Faith & Family Came First, But Oral Roberts Loved Basketball Too

By Kyle Dierking, OKBlitz.com Reporter

TULSA, OK -- Engaging evangelism, faith healing and the university that bears his name made Oral Roberts legendary, but perhaps his most understated contribution came in basketball.

"I think he had great vision knowing that the popularity of basketball and athletics in our country that if you have a successful team, it's going to get out to millions of people," said ORU basketball coach Scott Sutton.

Long before he set out on his ministry mission, Roberts' fascination for basketball began as a young boy in rural Oklahoma. Sports later forged a bond between father and son as former ORU president Richard Roberts recalled in an exclusive interview with Six in the Morning anchor LeAnne Taylor.

"We both loved athletics," Richard said. "He taught me how to ride horses, he taught me how to golf, he taught me how to shoot a gun and hunt. He took me to basketball games all over the country."

Oral Roberts University opened in the mid-1960's complete with a basketball team. Roberts hand-picked head coach Ken Trickey in 1969 to carry out his basketball vision.

"We had talked about, ‘we're going big time.' We used the words ‘big time' a lot," Trickey said. "He said, ‘we're not going to be small time, we're going to be a big program.'"

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