Photos Courtesy Missy Buck Gillman

(Editor’s Note: The author appreciates the Class 2A State Final observations, reporting, and writing of Barry Lewis, the Tulsa World, and Cameron Jourdan, The Oklahoma.)

The Gold Ball and Oklahoma Class 2A State Football Championship it represents will distinguish the 2020 Metro Christian Academy Patriots—players and coaches—for the rest of their lives. It is made all the more remarkable by the fact that while it is a first for Dempsey Gillman, junior transfer from Collinsville, it is not for some teammates. The Patriots were defending a championship that quarterback Asher Link did much to win.

With Asher graduated, there were doubters that these Patriots could repeat. The name may be the same but they are not the New England Patriots, and during this pandemic-marred football season even New England and coach Bill Belichick, the NFL’s greatest ever, don’t much resemble the Patriots of previous championship seasons.

I have not always thought Belichick was the greatest or even great. When I wrote countless columns for the Akron Beacon Journal about his Cleveland Browns, his first attempt at head coaching, Belichick’s success was marginal, his treatment of others—particularly the media—was off-putting. He made Donald Trump look like a guy with pompoms who blew kisses and tossed bouquets to those who had to confront him.

What Belichick learned during his apprenticeship in Cleveland and applied with great success ever after is that hard times can be faced, even faced down, with hard work. He has had one bottom line all these years, a mantra for the cutoff-sweatshirt guru: Do Your Job. It is something that Metro’s 48-37 victory over Washington in the state championship game proves it has learned—especially Dempsey Gillman, the new guy who became one of the star of stars in the state championship. That is some feat.

And yet, as good as it is, it isn’t Dempsey’s or the Patriots’ greatest achievement. Dempsey’s grandpa, the late, great Bucky Buck (see Blog Post of December 3, 2020), and his teammates never made it to the Promised Land. It was more difficult to even get into the State Playoffs during the early 1960s when we played. Only one team per district made it, and despite being an excellent team (after I had left) the Nowata Ironmen could never get past larger and even better teams in the old Verdigris Valley.

What Dempsey’s 12-2 Patriots did should not only feel good because of the way the defensive end-center played but also because it made the Metro community feel good about itself. That is one of the themes of my most recent book Football, Fast Friends, and Small Towns: A Memoir Straight from a Broken Oklahoma Heart. While I write about Nowata, it is about every small town and communities such as Metro Christian’s.

While my small town was one to which I was born and with physical proximity as its essence, Metro’s community is, in a sense, even better and potentially closer. It is a community of choice. The Gillmans moved from Collinsville to Jenks but chose Metro Christian in South Tulsa (where I once lived) as the place for Dempsey’s education and where he could best display his athletic gifts, which are many. (He also hits home runs.)

Against Washington, Dempsey made 16 tackles, including 2.5 sacks and 3.5 resulting in lost yards. He may well have turned the game and certainly created an aura near the end of the first half that led to victory. Metro coach Jared McCoy told the media: “Most people wrongly know us for our offense. That’s just not accurate. The defense this year has been unbelievable. The job our defense did tonight was unbelievable. … We don’t win it without the way the defense played in the first half.” Especially Dempsey Gillman.

And here’s the thing: Dempsey is not even the Patriots’ best defensive player (though he will be the best one returning for 2021). Senior linebacker Cade Gibson got in on 24 tackles and had a touchdown reception—one of three catches—from sophomore quarterback Kirk Francis who threw for five TDs and 367 yards. Francis said: “This wouldn’t be possible without Asher. Asher has been a great mentor to me, he’s been alongside me, texting me.”

Washington quarterback Emitt Wilk must have wished that Dempsey had not been alongside him when he set up the second of two Patriot touchdowns in the final 57 seconds of the first half. Washington had cut Metro’s lead to 14-10 with a TD, and Francis answered forthwith with a 14-yard, third-and-9 pass to Malachi Penland followed by a 38-yard TD to Junior Simpson. Too little time left for fireworks? Think again.

In a flash, Gillman got himself into the middle of an option play, disrupting Wilk and his handoff man. “I just picked it up and started running,” Gillman said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t score.” No matter. He went for 20 yards, and, declining to settle for a field goal attempt, Francis hit Penland for a 14-yard TD as the first half expired.

During a long journalism career I heard many complaints about private schools that were accused of recruiting players when more often, upon investigation, I discovered that players and parents gravitated to the opportunity to be a part of something special and to receive an education of substance in a community that cultivated such things. This is not to imply that anyone would feel that way about Metro Christian. Just saying.

A year ago, the Patriots were in the same district as Nowata. The result was not pretty. With redistricting, Metro moved to another district but remained in Class 2A and for the third consecutive year dumped Washington from the playoffs. (Nowata beat the Warriors in its run to the state finals in 2014, the last year Bucky Buck’s alma mater was good enough to do such a thing. Dempsey liked to visit his grandpa but probably would not have wanted to play there, though there is a similarity between Metro and Nowata.)

At Metro Christian, Dempsey, excellent student and obviously great football player, may be well on his way to forming the type of lasting friendships his grandpa and I shared. Through the passing years it became more important than our losses or even victories. I cling to that rewarding relationship though Bucky is gone and, as happy as I am for Dempsey’s success, I want him to have an even greater one: A friendship, like Bucky’s and mine and others in our sweet community, that will be his always.