Whipple overcomes terror, finds tranquility

By Zach West

Published: July 19, 2008

The old newspaper clipping is buried deep in a dark blue scrapbook, surrounded by dozens of pictures, articles and other mementos.

Midway through the Oklahoma City Times text about an Oct. 21, 1961, Capitol Hill high school football game, one particular superlative stands out.

"Linebacker Jimmy Whipple was a holy terror all night …”

It would take much of a lifetime for Whipple, a rare gridiron talent, to truly fit that description. And it wouldn't be on the football field.

Tonight, Whipple will be inducted into the Capitol Hill Athletics/Activities Association Hall of Fame. The 47 year-road between his dominant playing days and the present honor was full of struggle: wasted talent, divorce, drinking, a child in jail.

It also ended in triumph.

Whipple was on top of the world in 1961. Or so it seemed.

A 6-2, 185-pound Capitol Hill linebacker, the tough-nosed, hard-hitting teenager didn't talk much — but his playing spoke volumes.

"He knew where the ball was all the time, and he killed them,” said Al Miller, retired coach and 1950 Capitol Hill graduate. "He was a missile, I mean a destroyer. The sucker was one of the best linebackers that ever graced the gridiron around here.”

Years later, legendary Capitol Hill coach C.B. Speegle would tell Chuck Page that Whipple was one of the best players he'd ever coached.

"And Coach Speegle didn't separate guys too much,” said Page, now president of the Capitol Hill Athletics/Activities Association. "But he really thought Jim was a good one.”

Whipple was a first-team All-State selection and received scholarship offers from nearly every Big Eight school, plus several others. When he chose to play for Bud Wilkinson at OU, his favorite team growing up, it seemed Whipple was destined for greater things.

But the greatness would never come … at least not on the gridiron.

Freshmen weren't allowed to play varsity back then, so Whipple made his mark as a two-way starter and standout on OU's freshman team. He practiced with the first-team varsity.

"I just think he might have been All-Conference or All-American if he would have had the willingness to go to college and do that,” Miller said.

After his freshman year, however, Whipple dropped out to support his pregnant wife. The "missile” would never play football again.

For the next several decades, Whipple moved around from job to job. In 1982, after 20 years and four kids, Whipple's marriage ended in divorce. He would spend most of the next decade drifting, carousing and drinking.

Then, in 1991, it all came to a point. Two years prior, one of Whipple's sons had been convicted and imprisoned on several counts of kidnapping, assault and battery, and larceny. Driving back from the penitentiary one day, something inside Whipple snapped.

"Well, when you got a son in prison, and you're going down to visit him, in your life, nothing's going right and you think, ‘You know, something's got to change,'” Whipple said.

"I was on my way back in the car, asking God, you know, ‘Hey, I'll be in church Sunday, and I'm going to start new.'”

At church, he found his faith and a new start. Two years later, he met Debbie Sivigliano.

"She's the reason why I'm here today,” Whipple says of Debbie.

The two first met at church. Thirteen years his younger, Debbie was on her way to becoming an ordained minister in the International Pentecostal Holiness Church.

"The next thing you know, we're out — I'm singing and she's preaching, and we're not even married yet,” said Whipple, who hadn't used his vocal talent since he was choir king at Capitol Hill. "It was a new world, a different world.”

The couple married in 1993. For over a decade, they ministered together, at times in front of crowds of 1,000-plus people. And finally, Whipple felt peace.

"As you grow with it, especially with Debbie, it just got stronger and you can see a calling, especially on her life,” Whipple said. "We had a lot of good plans, and they worked out in a lot of places we went.”

Debbie passed away in January 2006, a victim of a four-year battle with colon cancer. Whipple still struggles with her loss.

Tonight, as Jim — no longer Jimmy — Whipple gives thanks for the honor in front of the crowd of over 600, his mind won't drift far from Debbie.

"The one thing I wish … is that she'd be there …” Jim says, pausing while sitting in the northwest Oklahoma City home the couple used to share.

"… She'll be there in spirit,” he finally whispers.

Whipple still sings occasionally. What he concentrates on mostly is using his physical prowess and carpentry abilities to serve God. Whipple, now 64, has one major thing in common with his younger self: he's still tough-nosed and strong as an ox.

Two or three times a year, he goes on mission trips to places such as Guyana, Cuba, Indonesia and Panama, to help with construction efforts. Next Saturday, Whipple will leave for Romania in Eastern Europe to help build a church.

"You can regret things, but you can't go back and change stuff. You just have to go on, live day to day, forget about the past,” Whipple says. "It's not what counts in the past, it's what you do in the future and that's why I enjoy what I do now. I love working for the Lord, and that's what keeps me going.”

A holy terror indeed.

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