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Recovery in the News
Sutton fights toughest foe: alcoholism
Berry Tramel
The Oklahoman
February 1, 2007
STILLWATER, Okla. - In winters past, we talked NCAA seeds and shot selection, gritty defense and winning tough road games, big rivalries and old foes.
This winter, we talked treatment centers and support groups and cross addictions. Such is the new life of Eddie Sutton, basketball coach emeritus at Oklahoma State and Oklahoma's most famous alcoholic.
Sutton once shied away from his demon. Avoided AA meetings because he felt ill at ease; quickly curtailed his comments when talking about his recovery.
That was then. Now, sitting in a Gallagher-Iba Arena office before tipoff of the Oklahoma State-Iowa State game, Sutton talked more openly about the alcoholism that prematurely ended his career.
"Nothing wrong in drinking, if you know when to stop," Sutton said. "You have to have some discipline. But you must understand, there's a danger there."
That's the message Sutton delivers to students when asked to speak. That's the message he says he has given his three sons and some day will give his grandchildren.
Heritage puts them at greater risk, Sutton said; they have the gene that makes them susceptible to alcoholism. Doctors have told him 10 percent of the population possesses that gene.
Sutton came to Stillwater sober. Both times. He started drinking as a college student in the 1950s; he resumed drinking about three years ago, he said, because of back pain.
Sutton developed a bad back - he calls himself the Hunchback - and he says doctors wouldn't prescribe adequate pain pills because of the fear of cross-addiction.
"I was hurting so bad, I would get something to drink," Sutton said.
Such tonic didn't work, either, as Sutton finally discovered last Feb. 10, when he drove drunk and crashed into a Chevy Suburban. Sutton eventually pleaded guilty of aggravated drunken driving and in May retired after 37 seasons as a major-college head coach.
Addiction is a cruel foe. Sutton did not come to OSU with all the necessary ammunition.
While head coach at Kentucky, Sutton joined a private support group made of very public figures. An ex-governor, two horsemen who had won the Kentucky Derby, lawyers, prominent businesspeople. Most addiction counselors say regular meetings are essential to sustain recovery.
Sutton did not find such a support group in Stillwater.
"I felt ill at ease," Sutton said.
So while Sutton rebuilt Oklahoma State basketball with rapid and remarkable success, he internally fought a fight he could not win. He says he has learned his lesson and now regularly goes to AA meetings in either Tulsa or Stillwater. Even says a new meeting has started in the Oklahoma State student union that he needs to get to.
He appreciates it when an OSU student is in one of the meetings and comes up to chat afterward. Few 70-year-olds have gripped a college crowd like Sutton gripped Stillwater. Students would chant his name and cheer his antics. Now, they listen to his simple advice.
Sutton is responsible for the new Gallagher-Iba, the magnificent coliseum that somehow doubled in size and lost no ambiance. Now he seeks another new campus building, a $5 million addiction recovery center for students. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, all could be treated at the facility.
Sutton says OSU has one campus addiction counselor, who has seen more than 1,500 students. He is raising money for the center that could treat 80-100 students at a time.
Sutton works PR a couple of days a week for a Tulsa bank and dotes on his nine grandchildren and drops by OSU's or Oral Roberts' practices, where his sons are head coaches.
Games are excruciating. Helpless, he calls the feeling, and after more than 50 years of having some control over the outcome of basketball games, now Sutton must sit and watch. While he has courtside seats at Gallagher-Iba, he often retreats to a luxury suite at halftime.
How long would Sutton have coached had the demon not regained control? He says not long. He had 794 victories when he was arrested; Sutton said he might have resigned after getting to 800.
Sutton always wanted to turn over the program to son Sean in good shape, and this season certainly qualified, although when the Cowboys started losing a batch of players, "I said, 'Oh, no."' But Sean has rallied OSU to an 18-3 record and a No. 12 national ranking.
"The thing I miss about coaching is not the games," Sutton said. "It's the day-to-day fellowship you have with coaches and players. That's why I stop in."
He comes to OSU practices a couple of days a week, just as Henry Iba did for two seasons when Sutton returned as coach, and still grabs hugs from players and offers a pep talk. He sat down with Mario Boggan last week, after two straight poor games by the State star, "just to build him up."
Copyright 1995-2007. The Cincinnati Post, a Scripps Howard newspaper.