” Nine of Adamovic’s first 12 results as a Cowgirl freshman were defeats, and most of them were at the No. 4 singles position. She faced only one top-100 player in college tennis that season and still couldn’t win. Meanwhile, Lushkova went 16-2 that first year, playing almost exclusively at No. 1 singles. Adamovic wasn’t getting the results she wanted, but Lushkova made winning look effortless. The frustration bubbled to the surface for Adamovic. The two got along well off the court, but it was a different story on the court, especially in practice.
“They had to keep us separate on the court because of the competitiveness in both of us,” Adamovic said. “We couldn’t even play a practice match. It wasn’t good.” What was going on? It’s not like the problem was lack of effort or toughness. Heck, this is Olivera Adamovic’s daughter we are talking about here. Resilience is perhaps her greatest attribute. The frustration was real, but Adamovic said Lushkova’s success and competitiveness pushed her to become better, both on and off the court. “It really took me some time to quit being stubborn, to accept the team aspect of college tennis and to really embrace it,” Adamovic said. “It wasn’t until our junior year that Vik and I got on the same page.” Lushkova and Adamovic went on to be the biggest stars of the best season in the history of the program. In 2016, OSU won the Big 12 and was national runner-up, with both earning All-America recognition and Adamovic voted as the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament. The Cowgirls’ postseason run was must-watch, even for casual OSU fans who knew nothing about tennis. During that stretch of time, Adamovic and Lushkova went from Cowgirl Tennis standouts to OSU legends.
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“Viktoriya Lushkova is one of the most influential people in my tennis career because of how much she challenged me and how much she pushed me,” Adamovic said. Sounds great, right? Kat finally got over herself, figured things out with Vik and the Cowgirls lived happily ever after. It wasn’t nearly that simple, though. In the fall of 2015, just months before her star turn, Adamovic nearly walked away from tennis altogether. Her fall season started with an inexplicable round-of-16 loss at the Little Rock Invitational. She lost in straight sets in the consolation bracket the next day. Then she lost in the first round of the All-American Championships the following week. She was 1-3 to start the year. “One of my goals was to be the fittest player in the country, and I really was that year,” Adamovic said. “I was focused 24/7 on what I was doing, I was working out extra, I was playing extra, I was truly dedicated but here I was taking some of the worst losses of my life.” After her early exit from the All-American Championships, Adamovic called OSU’s coaches to inform them that she was done with tennis, and they could take her scholarship away. From her perspective, she was doing everything right and was truly giving everything she had, but it just wasn’t working. “I always pride myself of being the hardest worker in a room, but I wasn’t seeing full results of that hard work,” she said. “I saw other people maybe putting less work and having more success, and I was just done.” She was discouraged. Young’s response? “Just come back, and we’ll talk.” The Cowgirls were hosting the ITA Regional Championships at the Greenwood Tennis Center the following week, and Young used that as part of the rationale for why Adamovic should continue to push. Unconvinced that it was the right thing to do, but encouraged by a strong week of practice, she agreed to play. In her first match, she won a three-set battle with a player from SIU-Edwardsville. “I almost lost. I remember coming off the court and thinking I knew this was not the right idea to play,” Adamovic said. She regrouped and won her next six matches at the event, with four of those wins coming in straight sets. A straight-set win in the finals earned Adamovic a spot at the ITA indoor National Championships in New York. At nationals, she drew Virginia’s Danielle Collins as her first-round opponent. Just two seasons prior, Collins was the NCAA singles champion. She went on to win a second NCAA singles title and play in the Olympics. She was the best player in college tennis at the time.
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Adamovic’s intensity quickly made her a favorite to OSU fans during the Cowgirls’ run to a national runner-up finish at the 2016 NCAA Tennis Championships.
“When I was here as a player, I only knew about one thing and that was tennis. Now, I look at how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown and how the entire experience has shaped me to what I am today.” — KATARINA ADAMOVIC
Adamovic beat her. “I was really about to quit tennis, but after that win, I was like, ‘Wow, this is what I was waiting for my whole life — just to see these results, the results of my hard work.’” Re-energized, Adamovic went from nearly quitting college tennis to becoming one of its greatest stars in the span of about six months. “I believe in hard work and I believe in myself,” she said. “That's the year that I learned, no matter how you feel, just stick to it. Keep pushing through it, and the good things are right around the corner when you want to quit the most.”
LOVE FOR COACHING
The path was winding, but vision came into focus. Adamovic helped anchor a new level of success that had not previously been achieved at Oklahoma State, and she was a star of the college game. As she tells it, one of the key moments came when she truly embraced the team aspect of college tennis, which is much different than the individual nature of European youth circuit. What do stars of the college game do after graduation? They turn pro. This was always the path for Kat Adamovic, right? The vision was clear, right? Right?!? Of course it was, but something happened along the way — Kat Adamovic fell in love with college tennis, she just didn’t know how to articulate it at the time. After graduation, she went to work at a country club in Connecticut. “I’m going to save some money and then hit the tour. That was the goal,” Adamovic said. Adamovic knew that for her to go pro, her best opportunity was to return to Serbia, but she also felt that in the long run, what was best for her would be to stay in the United States and get into coaching. Then the phone rang. It was Cincinnati head coach Eric Toth offering a position as an assistant coach. That’s when it crystallized for her. “I love college tennis because it gives you family, and it gives you a sense of home. The pro tour doesn’t give you that,” she said. “Maybe me lacking that for the majority of my life is what draws me so much into college tennis.” She was fresh out of OSU and immediately got an opportunity to coach at a Division I program like Cincinnati. Her heart was pulling her to coaching, but it wasn’t that simple.
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“My dad was against it,” she said. “My dad really wanted me to try and go pro and not have any regrets of ‘what if?’ Because after 2016, I was playing at a very high level.” It makes sense, really. The ball was in Kat’s court. “My heart was just telling me to get into coaching,” she determined. “Looking back, I think that was always my calling to get into coaching and not go pro.” She followed her heart and took the job. After three years as a Cincinnati assistant and one at Missouri, she was named head coach at Grand Canyon, where she earned Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors in 2024. She was then hired as head coach at Houston, where she inherited a program that was 2-19 overall and 0-13 in the Big 12 the year prior to her arrival. She transformed it into one that went 17-6 overall and 8-5 in the league just two years later. That caught the attention of Oklahoma State Athletic Director Chad Weiberg, who hired Adamovic as head coach in April of 2026. “Did I think this would ever happen? No,” Adamovic said. “An opportunity like this only comes once and when it comes, you’d better be ready.” So much for a clear vision.
HOME COURT
Kat Adamovic had a signature set of traits as a player. Her athletic gifts were remarkable. Her competitive passion was remarkable. Her overall presence was remarkable — she was a tennis player, an MMA fighter and P.T. Barnum rolled into one. But being a successful head coach requires additional traits. “It’s about connecting with players on a deeper human level,” Adamovic said. “They need to hear my story. They need to know the mistakes I made. When they understand what I have been through, they’ll understand my larger vision.” It’s possible that the greatest blessing of her playing career wasn’t in the winning, rather, it may have been in the highs and lows of the journey as whole. “I’m much more mature now,” she said. “When I was here as a player, I only knew about one thing and that was tennis. Now, I look at how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown and how the entire experience has shaped me to what I am today.” One place where Adamovic’s more mature view of tennis and life may be on display is in the kind of players she is drawn to in recruiting. “I try to recruit players based on where they come from, who they are as people, their family and where they were brought up,” she said. “I want to find out as much about them as possible because that is what is going to determine how we relate to each other.”
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It takes a lot more time, effort and research to recruit that way than it does to look at the rankings and then pursue the top players. “Knowing where they came from or how they were raised will tell me if they have the ability to be uncomfortable,” she said. “In some places, it’s harder to play tennis because you have to deal with a lot of other obstacles. I can relate to that because I lived it. That kind of toughness and grit fits our culture.” What about the tennis side? Does Adamovic prefer to fill her roster with more aggressive players or more defensive-minded players? Maybe she looks for a big forehand or a big backhand? “I couldn’t care less,” she said. “My job is not to pick the way they want to play tennis. My job is to help them grow into the women they want to become.” Adamovic missed out on many elements of a traditional childhood as she chased individual greatness away from home. Her journey brought her to the United States, where she found family at Oklahoma State and in the team structure of college tennis. Now, she is back in Stillwater as head coach of the Cowgirls, but with a new signature trait — the maturity of being able to trust, even when the vision may not always be so clear.
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Baseball
When OSU announced its scholarship endowment initiative, the athletic program was last in the Big 12. Now, more than halfway through the 10-year program, OSU leads the conference.
11.5
FULL SCHOLARSHIP
Dennis and Karen Wing (3) | Hal Tompkins Sandy Lee | Jennifer and Steven Grigsby Mike Bode and Preston Carrier (2) David and Julie Ronck
But we’re not finished yet.
HALF SCHOLARSHIP
Each dollar freed up through endowed scholarships goes back into our programs. Better equipment. Better facilities. Better support. Each dollar has a direct impact on the lives of our student-athletes.
Sally Graham Skaggs
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
Dennis and Luanne Campbell Bryant and Carla Coffman David and Grace Helmer | Jill Rooker Martha Seabolt | Dr. Scott Anthony John and Beverly Williams Richard and Lawana Kunze
This is the list of all the generous supporters who have helped to provide a bright Orange future.
Equestrian
PHOTO RAINE FARRAR
They are our Honor Roll.
1.25
FULL SCHOLARSHIP
Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP David and Gina Dabney
Football
35.0
FULL SCHOLARSHIP
Bob and Kay Norris Bryant and Carla Coffman / The Merkel Foundation David LeNorman | Dennis and Karen Wing (3) Dr. Mark and Beth Brewer Ike and Marybeth Glass Jack and Carol Corgan Jim Click | John and Gail Shaw Ken and Jimi Davidson | Leslie Dunavant Mike and Kristen Gundy Mike and Robbie Holder Ron Stewart | Ross and Billie McKnight Sandy Lee | Tom and Sandra Wilson Wray and Julie Valentine James and Mary Barnes
HALF SCHOLARSHIP
Cindy Hughes | Donald Coplin Doug Thompson | Ed and Helen Wallace R. Kirk Whitman | Greg Casillas Jim and Lynne Williams / John and Patti Brett Mike and Judy Johnson | Sally Graham Skaggs State Rangers | Tom Naugle | Nate Watson
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
Al and Martha Strecker Arthur “Andy” Johnson, Jr. Arthur Couch | Barry and Roxanne Pollard Bill and Ruth Starr | Brad and Leah Gungoll Brian K. Pauling Bridgecreek Investment Management LLC Bryan Close | David and Cindy Waits David and Gina Dabney | Dr. Berno Ebbesson
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Senior midfielder Keaton Mitchell punctuates her decisive goal against TCU on September 17, as teammate Laudan Wilson (11) joins the celebration. The Cowgirls added another insurance goal and cruised to a 3-1 upset of the 14th-ranked Horned Frogs at Neal Patterson Stadium.
Dr. Ron and Marilynn McAfee Eddy and Deniece Ditzler | Flintco Fred and Janice Gibson | Fred and Karen Hall Howard Thill | James and LaVerna Cobb Jerry and Lynda Baker | John P. Melot Jerry and Rae Winchester John S. Clark | Ken and Leitner Greiner Kent and Margo Dunbar | Paul and Mona Pitts Les and Nancy Austin Randall and Carol White | Shelli Osborn Roger and Laura Demaree Steve and Diane Tuttle Tony and Finetta Banfield
Men's Golf
7.0
FULL SCHOLARSHIP
David and Julie Ronck Dennis and Karen Wing Jack and Carol Corgan Bob and Elizabeth Nickles Genevieve A. Robinson Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam
HALF SCHOLARSHIP Simmons Bank
General
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
HALF SCHOLARSHIP
Men's Tennis
1.75
Terry and Martha Barker James C. and Frances M. Harrison
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP David and Judy Powell Kenneth and Susan Crouch Sally Graham Skaggs
Graduate Athlete
0.75
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
Bob and Joan Hert | Neal Seidle Tom and Cheryl Hamilton
Men's Basketball
24.5
FULL SCHOLARSHIP
Garland and Penny Cupp Richard and Joan Welborn
0.75
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP Tom and Cheryl Hamilton
HALF SCHOLARSHIP Jim McDowell Men's
Men's Track
0.75
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
Dr. Mark and Susan Morrow Susan Anderson | Ken and Leitner Greiner
HALF SCHOLARSHIP
Mary Jane and Brent Wooten
Soccer
Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam A.J. and Susan Jacques Bill and Marsha Barnes Brett and Amy Jameson Calvin and Linda Anthony Chuck and Kim Watson David and Julie Ronck (1.25) Dennis and Karen Wing (3) Douglas and Nickie Burns Griff and Mindi Jones James and Mary Barnes | Jim Vallion Ken and Jimi Davidson Kent and Margo Dunbar | KimRay Inc. Sandy Lee | Mitch Jones Memorial
1.0
HALF SCHOLARSHIP
8.0
David and Julie Ronck Dr. Mark and Susan Morrow Jay and Connie Wiese | Sally Graham Skaggs Stan Clark | Billy Wayne Travis Holloman Family
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
Dr. Scott and Lynne Anthony Gary and Sue Homsey Michael and Heather Grismore Rick and Suzanne Maxwell Robert and Sharon Keating Steve and Suzie Crowder Terry and Donna Tippens
FULL SCHOLARSHIP
James and Mary Barnes
Softball
0.75
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP Tom and Cheryl Hamilton Richard Melot Ann Dyer
Women’s Basketball FULL SCHOLARSHIP
Brad and Margie Schultz Ken and Jimi Davidson Mike Bode and Preston Carrier (2)
HALF SCHOLARSHIP
Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam Don and Mary McCall John and Caroline Linehan Calvin and Linda Anthony
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
Bill and Roberta Armstrong Dennis and Luanne Campbell Bill and Sally Cunningham Donald Coplin | Jill Rooker Richard and Linda Rodgers Jo Hughes and Deborah J. Ernst Richard Melot
Women’s Golf
3.0
FULL SCHOLARSHIP
Baloo and Maribeth Subramaniam Genevieve A. Robinson Louise Solheim
HALF SCHOLARSHIP
David and Julie Ronck | Dena Dills Nowotny
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
Amy Weeks | Kent and Margo Dunbar
Women’s Tennis
0.5
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP Jamie Maher Richard Melot
Wrestling
11.25
FULL SCHOLARSHIP
A.J. and Susan Jacques Bruce and Nancy Smith Chuck and Kim Watson Lon and Jane Winton OSU Wrestling – White Jacket Club / Gallagher Endowed Wrestling Scholarship OSU Wrestling – White Jacket Club / Myron Roderick Endowed Wrestling Scholarship OSU Wrestling – White Jacket Club / Ray Murphy Endowed Wrestling Scholarship OSU Wrestling – White Jacket Club / Tommy Chesbro Endowed Wrestling Scholarship The Cobb Family
HALF SCHOLARSHIP
Mike and Glynda Pollard Mark and Lisa Snell Bobby and Michelle Marandi
QUARTER SCHOLARSHIP
Danny and Dana Baze / Cory and Mindy Baze Kyle and Debbie Hadwiger John and Beverly Williams | R.K. Winters
To learn more about how you can contribute, please contact: Brakston Brock (405-744-9130) Matt Grantham (405-744-5938) Andrew Hamor (405-744-4530) Daniel Heflin (405-744-7301) Larry Reece (405-744-2824) Shawn Taylor (405-612-0632)
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OSU PARTNERS WITH OSAGE NATION CLAY BILLMAN PHOTOS BY BRUCE WATERFIELD, OSAGE NATION AND OSU ATHLETICS ARCHIVES STORY BY
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The Osage Nation is having a moment. That’s obvious to anyone who has followed the headlines of the past few years, and not just within Oklahoma’s borders. From Killers of the Flower Moon (in print and on the silver screen) to Netflix’s 2026 reboot of Little House on the Prairie, and amid renewed conversations about tribal sovereignty and Native representation, the spotlight on Osage history and culture has never been brighter. Now, that visibility extends to the playing field, with millions of college sports fans tuning in.
A PATCHWORK ORANGE
In January of this year, the NCAA Division I Cabinet formally approved commercial sponsorship patches on uniforms, equipment and apparel (up to four inches in size) beginning with the 2026 fall semester. On June 23, Oklahoma State was the first Big 12 Conference member — and one of the first athletic departments in the country — to announce a patch partnership. Since that time, a number of other colleges (and even the Big 12 itself) announced co-branded corporate deals. While many schools will feature financial firms, health care providers, energy companies or regional brands emblazoned across their chest, OSU’s jersey patch hits a little different. “Oklahoma State Athletics and the Osage Nation are partnering in a landmark collaboration that celebrates a shared commitment to education, land, and the future of Oklahoma,” the official press release read. “As part of the partnership, uniforms for all Oklahoma State University athletic teams will feature an Osage jersey patch beginning with the 2026-27 competition season.” For Kimberly Pearson, CEO of Osage Casinos, the real opportunity lies beyond visibility. The goal is connection. “Our logo and the Osage name will be seen in a platform that we haven’t typically been able to reach,” she says. “When OSU is playing, people are going to see the patch, and that starts a conversation about who we are as a people. And I think that’s important, especially in this day and age. “In Oklahoma, lots of people know about tribes because we’ve grown up with it. But you go outside Oklahoma, to places where Native populations were removed generations ago, and people don’t always understand that. So I think that’s important.” From the OSU side, the partnership was more than merely transactional. “We didn’t want to just stick a logo on our jersey for a certain amount of money,” says OSU Senior Associate AD for Development Brakston Brock. “We wanted it to be a
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partnership with an entity that we were aligned with. We are aligned with the Osage Nation. We share values. We share commonalities with the people … there are a ton of things that make sense about the partnership.” For Pearson, an Oklahoma State alumna, the partnership is also personal. “My family bleeds orange,” she says. “OSU has always been in our blood. I graduated in 1997 with a degree in business administration. My father (the Hon. Douglas C. Revard) graduated from OSU and has been a longtime season ticket holder. My daughter, Peyton, played soccer at K-State before transferring to Oklahoma State for her final two seasons. She just started vet school at OSU this semester.” In charge of seven properties, including Tulsa’s Osage Casino Hotel, Pearson views the partnership as a natural fit. “When this opportunity presented itself, I felt like it was an incredible fit,” she says. “As I’m driving to Stillwater for games, I’m headed in the direction of our casinos, so I could see the business side of it. But over the years, so many Osages have attended Oklahoma State, and you can see the impact education has on the Nation.
“ I’m proud, not only of us, but of the other tribes that have become a force in Oklahoma’s economic development.” — KIMBERLY PEARSON “I’ve seen it through agriculture, through health care and through business. My middle daughter, Presli, just graduated and is attending the OSU Center for Health Sciences. The Osage have built new health clinics that will need doctors and health professionals. We operate large cattle and bison herds. Education helps provide the expertise our tribe needs to succeed in the future, and it’s a critical part of that. For me, and for many Osages, OSU is where that foundation was built.” As a member of the Osage Nation’s Gray Horse District (as well as the Cherokee and Kaw tribes), Pearson says the jersey patch is not about taking market share from other Indian gaming operations. “I don’t know that I necessarily consider it competition,” she explains. “It’s just where our business is. I’m proud, not only of us, but of the other tribes that have become a force in Oklahoma’s economic development. Yes, we're marketing our business entities, but it's also that backstory of who we are, where we came from and where we’re going.
Osage Casinos CEO Kimberly Pearson and Principal Chief Joe Tillman were recognized among the Osage Nation delegation during OSU’s win over Oregon.
“In the current environment in Oklahoma, sometimes there’s a misconception about what tribes get, or don’t get. We’re a force in Oklahoma, and the Osage specifically. We’re the largest employer in Osage County, which is a rural county. The Nation provides roads. We help bridge gaps in health care. Those things are possible because of our economic development.” Telling the Osage Nation’s story, and preserving it for future generations, is equally important to Pearson. “It’s an exciting time,” she says. “But talking about the past is just as important to our future because we revere our elders. They are who got us to where we are now. I take a lot of pride in that because the Osages were always powerful people. They were always part of history, but over time the story got told differently. “Now is a great time because people are looking back and realizing we were always here. We’ve always been a part of the growth of not only Oklahoma, but this country. It’s exciting to see people finally see us in that light.” Pearson acknowledges the partnership carries tangible business benefits, but she believes its value extends far beyond the bottom line. “You’re always going to have the business aspect of it, so I absolutely look at it as driving additional revenue to the casino and our economic engines,” she explains. “But we have a bigger
purpose than just generating revenue. OSU is an educational institution, and we’re really there to promote the future of Oklahoma and our students and citizens. When you consider the business, educational and cultural aspects, I think it’s a great partnership.” The excitement surrounding the sponsorship extends beyond the casino floor. Joe Tillman, the newly elected Principal Chief of the Osage Nation, is a former Cowboy football player, and he’s keenly aware of the current competitive landscape. “In the world we’re in with college sports and NIL, you’ve got to have people that step up and make a difference,” Tillman says. “I felt like Osage Casinos did that in a big way. I like the partnership because I understand how the game has changed.” The Osage Chief says he can’t take credit for the deal, although he’d like to. “It was announced right after election day, and people said, ‘Dang, Joe, you’re already making moves.’ I had to tell them I didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m just really pleased for our gaming enterprise to step up and get involved like that. I think it’s wonderful. “I’m really proud of Kim and her staff and what they have done to get this job done,” adds Tillman.
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“ We are aligned with the Osage Nation. We share values. We share commonalities with the people … there are a ton of things that make sense about the partnership.” — BRAKSTON BROCK
Brian Parrish played an integral role in the partnership between the Osage Nation and OSU Athletics.
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THE HEART OF THE DEAL
Bringing the landmark agreement to life required months of collaboration between leaders from both organizations. Brock says the initial contact between OSU and the tribe came from Bill Webb, executive director of the Osage Nation Foundation. “Coach (Eric) Morris, Steve Keasler (special assistant to the head coach), and I were at the Bedlam baseball game at Globe Life Field in Arlington last February,” he explains. “Bill was there as a guest of Steve’s. We kind of hung out in the back of the suite and got to know each other … eventually the topic of a jersey patch came up. Bill said, ‘I really think you all should sit down with (Osage Casinos) and have a conversation.’ Within about a month, he got us a meeting with Osage.” “Bill came to me and said OSU Athletics would like to talk to us,” Pearson explains. “I didn’t know what it was about, but I was all ears because I had been pushing my marketing team to get more involved with athletics and see where we could truly position ourselves.”
A key player in the negotiations was Brian Parrish, chief operating officer of Osage Casinos. “Brian was taking the lead on this project,” Pearson says. “I put him in charge of finding out exactly what it was. When he brought it to me, it was not at all what I was expecting. I was like, ‘Whoa, this is something completely different.’ It was exactly what we were looking for because we needed something that stood out and separated us from everyone else.” Parrish worked closely with the OSU team throughout the spring as the partnership began to take shape. “It evolved to where Steve Keasler, Brian Parrish and I had probably a month’s worth of phone calls before it ever went anywhere else,” Brock says. “We were trying to get them numbers and understand what they wanted to accomplish. Brian brought more people to the table, including Osage Casinos CFO Keisha Roland.” On the Oklahoma State side, getting the agreement across the goal line was a true team effort. “We brought more people to the table, like Jesse Martin (Deputy Athletic Director and Chief Commercial Officer) and Andrew Hamor (Deputy AD for Development) and Kip Racy (Cowboy Sports Properties General Manager) to further those discussions. It was probably a three- or fourmonth process.” As plans were being finalized for a summer announcement ahead of Big 12 Media Days, the project suffered a devastating setback.
Parrish passed away unexpectedly on May 31 at the age of 65. The sudden loss stunned the Osage family, as well as the Oklahoma State officials who had come to know him during the process. “What was special about Brian is that he wasn’t Native American, but he had a true love for tribal people, especially the Osage,” Pearson says. “He could see things from a different perspective, and he was passionate about making sure Native people were seen for who they really are, what our history truly is and what we give back. “Brian had actually started his MBA at Oklahoma State. This deal meant so much to him. He was so excited about it. He was critical to the deal,” Pearson adds. “And he would have been over the moon about this.” In a few short months, Parrish made an impact on his OSU counterparts. “From my perspective, Brian was one of the coolest people I’ve ever had the chance to meet,” Brock says. “He had this infectious spirit about him. Brian made everybody around him feel better. “Every time we were on a call — even if we were in the heat of contract negotiations, going back and forth on numbers or whatever — it always ended on a positive note. It never got contentious. He just didn’t see it that way, and we didn’t either.” Though he didn’t live to see the announcement, Parrish’s spirit is stitched into the partnership. Brian had given Morris a hardback copy of Killers of the Flower Moon in their initial meeting, Brock adds. “Coach Morris actually talked about that gift and what it meant to him at the POSSE Kickoff Luncheon.”
PATCHES THAT MATCH US
While financial figures were not disclosed, Brock says the overall number is among OSU Athletics’ largest donations. “It’s a three-year partnership,” he explains, “and this would put Osage up there among our most significant donors.” With the increased costs to remain competitive in collegiate athletics, Brock says this sponsorship couldn’t have come at a better time. “As we’ve increased our budget and had some reductions in TV revenue and those types of things, there’s no doubt this money helps fund our commitment to student-athletes,” he explains. “The majority of this deal goes toward funding revenue sharing and departmental expenses, but there’s an NIL component that’s carved out, as well.” The timing of the announcement also earned the tribe and the university substantial media attention, Brock says. Both sides understood the value of leading rather than following.
TOP: Osage Casinos CEO Kimberly Pearson. BOTTOM: Pearson’s daughter Peyton played for the Cowgirl Soccer team.
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OSAGE ORANGE “Being able to turn some of the contract elements and legal details around was pretty impressive on both sides,” he says. “There was a commitment that if we could be the first ones (in the Big 12) to roll this out, the amount of unpaid media attention it would draw was going to be huge. We all agreed that it was more important to get it right — but we also saw the value in being first. At that point there had only been three or four patch announcements nationally and none in the Big 12. “We had national media outlets reaching out wanting to cover the story. Neither OSU nor Osage had to pay for that coverage, but the number of eyeballs on it was pretty significant.” The immediate reaction to the deal was overwhelmingly positive, Brock says. “I think we had all kind of braced ourselves for the natural pushback that comes with corporate sponsorships in college athletics,” Brock admits, “but I was shocked by how little of that we got. “We got a ton of positive feedback. A lot of that comes from partnering with an Oklahoma-based entity in the Osage Nation and the Osage Casino Hotel enterprise. It’s a brand our core people already knew.” And the colors are a perfect match. “I’m biased, but from a look-and-feel standpoint, I’ve yet to see one that looks as good as ours,” Brock boasts. “Even down to their logo being orange, white and black — the way it flows with our uniform color scheme — I think even people who aren’t fans of jersey patches can look at it and say, ‘You know what? It’s on brand. It makes sense.’” Brock says he expects more collaboration between OSU and the Osage Nation, far beyond a simple jersey patch. “I just want to reiterate how awesome their whole staff has been,” he says. “Everybody involved in this was absolutely phenomenal, and we’re two groups that really like working together. I think it will continue to evolve.” The feeling is mutual. For the foreseeable future, the Osage ride with the Cowboys. “There are so many things that we can look at moving forward,” Pearson says. “We’re just in the infancy of this partnership.”
The patch partnership may be new, but the connection is not. Over the years, a number of Osages have proudly worn the orange and black for Oklahoma State.
Duke Atterberry
FOOTBALL (1970-71)
Trevor Boone
BASEBALL (2017-19)
Marques Davis
BASEBALL (1997)
Reuben DeRoin
FOOTBALL (1948-49)
Mason Gilkey
FOOTBALL (2022-24)
J.K. Hadlock
BASKETBALL (2018-20)
Peyton Pearson
SOCCER (2022-23)
Price Perrier
WRESTLING (2019-22)
Wilson Pipestem
TRACK/XC (1988-92)
Paula Tiger-Martinez TRACK/XC (1980-81)
Joe Tillman
FOOTBALL (1978-81)
Aubrey Wagner
SOCCER (2024-PRES.)
Whitney Whitehorn
SOFTBALL (2014-18)
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TILLMAN TALKS OSU FOOTBALL CLAY BILLMAN PHOTOS BY BRUCE WATERFIELD, OSAGE NATION AND OSU ATHLETICS ARCHIVES STORY BY
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On June 1, 2026, the Osage Nation elected its first new principal chief in 12 years. Receiving 60 percent of the vote, Tribal Congressman Joe Tillman was a popular pick to succeed Geoffrey Standing Bear, who served three terms in office. A few weeks after his July 11 inauguration, Chief Tillman was settling-in to his new digs at the Osage Nation’s headquarters in Pawhuska. Much of the office décor was still being decided, but a shiny Oklahoma State football helmet was already on display above Tillman’s desk. Proudly sporting an orange tie, Tillman makes no bones about his allegiance to his alma mater. “I may be the first Indian chief to have ever played for Oklahoma State,” Tillman says. “I’m proud of that. I just think it’s really cool.” Tillman, who went by Jody at the time, was recruited by Jim Stanley out of tiny Fairfax, Oklahoma, located in western Osage County where the Santa Fe Railway traces Salt Creek. At 6-foot-5, Tillman was an imposing presence in the trenches, playing both ways for the Red Devils. “Fairfax was Class B, back when there were only five classes,” Tillman recalls. “We were really good. We had a Hall of Fame coach — Larry Coker — and won two state championships in a row (1975 and 1976). He left for Claremore after my junior year. John Dolezal took over, and we won another state championship my senior year. It was really, really special.” In addition to outstanding coaches, Tillman is quick to credit his teammates — particularly his talented tailback. “We were fortunate. We had a wonderful running back named Arthur Crosby who was the Tulsa World player of the year in Oklahoma.” With his encyclopedic recall, Tillman remembered that the state’s other major newspaper, the Daily Oklahoman, named Del City’s Steve Hammond its player of the year that season. Hammond later joined Tillman at Oklahoma State, where the two were teammates. While winning had been the norm in high school, Tillman’s freshman year in Stillwater was another story. No longer was he a big fish in a small pond. “They didn’t think too highly of freshmen and walk-ons back then,” he says. Tillman also recalls Coach Stanley’s infamous “three-a-day” practices on Lewis Field’s unforgiving artificial surface. “That turf was brutal. The real original AstroTurf. Some of the worst turf burns I’ve ever seen. That stuff that eats you up ... And it was hot. I remember they used to have that zig-zag ramp down to the field, and as we walked to practice, you could see the ripples of heat coming off the turf. Oh, it was hot!”
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Demanding practices were one thing. Losing was another. “I got to OSU in 1978, and we went 0-5 right off the bat,” he says. “It was terrible. It was hard for me because I was used to winning.” Despite the losses, there was a bright spot that freshman season. “I made the travel squad,” Tillman says. “That was a big shock to me. I didn't know if I was any good or not.” The Cowboys started out the season on the road at Wichita State. “We got beat in my very first game,” he recalls. “Came home on a bus, depressed, 18-year-old freshman … “So the very next week we jump on a plane, and we fly to Tallahassee to play Florida State — Bobby Bowden, Doak Campbell Stadium, all that stuff — and I’m sitting on this plane thinking, ‘I’m going to be wearing an Oklahoma State football uniform against Florida State!’ We got there, checked in, went right to the stadium, did our walk-through, and I was just so excited. I thought, ‘You know, a year ago I was getting ready to play Pawnee, and here I am!” Tillman can be forgiven for being a bit starstruck. “Burt Reynolds came into our locker room pregame because he had played for the Seminoles, and he knew Coach Stanley somehow. We looked up, and we were like, ‘That’s Burt Reynolds!’ Smokey and the Bandit was really big, and I just thought, ‘I’m in the big time!’ And I’m nervous. I think I puked before every game I ever played in. “We went out on the field — it was a night game — and Chief Osceola comes riding out on Renegade and throws a flaming spear in the ground. Seventy thousand people screaming at us. I turned my roommate next to me and said, ‘We’re not winning this game, we just got beat by Wichita State.’” The outmanned Cowboys did make it somewhat respectable, falling 38-20 to the 16th-ranked Seminoles. But as the losses mounted, uncertainty surrounded the program. “My offensive line coach under Stanley was Kent Stephenson. We were getting ready to play Colorado, and he walked into the meeting room and said, ‘Well, we just got fired.’ I knew something was going on because we were winless and coming off probation and things like that. It kind of broke my heart because Coach Stephenson was the one that recruited me, along with Coach Stanley, and they were all going to be gone. “Kent went on to get two Super Bowl wins with the Pittsburgh Steelers,” Tillman adds, “He was that good.” Stanley’s staff remained in place for the remainder of the 1978 season, and the Cowboys responded with an upset of the No. 13 Buffaloes before finishing the year 3-8.
HOW ’BOUT THEM COWBOYS! “Then Jimmy (Johnson) came in,” Tillman continues. “Those guys were young, but they were really good coaches. Paul Jett, who just passed away, Dave Wannstedt, Tony Wise, Pat Jones, Joe Avezzano, Bill Young, Butch Davis from Pawhuska ... “Tony coached us on the offensive line. He was from Ithaca, New York. We’re a bunch of Okies and Texans, and he talked fast and was really hard to understand.” Tillman noted that Wise later followed Johnson to the University of Miami (and ultimately the Dallas Cowboys), winning the 1987 national championship and Super Bowl XXVII. As the new coaching staff settled in, so did Tillman, who was beginning to carve out a role on the offensive line. “One of my proudest moments was on Coach Johnson’s first team ever as a head coach,” Tillman says. “The first game we played, they called first offense, and I was his starting left tackle as a sophomore. I was really proud of that.” Tillman says he’s equally proud of his final game in orange — the 1981 Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La. “I started in my last game my senior year,” he says. “Going to a bowl game was a big deal back then because there were only 16 bowls. If you got to go to a bowl, you were doing something right. So that was a lot of fun. We got beat by Texas A&M, but I’ll always remember the camaraderie, the relationships that we still hold, the reunions …
“You go back every now and then and see people like Jerry Winchester, Kevin Bennitt, some of those guys.” The reminiscing isn’t confined to annual O-Club gatherings, Tillman says. “I’m on a text thread with about 15 of us. We talk about old age and stuff like that, but it’s so much fun. We still bust each other’s chops.” Tillman recalls going against some all-time greats in practice. “I had to block Dexter Manley for three years … three years! He benched 525.” As a senior, Tillman found himself across the line of scrimmage from OSU newcomer John Washington. “John was big. When he came in as a freshman, I was this senior offensive tackle, and I could come off the ball really well, drive blocking people into next week. I remember the first scrimmage we had, I put it all on the line. I was going to show this young punk what it was all about. And it was like hitting a fire hydrant! I went down to my knees. I got back in the huddle and said, ‘Fellas, that guy right there, he’s for real.’ He went on to have a great NFL career. “Those were the kind of kids Jimmy was recruiting and getting. I'd never been across a freshman like that who knocked me to my (rear), so I had to figure out how I was going to handle this guy.”
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Fortunately for Tillman, most opponents weren’t built like Washington. “We played Iowa State at Ames in 1981, and the winner got to go to the Independence Bowl. Of course, it was late November and freezing cold. “I'm playing left offensive tackle,” Tillman continues. “John Cegielski was next to me at guard, and he traded back and forth with Kevin Igo. We were moving the ball because we had Ernest Anderson in the backfield. He was a stud. We break the huddle in the fourth quarter, we’re ahead maybe 10 points, getting ready to score again. And this Iowa State defensive tackle looked up at us and said, ‘Don’t hit me anymore. I’m going to fall down.’ I’ve never heard that in my life. So we come off the next snap, and he falls down. We get back in the huddle, and I said, ‘Cegielski, did he say what I thought he said?’ He said, ‘Yeah. Don’t hit him anymore, he’s just going to fall down.’ And so we break the huddle, and he said it again. He immediately falls down, so we just jumped on top of him, started drilling him pretty good. And then he was gone — they took him out. “Whenever I go back to the reunions, Cegielski and I still laugh about that.”
HOMECOMING
After his playing days ended, Tillman went to work with his family in the Indian gaming business, leaving OSU a few credits short of a bachelor’s degree. He returned to OSU in 1995 as a non-traditional student, encouraged by a former academic adviser. “Martha McMillian, bless her heart. She got me to go back and finish my undergrad,” Tillman says. “She pulled out my transcript from 1981 and went, ‘Whoa! You didn’t spend a lot of time in class, did you?’ But she got me in. I was on probation, but made the dean’s list and president’s list. “Martha is wonderful, and she was so proud of me,” he adds. “She’s the one that talked me into getting my master’s.” As a graduate student, Tillman had the urge to get into coaching. “When I started my master’s, I taught three classes in speech communication, which was fun. But I went over to see (then head coach) Bob Simmons and told him my story and said, ‘I’ll do anything. I’d just love to be a part of the football team.’ He said, ‘You want to be an assistant coach?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ He said, ‘Well, you’re going to be kind of an assistant to an assistant. He put me with Johnny Burnett, who was the co-defensive coordinator at the time and in charge of the secondary. I told Coach Simmons, ‘I don’t know anything about defensive backs.’ He goes, ‘That's why I'm putting you there.’”
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“I know what it takes to run this, but until you jump behind the wheel, turn that key on, that dashboard lights up, it’s just like, ‘Whoa!’ There’s a lot to it.” — JOE TILLMAN
Chief Tillman with special assistant to the head coach Steve Keasler.
Chief Tillman presents OSU President Jim Hess with an Osage blanket at the 2026 Osage Nation Inauguration Ceremony, where Hess delivered the keynote address.
After two seasons as a graduate assistant for the Pokes, Tillman was offered a job at Bucknell University, thanks to a recommendation by Burnett. Following a three-year coaching stint for the Bison, Tillman returned home to work in the private sector. That eventually led to local roles within the tribal administration, and ultimately a run for the Osage Nation Congress. Tillman was elected to a four-year term in 2016 and won two reelections (2020, 2024) before throwing his hat into the ring for principal chief. As a former division I football player and coach, Tillman has a keen eye on the current landscape of collegiate athletics — with revenue sharing, the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness. “It’s definitely changed,” he says. “Barry Switzer said NIL stands for ‘Now It’s Legal.’ There was some of that back in my day, but nothing at the level where it is now. I think kids have to understand that they can grow and mature. All they’re thinking about is the money right now. When they come in as a freshman, they want to play. And if they’re not starting, then they’ll leave. It’s a negotiation. They all have agents … “But it’s still college football. When I turn on the television on Saturday, they’re still kids to me.” Tillman says he’s excited about the new era of Cowboy Football under Eric Morris. “I am so excited for Coach Morris and his staff and the players,” he says. “I can’t wait to be more involved with them. I'm just excited about the season — not only football, but all sports: basketball, baseball, softball, our wrestling team, our equestrian team … all of that stuff.”
CHIEFLY SPEAKING
“Former Governor (Bill) Anoatubby of the Chickasaw Nation told me, ‘Surround yourself with smart people, different skill sets. They make you look good.’ I feel like I’ve done that. The team that I have are good, solid people. “I’m so excited,” he adds. “I’m 66 years old. While most people my age are starting to think about retirement and going to the lake, painting the porch, I knew what I was jumping into. I know what it takes to run this, but until you jump behind the wheel, turn that key on, that dashboard lights up, it’s just like, ‘Whoa!’ There’s a lot to it.” Education will be a primary focus of Tillman’s administration. “That’s really important to me, and I’m going to have a staff dedicated to our young people … because 30 years from now, this room’s going to look a lot different.”
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HOLLYWOOD COMES TO OSAGE COUNTY He says his alma mater also has an important role to play with college-bound students from the Osage Nation. “I’m going to steer them toward Oklahoma State.” Beneath the football stories, amusing anecdotes and political accomplishments lies something Tillman credits above all else: his faith. “I’m a Christian, and I pray every day that God’s will be done. I just ask Him to keep guiding me and putting me in the right places and saying the right things and reaching out to our people and being effective. I know not every day is going to be sunshine and blue skies. We’ll have storms, too. Every administration does. But we’ll hold together.” Tillman’s colorful journey has taken him from the locker room at Lewis Field to the Osage Nation's highest office. Through it all, Oklahoma State has remained a constant. “I’ll always bleed orange, and I’ll always be a Cowboy.”
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Tillman’s hometown of Fairfax has recently been in the spotlight, thanks to the best-selling book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (2017) by David Grann, and the subsequent Martin Scorsese movie production starring Leonardo DiCaprio. While Tillman is proud of his people’s portrayal — and the truth about what is often referred to as the Osage “Reign of Terror” finally coming to the fore — he didn’t audition this time around. “I was raised by my grandmother from fifth grade until I graduated high school,” Tillman explains. “She was a full-blood Osage woman. The first time I ever found out about this reign of terror was an old movie with Jimmy Stewart called The FBI Story. There were four short stories inside that one movie, and one was about the Burkhart house blowing up. We said, ‘Grandma, did that happen here in Fairfax?’ She said, ‘Yes, but I won’t allow you to talk about that.’ And that was it for me. “So when the Killers of the Flower Moon came around, out of respect for my grandmother, I declined to participate. There are other Osages the same as me, their folks would not allow them to talk about it. Should our story be told? You bet. And I’m glad it was told, because there are families that are probably still in mourning … And we had Osage artists doing the clothes, the language, the food, the culture. It was a special time — a healing period for some people.” Tillman did, however, audition for a different blockbuster movie. Responding to a casting call for Native American extras, Tillman’s imposing size and athleticism landed him a brief yet memorable role in the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans, which starred Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. Spoiler alert: In an epic battle scene, his character, a fierce Ottawa warrior, seizes Cora (Stowe) and raises a knife to her throat. Hawkeye (Day-Lewis) rushes to save her, delivering a brutal barrage of tomahawk blows and bringing Tillman’s screen career to an abrupt end. During a break in filming, Tillman says the three-time Academy Award winner offered to roll him a cigarette. “We were standing there, and he goes, ‘You smoke?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ I wasn’t about to tell the actor from My Left Foot that I didn’t smoke! “Really cool experience. I still have my SAG card.”
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FROM
HUNTER TO
HUNTED Cowgirl Basketball is no longer an underdog
SERG THOMAS PHOTOS BY TARYN LAWLER AND BRAYDEN HARTMANN STORY BY
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The nation’s unanimous No. 1 women’s basketball transfer class is in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The coach who assembled it grew up inside a program that made a similar climb. Before the legendary consecutive wins, before the cluster of state championships, girls’ basketball in Hoxie, Kansas, was an afterthought. That was Jacie Hoyt’s word for it — afterthought — as if it were a thing the town did only because the calendar said it should. Hoyt’s mother, Shelly, decided to take the job as coach anyway. By the time the Hoyts left Hoxie, the program had reached new heights: numerous school records, four straight state championships and a then-Kansas state-record 107consecutive-game winning streak. Oh, and a new adjective when it came to Hoxie girls’ basketball: historic. Jacie experienced the program’s rise to dominance firsthand. Not in the bleachers, cheering on her mom from the stands as any good daughter would, but on the floor, where she scored 2,016 points in three seasons at Hoxie High School, playing point guard for her mom. “She’s the perfect example of what it means to go from the hunter to the hunted,” Hoyt said of her mother. “I watched her do that over the course of her coaching career. I don't think it’s something you intentionally try to do, but for me to get to watch her, I don’t really know any other way. I don’t know any other way to go about my work.” “I say that humbly … That's ultimately what I want to do at the end of the day.” Twenty-some years later, nearly six hours southeast in Stillwater, the same daughter who played inside one of those rises is running a program of her own that’s already begun the climb. This season, she finds out what’s waiting at the top. Hoyt inherited a nine-win team when she arrived at Oklahoma State. That was in spring 2022, and the goal she set for that first year wasn't a championship or a ranking. It was simply a Sunday evening in March and a name on a screen. “When I first got here, the whole hope and goal was just to hear your name called on Selection Sunday,” Hoyt said. “Now, it’s the expectation that our name is called, it’s just a matter of what our seed line is and where we’re going.” Those hopes and goals quickly became reality in Hoyt’s first season at Oklahoma State, as she became the first coach in school history to take Oklahoma State to the NCAA Tournament in her debut season. “I think that really hit the last two years, that it was just going to be the expectation,” Hoyt said. “Last year it was more about, okay, what’s our seed going to be? Now this year, to be honest, our hope and expectation is to host.”
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TOP: Stailee Heard has been a fixture for Coach Hoyt’s Cowgirl teams. BOTTOM: Liv McGill finished inside the top 15 in the country in scoring (22.5 ppg) and assists per game (6.3).
March Madness, women’s style, means the bracket comes to campus with the top 16 overall seeds in the NCAA tournament playing host to the first two rounds of the event. The evolution is clear: last season the Cowgirls finished 24-10 and beat Princeton in the first round of the NCAAs, securing the program’s first win in the tournament since 2021 and the first of Hoyt’s tenure. When Hoyt sets expectations for the team, results tend to follow. The records have climbed year after year. But so has something else, that’s harder to measure. “Just the brand,” Hoyt said when asked about what stands out most about the current status of Cowgirl hoops. “The brand of what we are now and where we started compared to now. If you look at ticket sales, at social media, at rankings, at the level of talent we’ve brought in. My first year, we pretty much had to beg people to come here, as crazy as that sounds.”
LAYING THE FOUNDATION
Audi Crooks was the nation’s most coveted transfer in the 2026 portal class.
“People are
talking
about us
in rooms that we’ve never been in before.” — JACIE HOYT
Four years later, OSU signed the consensus No. 1 transfer class in America. That class didn’t arrive out of nowhere. Before Oklahoma State could recruit the best players in the country, it had to become the type of place they would consider — a place that took players willing to buy into a vision before there was proof of one. That started in 2022-23, with a player who redefined what it meant to be a Cowgirl, Naomie (Mimie) Alnatas. “I am just so indebted to that entire team,” Hoyt said of her first group. “I absolutely adore that team and the people they were, the players that they were. I think Mimie was someone who really changed the trajectory of everything for us. She went from being pretty much a no-name, in everyone else's eyes, to a first-team All-Big 12 performer, then went overseas and played at the highest level. So really, she was kind of that turning point for us.” Alnatas took a leap with Hoyt, following her coach from Kansas City, the mid-major where Hoyt spent five seasons, to the Power Four level at Oklahoma State, and helped lead the Cowgirls to the NCAA Tournament that year. The 5-foot-7 guard became proof of concept for everything that followed. Anna Gret Asi was next, a player Hoyt described as growing and developing year after year into a really great player. Asi’s arc ran alongside the program’s ascent. In 2024-25, the Cowgirls won a program-record 14 games in Big 12 play and finished ranked for the first time in more than a decade, and Asi had picked up the second All-Big 12 honor of her career. She drilled 177 3-pointers as a Cowgirl, a mark that remains in OSU’s career top 10.
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Then Asi handed it off. “Now, she’s kind of passed the torch to Stailee Heard, and Stailee has become a household name around here,” Hoyt said. “It’s been amazing to watch her just put the team on her back time and time again and just absolutely go all in for Oklahoma State. I think she is the poster child of what it means to be Loyal and True.” A year later, Heard would be the only thing holding the roster together. Just two days after the Cowgirls’ season ended with a loss in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to the eventual champion, UCLA, the first transfer portal blow hit. By the time the portal officially opened in April, the team that had just won the program’s first NCAA Tournament game in four years had scattered. That is, for all but one player. “I think at first it was definitely a lot of hurt and disappointment,” Hoyt said. “I’m a very relationship-oriented coach, and to feel like things were so much more transactional than how I operate was really hard to swallow.” That is not a small admission from a coach whose entire pitch is built on relationships — on the staff, how you’ll be treated, and being invested in as a person. Hoyt had spent four years proving OSU was a place worth choosing and worth developing in. Yet in April, most of her roster chose otherwise.
Cowgirl newcomers Ellie Brueggemann, Nene Ndiaye and Zoe Canfield.
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She gave it about as long as she could afford to. “I also knew I couldn’t hang my head and feel sorry for myself for long, because while that was disappointing and hurtful, I had a whole roster to fill, and I saw it as a lot of opportunity,” Hoyt said. “I knew going into portal season that I had some really high-level donors willing to step up and back me in the space of NIL. We weren’t going to shy away from that. We were going to be really aggressive.” Plus, she had Heard, who never considered leaving. “I love this place,” Heard said. “Regardless of wins or losses, I love the people that I go to war with every day. I love being here and having the support staff that I have around me. There’s nothing really negative to say about this school or this place, so I don’t know why I’d leave if there’s nothing negative.” What Heard did not have, that spring, was company. “I was doing spring workouts by myself, dying,” she said with a chuckle. While Heard ground her way through workouts, Hoyt and her staff hit the portal, though a key piece of the puzzle was already in Stillwater. “The fun thing is, number one, we got to build a roster around Stailee Heard,” Hoyt said, “which, if you have to build a roster, that's exactly the type of kid you want to build it around.”
A three-time All-Big 12 performer and an honorable mention All-American in 2025, Heard has averaged double-digit scoring every season as a Cowgirl and logged just the third triple-double in school history during the 2025-26 season against Iowa State on Jan. 25.
PORTAL POWER
The first domino to fall in Stillwater came before the Division I portal even opened. Talexa Weeter, the Division II national player of the year, committed out of Fort Hays State. That domino, Hoyt said, was a huge one. Ellie Brueggemann came next, a 3-point specialist from Owasso, Oklahoma, by way of Lindenwood, where she set a school single-season record with 96 3-pointers. Hoyt had recruited her out of high school at Kansas City and wasn’t going to let her leave the state twice. “It was definitely a sigh of relief,” Brueggemann said. “Her making me a priority and saying that I had a spot here was an incredible feeling for me. Getting to come home and have my family here and be able to come home anytime I want. It was just a huge miracle and a huge blessing to be able to do that.” Then LA Sneed, a former five-star prospect and All-Big 12 Freshman team selection at Utah, came next. “Honestly, I went on my visit, and that feeling just never left,” Sneed said. “Everybody talks about having that feeling that that’s the one school, and that’s what I felt even after leaving here and visiting another school in the portal. I was still thinking about Oklahoma State, and ultimately that just let me know my decision and that this was the best school for me.” Liv McGill, a consensus top-five portal prospect out of Florida, was the next big domino for the Pokes. Her commitment grabbed national attention and headlines as the high-energy point guard who finished inside the top 15 in the country in scoring (22.5 ppg) and assists per game (6.3). After McGill came Nene Ndiaye, the leading scorer at Rutgers, who averaged 14.8 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. By then, Hoyt could see the shape of the roster she was constructing. “So now I’ve got my point guards, I’ve got my shooters, I’ve got two Swiss Army knives with Stailee and Nene,” she said. “Then we got Audi after that, and it started to feel like the puzzle was complete.” Audi Crooks was the No. 1 player in the portal — a 6-foot-3 center who had taken the college basketball world by storm as she averaged 25.8 points on 64.9% shooting at Iowa State the season before. She was second in Division I scoring. A three-time All-American who has scored in double figures in every game since her collegiate debut, Crooks was
the consensus number-one get in the portal, and she’s a Cowgirl. Not long after Crooks committed, Yuting Deng followed, and Hoyt says that order is one reason she did. “I don’t think we get Yuting Deng without Audi, because she was so excited about the idea of playing with Audi,” Hoyt said. “Just the timing and the order of everyone was really unique. Maybe if Audi came first, or if that order was different, then maybe it wouldn’t have played out the way it did.” When the portal class rankings came out, Oklahoma State had the unanimous No. 1 transfer class in the country. Hoyt says she never went looking for that. “I’ve never really been a rankings chaser, I’ve never been about that. I’ve actually kind of always been an underdog my whole life,” she said. “It was more about finding the kids that fit us and then letting the chips fall where they may. Honestly, when the rankings came out, and we were the undisputed number one portal class, my reaction was that it’s time to get to work. This is just the beginning. This doesn’t mean anything.” Two of those commitments, though, came down to a single conversation apiece. The first one nearly didn’t happen at all.
Talexa Weeter was named 2026 Division II National Player of the Year.
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“The target is on your back, and people are chasing you down, and that’s ultimately where you want to be.” — JACIE HOYT
Yuting Deng averaged 6.6 points and 1.9 rebounds per game last season at Baylor.
Everything that could go wrong with McGill’s recruitment did. Flights canceled. The window shrank to less than 24 hours. Hoyt and her staff had a day, at most, to make the case for a player half the country wanted. “We felt like we had to kind of firehose her with information in a very short amount of time,” Hoyt said. “But it was so Liv, looking back on it. Everything was very private; everything was very intentional. We felt like we only needed to hit certain points with her rather than getting caught up in all the fluff and other things that sometimes can go into visits.” What was left was film and conversation. Hoyt walked her through how OSU would use her, leaning on a track record with point guards that she believes speaks for itself. Then, near the end, the two of them sat in the film room and stopped recruiting each other. “I was able to really share my heart, and she was able to share her heart,” Hoyt said. “I think in that moment, we both felt like, ‘This is real.’ This is something that both of us are seeking based on the spring that we had just gone through. I think we felt like we were what each other needed. That’s ultimately, I think, when the deal was sealed.” McGill remembers the same room.
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“I vividly remember we were sitting in the locker room, and my family and close friends were with me, and we were just watching film. Then, we had a very genuine moment, and it touched my heart,” McGill said. “I just knew at that moment this was going to be the place for me, and Coach Jacie was going to be the coach for me.” While the specifics remain private, McGill said it made her emotional and that it’s “something she won’t forget.” When McGill committed, she made a statement to Hoyt that has stuck with her ever since. “I’ll never forget when Liv committed to us; she said, ‘Coach, I’m a trendsetter, not a follower,’” Hoyt said. The conversation with Crooks went differently because Hoyt decided to spend it telling the best available player in America everything she was doing wrong. “I tell my players all the time, I’m going to be a truth teller,” Hoyt said. “Sometimes that’s going to feel good, and sometimes it’s not going to feel good, but ultimately that’s my job. I don’t want to be someone I’m not in the recruiting process, because if that’s the case, when they get here and have a different experience than what I sold them. It’s not going to go well.” So, she made a highlight reel in reverse.
“It was kind of mid-point in the visit. She had put together some clips and it was like a low-light reel,” Crooks said. “It was everything, a reel of missed layups, and I thought to myself, man, that’s pretty gutsy to sit here and show me everything I’m doing wrong.” Gutsy it was. Though, it worked. “I really appreciated that reality. I appreciated her approach to it. She’s not somebody that’s just going to say, ‘Oh come over here; we have the sun, the moon and the stars,’” Crooks said. “No, you’re here to work. Knowing that she had that mentality to even humble me on my visit, when she’s actively trying to get me to come to her school. Knowing that the accountability was going to be present, that’s what made me want to decide.” Crooks had another reason, and she had gathered it firsthand. Oklahoma State beat Iowa State twice last season. “And it wasn’t by two, four points. They kicked our butt schematically,” Crooks said. “I thought that I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to join a system that’s going to translate to professional play.” That last part came up again and again. Crooks, McGill, Sneed — each of them had options at programs with deeper trophy cases. Hoyt thinks their choices say something about all of them. “They wanted to do something different,” Hoyt said. “They wanted to create a path that was their own, and not just go to some of the more established schools in women’s basketball, say, South Carolina or UConn. It was about creating their own path and doing something that wasn’t the norm and writing their own story for themselves.” Talent was never the question. Hoyt knew what she had on paper by the end of April. She also knew what paper was worth. The complication was arithmetic. Crooks had averaged 25.8 points per game. McGill, 22.5. Ndiaye led Rutgers with 14.8. Weeter was a national player of the year. Heard has scored in double figures every season she’s been a Cowgirl. Nearly every player in the Oklahoma State locker room arrived as the reason her last team won games, and there is only one ball. Crooks, the highest scorer of them all, was the first to say it out loud. “I’m just hoping to be a vessel and a tool to help everybody else, help the guards get to the basket and help them score a little bit,” Crooks said. “But yeah, really just to be a part of a program of collective dawgs, a collective team that’s all working together, all pouring in points, evening out the stat sheet and winning.” Evening out the stat sheet. From a player who finished second in the country in scoring. That is the shift Hoyt spent the summer watching for, and she says it showed up faster than she expected.
“It came together quicker and better than I thought it would,” Hoyt said. “I wasn’t worried, because I just believe in my ability to get people to play together as a team, and I believe in my coaching staff’s ability. So, I knew it was only a matter of time, but it happened way quicker than I ever could have imagined.” The players describe the same thing from inside it. Sneed, who arrived with everyone else and knew no one. “We were all new, so it was kind of awkward at first, but I think we’ve been warming up to each other and honestly building that sisterhood overall during the summer,” Sneed said. For Crooks, the team chemistry came quickly. “I think when you have a group of like-minded people that are all going in the same direction, it’s a lot easier to get to that goal,” Crooks said. “It takes a little bit of time to mesh everyone’s skill set. But Liv already knows what I can bring, and I already know what she can bring. Our job is to put each other in the best positions to give the team success.”
READY FOR THE SPOTLIGHT
What Hoyt describes now sounds less like a roster than a problem she enjoys having. “They compete harder than any team I’ve ever coached, from top to bottom,” she said. “But they also have the ability to leave it at the door after practice is over. They respect each other and see that we are all striving to be the best we can be, win as many games as possible, and make history here.” By August, she was reluctant to blow the whistle. “I just felt like every practice this summer, I never wanted it to end,” Hoyt said. “The energy was so electric. The competition level was so incredibly high that I never wanted it to end. I think that’s just really unique.” When the whistle blows in November, though, everyone will be ready for them. The Cowgirls will not sneak up on a single opponent this season. OSU’s non-conference schedule includes a trip to South Carolina on Dec. 6, the first meeting between the programs as OSU challenges a team that has finished the past two seasons as national runners-up. Every Big 12 staff will spend a week building a plan around the trio of Crooks, Heard and McGill. The shift from hunter to hunted is a challenge Hoyt welcomes. “I think just the target is on your back, and people are chasing you down, and that’s ultimately where you want to be,” Hoyt said. “It’s not anything that we shy away from or don’t want. It’s been the point since I got to Oklahoma State to become the hunted.” What she rejects is the word that usually comes attached.
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“The pressure — which we don’t really view as pressure — we understand that you can’t take days off and that target is always going to be there,” Hoyt said. “But that’s the whole point, right: to try and be the best, to aspire to be the best, and put the work in every day, understanding that everyone else is looking at you like they’re trying to knock you off.” Outside the gym, the change is easier to see. Heard cannot get across town without being asked about tickets. “People are very excited around town. Everywhere I go, they’re just excited for the season to start,” Heard said. “I get tons of people asking for season tickets and trying to get tickets, and I know those are shooting up. I love to hear that, because we’ve come a long way since I’ve been here, and that’s just what I love to see.” Hoyt says she’s not measuring herself against the expectations that come with that attention. “I think we just have to prove things to ourselves rather than to anyone else,” she said. “I can tell you that no one is going to have higher expectations for what we accomplish than me, first and foremost. I don’t think people will have higher aspirations or expectations than our players do for themselves. Really, it’s not about getting caught up in proving something to anybody else other than just proving ourselves right.” The people paying attention are no longer all in Stillwater. When the way-too-early rankings started to drop, the Pokes were a consistent fixture in the top 25. CBS had the Cowgirls at No. 12, while ESPN had the Pokes at No. 22; national podcasts such as PostMoves, hosted by WNBA legend Candace Parker and Indiana Fever star Aaliyah Boston, were impressed with OSU’s portal class and Hoyt’s ability to land top talent. For a coach who spent her first year begging players to visit, that part still registers as strange. “When Aaliyah Boston and Candace Parker — I just watched Candace get inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame — talk about Audi and us, that’s a really big deal,” Hoyt said. “People are talking about us in rooms that we’ve never been in before.” None of it counts yet. The Cowgirls have not played a game. The schedule that starts in November includes a pair of SEC opponents in South Carolina and Oklahoma, a Big 12 Conference waiting and scheming, and a set of expectations Oklahoma State has never had to carry before. Hoyt has seen this part, too. She watched a program in small-town Kansas go from an afterthought to 107 straight wins and four consecutive titles. She was on the floor for it, and learned there what the view looks like from the top and what it costs to stay there.
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“I got to see her at every phase that a program can be at,” she said of her mother, “to take it from good to better to great to elite.” Stillwater is somewhere in the middle of that sentence. The rest of it starts in November.
2026-27 COWGIRL BASKETBALL SCHEDULE Nov. 2 Nov. 6 Nov. 9 Nov. 12 Nov. 15 Nov. 18 Nov. 20 Nov. 22 Nov. 27 Nov. 28 Dec. 1 Dec. 6 Dec. 12 Dec. 14 Dec. 20 Dec. 30 Jan. 3 Jan. 6 Jan. 9 Jan. 13 Jan. 16 Jan. 19 Jan. 23 Jan. 28 Jan. 31 Feb. 4 Feb. 7 Feb. 10 Feb. 15 Feb. 21 Feb. 24 Feb. 27
Southern Morgan State Northwestern State at Tulsa at South Dakota State St. John’s Little Rock Wichita State (Kansas City, Mo.) Washington (Fort Myers, Fla.) UMass (Fort Myers, Fla.) Oral Roberts at South Carolina Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, Okla.) North Texas at Kansas* Arizona* West Virginia* Colorado* at Iowa State* Kansas* at BYU* at Utah* Cincinnati* TCU* at Houston* at UCF* Arizona State* at Colorado* Kansas State* at Baylor* at Texas Tech* Iowa State*
Mar 3-8 Big 12 Tournament (Kansas City, Mo.) *BIG 12 CONFERENCE GAME
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GOAL ORIENTED The Oklahoma State Athletics facilities crew used ropes, ladders and plenty of leverage to install a new west end zone goalpost at Boone Pickens Stadium in the aftermath of OSU's dramatic victory over Oregon. Helping hoist the 400-pound aluminum uprights were Doug Beach, assistant director of athletic facilities, along with Rodger Short, Cordell Davidson, Quintin Robinson, Chris Focht and Kenny Nolting. For several crew members, it was their third such installation after also replacing goalposts following Bedlam victories in 2021 and 2023. PHO TO B
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PHOTO KYLIE GRANDELL
Cowboy Marching Band percussionist Landon Cha, a freshman Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering major from Flower Mound, Texas, stands at attention during the National Anthem. The "brightest band in all the land" debuted new uniforms for the 2026 season featuring updated OSU branding, plenty of western flair and black Stetson hats that members may keep upon graduation.
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