Clint Eads brings muscle to Bartlesville HOF Class of 2023 set to be inducted Friday
If one thread of similitude ties together this week's Bartlesville Athletic Hall of Fame (BaHOF) inductees, it is the 1990s theme.
The Bartlesville Community Center will host Friday's BaHOF Induction Celebration. set to start at 6:30 p.m. More information on tickets is available at the Bartlesville Sports Commission (BSC) website.
The BaHOF Class of 2023 honorees are listed below, including comments by Chris Batchelder — the BSC board chairman and Bartlesville High graduate — about each:
Krista "K.K." McCoy Grinstead (Bartlesville High School, Class of 1990): She turned in a legendary high school sports career and went on to be a consensus softball All-American at Oklahoma State. BATCHELDER: "She was a year older than me and we went to Oklahoma State together. I got to watch her play … and she was really really good. She was incredibly talented. She went in right away and played as a freshman. She also was an amazing basketball player."
Clint Eads (Bartlesville High, 1995): Eads powered to the Bruins' first-ever state championship team and wrestled at the University of Oklahoma. BATCHELDER: "His brother Daylon and I graduated together. … Like Clint, he was just ridiculously talented as a wrestler. … Clint was just the best wrestler in the state."
The 1990-91 Bartlesville High boys basketball team: The Bruins stormed to the Class 5A state championship, stunning juggernaut Norman in the final. BATCHELDER: "Tommy DeSalme (6-foot-2) was the tallest guy that played a lot. Before the season, the Bruins were picked to finish 49th. It was a small team. … We just won games with toughness and defense. We really hit key shots at key times, by guys like Tommy, Aaron Bucher, Ricky John or Mike Ellison. Raymond Roberts was a junior and was really, really good. That season was really the emergence of Jerome Harris as a sophomore as a really good player. … That 1991 team seemed to be the one team in those years the town really embraced."
Lou Skurcenski (Phillips 66ers basketball team): Skurcenski played in the 1960s for both a national team on a goodwill tour of South America, and also was invited to try out for the 1964 U.S. Olympic Basketball Trials. During most of the 1990s, he waged a valiant battle with cancer until he passed away in 1998. He also devoted countless hours to teaching and coaching youth sports. Skurcenki's son Jason earned a scholarship as a walk-on men's basketball player at Oklahoma (1988-91), and Lou and his wife Stephanie attended many of Jason's games, even though Lou had been diagnosed in 1986 with kidney cancer. BATCHELDER: "Growing up in Bartlesville, we all knew about the 66ers. I knew about Lou, but I really knew about Jason, who was a senior when I was a freshman. Lou was kind of a staple at the 'Y' and the Boys Club. Everyone knew who Coach Lou was. He was a really, really good guy and a really good coach."
Bill Holbrook (Coach at College High and Sooner High): For Holbrook, Friday's induction also will be a timely memorial. Holbrook passed away on Oct. 2, 2023 — just 21 days shy of his 99th birthday. By the 1990s, Holbrook had moved back to his native Texas, but already had seen the fruits of his coaching prime at both local high schools combine into Bartlesville High and become a state power. BATCHELDER: "There's been a group of guys trying to get him in (the BaHOF) for years. … He went over from Col-Hi to become the first football coach at Sooner. … The guys he played for have said … he's the person that had the biggest impact on their lives, how to be on time, how to be organized and how to be respectful."
Spotlight on Clint Eads
Hard to believe, but in the first 12 years of its existence, Bartlesville Bruin wrestling didn't produce a state champion.
Then, Eads flexed his muscles in the 1994-95 season — surging to a 37-0 record and Class 5A title (215 pounds) to snap the drought. That also started a tidal wave of Bruin mat success. Wes Barnhart (152) followed with a state crown in 1996. (Barnhart had been state runner-up, at 160, in 1995.). Starting with the Eads championship, Bartlesville would nail down six more grappling state titles (led by Tim Hamilton with three, 2010-12) through the 2022-23 campaign, and advance 10 to the state final.
Eads wasn't an overnight sensation. His resume of teenage wrestling achievements is stunning.
In 1993 he won national championships USA Cadet and AAU Cadet tournaments in Missouri and Pennsylvania, respectively. He earned a spot on the 1994 USA National Dual Team, which won the national title in Lawton. Eads' cumulative record at those three events was 21-0.
During the 1993-94 high school campaign, he burst to a 27-6 record and brought home the third-place medal from state.
That set up Eads' incredible senior season (1994-95) during which he was taken down only one time in 37 matches! He won 29 of his matches by fall or technical fall and earned a spot on the Asics High School All-American tournament.
He actually began the sport barely out of his tricycle years.
"I started wrestling a five-years-old with the Dumas (Texas) Wrestling Club," Eads said. "I have always been a very competitive person, so the individual nature of wrestling drew me to the sport."
He credited multiple coaches — including Randy Standridge, Darin Messerli and Jim Riley — for having positive impacts on his life.
Eads hopes his BaHOF induction will open the door for more wrestlers.
He credits family members, including parents Wayne and Cindy Eads, Angie Eads (mom) and Daylon Eads (brother) for giving him the boost of support — in helping him to make his practices, in rooting him on at tournaments and in making it possible for him to travel — as he grew up. He said the first two people he contacted after learning of his BaHOF honor were his wife and his dad.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: These are the 2023 Bartlesville Athletic Hall of Fame inductees
