Self found the good life in Stillwater: Unlimited golf, Eskimo Joe's and the Fox
Self found the good life in Stillwater: Unlimited golf, Eskimo Joe's and the Fox
By Bill Self and John Rohde
Published: September 28, 2008
This is an excerpt from "Bill Self: At Home in the Phog,” By Bill Self with John Rohde. The book will be released in Oklahoma the week of Oct. 8. To order, go to www.amazon.com or www.assistyouth.org.
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Chapter 1: The Road to Lawrence
As a student at Oklahoma State University, Bill Self enjoyed living in Stillwater during the summer months. That's when he would mow lawns for beer money, play countless grudge matches with friends at Lakeside Golf Course and frequent his two favorite watering holes, Eskimo Joe's and the Gray Fox Inn.
Everything was pretty much in excess back then, except money.
Lakeside had an irresistible offer for students, who could play unlimited golf the entire summer for $175. "One month, I think we played 27 holes a day for 28 straight days,” Self said.
In the summer of 1984, at the end of Self's junior year, he answered the telephone and found R.C. Buford on the other end.
Self and Buford had met three years earlier. Buford was a junior at OSU, having transferred after two walk-on seasons at Texas A&M. Self had just been named the state's player of the year at Edmond Memorial High School, located roughly an hour southwest of Stillwater.
Buford served as Self's host during his official recruiting trip to OSU. Exact details of that visit remain confidential and sketchy.
"I don't think either one of us is able to remember all that much,” Buford said, laughing.
Self stuttered for several seconds, trying to find the proper words to describe the visit. He finally surrendered with, "Uh, let's just say we had a great time.”
For Self and Buford, the great times had just begun.
Buford had called to invite Self to work coach Larry Brown's summer camp at the University of Kansas. Back then, underclassmen couldn't work at their own school's camps. Buford also had extended an invite to Barry Hinson, a fast-talking, height-challenged son of a Southern Baptist minister who recently had been graduated from OSU and was coaching at Stillwater Junior High School.
Buford didn't know it at the time, but he had just hatched what would become a longtime friendship between Self and Hinson.
"It was all R.C.'s idea for me to work at coach Brown's camp,” Self said. "I bummed a ride to Lawrence with Barry, even though going up there meant I couldn't be at Eskimo Joe's or the Fox for a whole week. I thought camp would be a great experience, but I had no idea what it would be like. I thought Larry Brown was the coolest guy around. Whenever we played his Kansas teams, for whatever reason, he was always nice to me. He knew that R.C. and I knew each other, and coach Brown always made a point to share words of encouragement to me. He didn't have to do that, but it was really nice he did.”
What did Self know about Lawrence Harvey Brown before they met?
"I just knew he won everywhere he went,” Self said.
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