Former OU two-sport star Ryan Minor remembered for athletic ability, humanity in memorial

MOORE — The first time Richard Megli saw Ryan Minor, Megli — then Hammon High School’s basketball coach — had arrived at the school to pick up something on a day off and saw two boys playing in the gymnasium. Megli didn’t recognize them but watched them play, thinking they were perhaps the children of a potential teacher interviewing for a job.

“I watched them for a bit and I thought, ‘I hope they get the job!’ I thought they were in junior high,” Megli said. “Come to find out, they were only fifth-graders at the time.”

Sure enough, Dale Minor, the father of the tall twin boys — Ryan and Damon Minor — got hired and much success in basketball and baseball followed the Minors, both at Hammon and later at the University of Oklahoma and into professional sports. That success, and the humility Ryan showed throughout his career in athletics, was a constant theme during a memorial service held in Ryan’s honor on Saturday afternoon at the First Baptist Church.

Ryan Minor, 49, died on Dec. 22 in Maryland after battling colon cancer. He was a two-sport star at OU, earning Big Eight Conference basketball player of the year honors in 1995 and playing a vital role on the Sooners’ 1994 baseball team that won the College World Series title.The 1992 Oklahoma prep basketball player of the year and an All-State first-team baseball player before arriving at OU, Ryan Minor was drafted in the second round by the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers in 1996 and had a brief career in pro hoops — spending a couple of seasons with the Oklahoma City Cavalry of the Continental Basketball Association — before eventually transitioning back to baseball.

He made it to the major leagues in 1998 and started for the Baltimore Orioles in place of the legendary Cal Ripken Jr. the night Ripken ended his record streak of consecutive games. Ryan Minor spent parts of four seasons in Major League Baseball with the Orioles and the Montreal Expos and later became a successful coach manager in the minor leagues.

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Among those attending Saturday’s service were many former OU coaches and officials, including Larry Cochell, who guided the Sooners to that 1994 baseball title; Alex Brown, the Sooners’ longtime athletic trainer; Larry Naifeh, OU’s current executive deputy athletic director; Mike Houck, OU’s associate athletic director for strategic communications; and Mike Anderson, who was an assistant for Billy Tubbs, the late OU basketball coach who recruited Ryan Minor.

OU athletic director Joe Castiglione and current basketball coach Porter Moser were in Lawrence, Kan., on Saturday, as the Sooners faced Kansas, but both contributed videos that were played at the start of the service, as did Houston coach Kelvin Sampson, who also coached Ryan Minor at OU. Sampson closed his video by saying, “the best thing that ever happened to me at Oklahoma was Ryan Minor,” then added a “Boomer Sooner.”

Megli, Brown and Anderson joined Tubbs’ son, Tommy Tubbs and former OU baseball standouts Dusty Hansen and Rick Gutierrez and current OU director of baseball operations Ryan Gaines in eulogizing Ryan Minor, with Damon Minor delivering the final words about his brother.

Megli recalled great moments of Ryan Minor’s prep career at Hammon, including making a last-second shot to down large-school power Sapulpa in the Tournament of Champions in Tulsa and leading the Warriors to a Class B state tournament win over a Gans team featuring Bryant Reeves, who later starred at Oklahoma State and shared Big Eight player-of-the-year honors with Ryan Minor before playing in the NBA. Damon Minor, who also played Major League Baseball, made it three future big-league athletes on the floor in that game.

Brown noted Ryan Minor’s durability, saying he never missed a game, and his loyalty to OU: “You’d never have to worry about the Minors getting in the (transfer) portal — they were Sooners all the way.” Brown also spoke of Ryan Minor’s humanity, saying that when he asked his daughter about her memories of Ryan Minor, she replied, “He came to my birthday party. That meant a lot to me.”

Anderson spoke of watching the Minors play basketball for the first time and racing to meet with Cochell upon returning to Norman, telling the baseball coach, “We’ve got to get to work because we’ve got to get these two guys to Oklahoma.”

Hansen, a star at Shattuck High School in northwest Oklahoma who played American Legion summer baseball with the Minors, said he felt fortunate that Cochell also saw him play when the coach came to watch the Minors. Hansen said if he could speak to Castiglione, he’d tell him one thing – “number 12 should be in the rafters” at the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman, to honor Ryan Minor’s accomplishments.

Gutierrez called Ryan Minor “the most versatile player I’ve ever been around in my life.”

Hansen and Gutierrez joked about how Damon Minor’s batting average always seemed to increase once Ryan Minor would join the baseball team — which had already started its season — after basketball season had ended. Damon Minor said there was something to that.

“I wanted to have my brother back and that did make me better,” he said, “because I always wanted to be who he was. … I loved my brother and I can see everyone here loved him too.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ryan Minor remembered as star athlete for OU and good person