Dempsey Gillman (50) and some of his Metro Christian Academy Patriot teammates

Mike “Bear” Gillman Photo on Twitter

Dempsey Gillman ghosted me during these fall months, though neither he nor I realized it. There may be a more precise term to explain how and why Dempsey vanished from my football radar. I thought his team was having great success, and indeed it was. It remains on a path that could take it to an Oklahoma high school state championship.

Just not the championship I thought.

I got some splainin’ to do, as Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnez) used to say of his real-life wife, Lucy, played by the Lucille Ball, on I Love Lucy, a 1950s sitcom. They divorced in 1960, which has happened to a lot of us since. I wish Lucy were here today. She splained good, and did so with a rich humor that enthralled Baby Boomers and the men and women, like my parents, who created them and put a TV console in front of them.

Though I must go it without Lucy, I am sticking with ghosted, and that’s my story. I do so for two reasons: 1) I want to show that while I may be old and a has-been (or, a never-was), I am not unaware of the new meaning of ghosting, which has spread its wings and flown to new heights, in this case of personal disappearance; 2) I am interested in and concerned for Dempsey, because his grandpa loved him like you would not believe but which I witnessed. There is also a rider to reason No. 2. I do not want the ghost of Bucky Buck haunting me in The Happy Hunting Ground, where he is and I will soon be.

Actually, Bucky haunts me even now, and I miss my lifelong friend and one-time teammate like the blazes. It is the reason that as I do my five exercise miles around the Chapel in Green, I speak with Bucky in an unrequited conversation about Dempsey’s season. If you should read my new book—Football, Fast Friends, and Small Towns: A Memoir Straight from a Broken Oklahoma Heart—you will discover I have been doing this since before Dempsey’s path and mine diverged and my wires crossed and short-circuited. Bucky—Douglas Merle Buck—is one of the book’s principal characters and primary consultants, filling in details of our lives that had somehow escaped me.

When it happened again this fall, Bucky was not there to save me, as he had so many times. I had been following religiously every story about the undefeated Collinsville (OK) Cardinals, a Class 5A (second largest) school that has reached the playoff semifinals against No. 1-ranked Midwest City Carl Albert (9-1). A year ago Dempsey was thrust into the Collinsville lineup as an offensive lineman, a change of position for the player I had met when he an eighth-grade linebacker with a hitter’s instinct he must have inherited from his grandpa. When Bucky Buck hit you, you stayed hit . . . and down.

While on a book research trip home to Nowata, Oklahoma, Bucky and his wife, Sandy, let me tag along to a preseason scrimmage at Oologah that involved Dempsey’s team. It proved a revelation. I sat next to my friend, watching Dempsey but seeing the younger Bucky. He had told me how good Dempsey was, but, being a former professional skeptic, a requirement for sports columnists, I had to see for myself to be convinced.

I came away a believer. Bucky thought Dempsey a better baseball player—video clips I have seen of him pounding a ball deep over a centerfield wall reinforce this—but I was most impressed with Dempsey as a hitter on the football field, a relentless aggressor. That is what linebacker, the position Bucky and I played side by side, requires.

After the scrimmages, I met Dempsey and his mother, Melissa, daughter of Bucky and Barbara Edmonson, and we went to Owasso for dinner with their extended families. It is a night I cherish, despite the fact I left my credit card at the restaurant. Melissa rescued the card and me. It was, however, Barb, Bucky’s former wife, who helped me to understand that Dempsey had not ghosted me. He had moved, not silently moved on.

This actually created another unexpected bond for me with Bucky’s grandson. “As you well know,” Barb reminded me, “it is tough to move from one school district to another, especially in your junior year in high school.” My move occurred in the middle of my sophomore year, not long after football season. Not only did I have to change schools but also states. My father was transferred from my small Oklahoma hometown to big-city Sacramento, California. My new high school had more than 2,500 students, more than half the size of my hometown. Dempsey’s father also had moved for his work.

This had to have been a jolt. The family went from Collinsville, north of Tulsa, to a larger suburban community, Jenks, south of the city. “It was a real heartbreaker for Dempsey,” Barb told me. I know the feeling well. Dempsey, however, ended up at Metro Christian Academy, a private college-prep school in South Tulsa. It is a smaller school than Collinsville, playing in Class 2A rather than 5A, but has an outstanding football program. It sounds as if Dempsey has fit right in, playing defensive end and offensive guard.

Ranked No. 1 in 2A by the Tulsa World, his team will play host in the championship quarterfinals to undefeated Marlow, from the southern part of the state east of Lawton. Because sportswriters’ stories concentrate on players who run, pass, or catch the football, I probably won’t be able to read much about Dempsey, but that’s OK. I’m just happy to know where he is and that he is still playing the game his grandpa loved so much. I know Bucky would be proud of Dempsey and that Metro Christian got a good player and an even better person when it enrolled this Collinsville transfer student.

Dempsey wears No. 50 for his new team, but to Bucky and me, he will always be No. 1.

Oklahoma Class 2A State Playoff Results

Metro Christian Academy 35, Marlow 31: After a first-round bye and a second-round forfeit from Rejoice Christian, No. 1-ranked Metro Christian Academy came from behind to defeat unbeaten Marlow in the 2A quarterfinals. The Patriots, on consecutive pass plays of 54 and 26 yards, scored with 47 seconds to play. The 54-yarder from Kirk Francis to Junior Simpson came on a fourth-and-23 play called “Hail Mary” that Metro had not practiced all season. The subsequent 26-yard touchdown pass from Francis to Malachi Penland earned the right for the 10-2 Patriots to play host to another unbeaten team, 11-0 Oklahoma Christian School on Friday, December 11.

Metro Christian 55, Oklahoma Christian School 28: Dempsey Gillman and his talented teammates had little difficulty advancing to the Class 2A state final game against Washington. The game was example of why it is not wise to jump to conclusions too quickly. No. 6 OCS struck first for a 7-0 lead but Metro’s Cade Gibson blocked soon blocked a punt and the rout was on: Metro scored 41 unanswered points and pushed its record to 11-2 while ending OCS’s 11-game win streak. Metro, defending state champion, is no strange to the championship game but Dempsey will be. He played for Collinsville last year and now has advanced one step further than his former teammates. I wish I could be there. I know his grandpa, the late, great Bucky Buck, will be, if only in spirit.