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A Conversation With Mike Tupa · Tailgate Talk - Bartlesville Radio

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All right, Evan Faarbach. Here, I'm with former Examiner Enterprise sports editor
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Mike Tupa, and Mike announced that he was retiring a couple of weeks ago,
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and he's enjoying a little bit of time off, and Mike, before
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we talk about you and your time here and everything, and have you enjoyed
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the last couple of weeks real well, I've I've gone to some house organizing
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my old papers that I needed to do that I just didn't have time before.
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And I've started kind of on a autobiography of my sports writing career and
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just taking care of little details that go with retirement and stuff like that.
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Let's talk a little bit about you before you got here. I think most
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people know you from being here. Obviously, you've been here for I mean,
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what is it twenty seven, twenty eight years or something like that.
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Let's he since nineteen ninety six, so about twenty seven and a half twenty
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seven years plus is how long you were the sports editor here. And I
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don't know if that meant people know your background prior to getting here. So
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walk us through. You know where you were born, went to school,
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and how you ended up in Bartlesville. Sure well. I was born in
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California, in Los Angeles area. We moved a lot when I was a
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kid and then but we ended up when I was an older boy in Ogden,
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Utah, which is kind of where I grew up as a teenager.
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Then I served a mission, a two year mission for the Church of Jesus
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Christ of Latter day Saints in Italy, learned to speak Italian. Then I
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went to Weaber State College in Ogden, Utah for more than four years.
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Then I joined the US Marines for four years, just kind of a hunch
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thing. I had never planned on that. And then I after the Marines,
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I needed another couple of years before I found my first job in a
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town Eli, Nevada, sixty four hundred foot elevation, So it was I
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was way up there then and started out as a reporter and they made me
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sports editor. But I was mainly a reporter. So did you cover just
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sports there or was it news too? News too? Yeah? I did
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the county commission board, the hospital board, the school board, a bunch
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of beats, please courts, and so I was a busy guy, but
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sports obviously was my first love. From there, I got a job as
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a full time sports editor. This was all in the same company. They
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had a chain of newspapers in southern California near Riverside, California. It was
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a weekly and I worked there for about fifteen sixteen months, and then from
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there I went to a place called Oraville, California, sixty miles north of
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Sacramento. Was there for more than four and a half years, enjoyed that
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time, had a lot of great experiences, and then toward the end of
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that time, I kind of felt that it was time for me to move
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on, and uh coincidentally, mister Edwards, Joseph Edwards, who one I
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mean who published the EE, had called me and invited me to come and
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work in Bartlesville. So at first, I, you know, going from
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northern California to Oklahoma, never having lived further east in Utah, it seemed
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like as not scary, but a new adventure that I didn't know if I
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wanted to have. But you know, he called me a couple of times
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and uh, and I said, I think my time in Oraville was pretty
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much coming to an end. So I accepted the Bartlesville job, drove out
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here, and uh, my on my first or second day, I met
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Missus Marta Manning, who was who would be my landlady? And uh at
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that my first couple of days in town, I was so homesick for Oraville.
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I just wanted to turn around and go back and ask me game my
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job back. So I told Missus Manning, and she wanted me to sign
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a lease, and I told her I just didn't know if I was going
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to stay in town, and so she let me pay months by month,
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and that turned into as I've been there now, that place now for more
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than twenty seven years. So yeah, well no, no, no,
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it got sold here a few years ago. Now I have a lease.
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But when you're a month by month until Missus Manning and so on until she
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died, Yeah yeah, well after shed a couple years, until after a
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couple years sheet Yeah yeah pretty cool. So so what drew you to sports?
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What? What about sports and memories of when you were a kid that
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kind of made you, you know, decide you wanted to work in sports.
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What was that? Well, just to make a real long story short,
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I as a kid, we moved a lot. I never got involved
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in youth sports. I you know, I was always a new kid on
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the block and everything we've allved around home because that was the only place I
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really knew. So when I was thirteen, I just kind of felt a
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reaching out for something to follow. So I turned on an NFL game and
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it all started with their you know. And so as far as playing sports,
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I tried out for my high school. I've written a lot of this
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in my columns, but I tried out for my high school football team.
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Came up just short, but it ended up being the manager, and so
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it just kind of, you know, different experience any ransom, right,
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Yep. People wouldn't know it to look at me now, but yeah,
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when I was eighty one, when it was nineteen eighty one, I enlisted
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in the Marine Corps and I went on a four month delate enlistment, and
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so during that four months I began to run because I wanted to be in
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shape for boot camp. And from there I just continued to run. I
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wasn't required, I wasn't a Marine Corps thing. I just ran alone on
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my own every pretty much every day except for Sundays, and became I ran
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three miles in five k in sixteen fifth fifty and which was my best time
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and I wanted to get faster, but then I had any issues. Talking
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with Mike tupa former sports editor the Bartlesville examined Our Enterprise, talking about his
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career here. Before we get into you know people that you remember in Bartlesville
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and this job specifically, you mentioned that the few other stops you had prior
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to here, what was the longest A couple of years? Is that I
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remember what you say, right right? Excuse me, try about that little
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cold It was Oraville. That was about four and a half year. Four
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and a half years. Yeah, so a little longer than I thought.
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But still you bounced around a couple three different places, and obviously you were
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here for nearly thirty years. What about being in Bartlesville led you to kind
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of settle in here where you know? I would think looking at your career
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trajectory until the late nineties, it seemed like maybe you'd be here three,
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four, five years and move on. Why did you end up staying?
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You know? And that's a good question, Evan, and I don't know
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that I can fully answer it. Part of the thing would be that the
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Don Ray Media Group, who I started with and was part of Bartlesville,
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was part of kind of sold their papers to another media group and they got
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rid of several papers, and so the opportunities to transfer somewhere else, especially
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on an upward transfer, not a lateral transfer, had had shut off a
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lot. And I don't know. I guess I just never felt the push
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to leave, you know enough. I mean I did at one point,
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when I'd been here six or seven years, I did interview for another job
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outside the company, but that didn't work out, and I'm glad it didn't.
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I don't think that would have been a good choice for me. But
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other than that, I just never really felt the motivation to leave. So
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you must have been reasonably happy in Bartlesville. I guess we'll with the job
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in a second. But what was it like for you living here? And
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you're obviously impressions maybe impressions of the town maybe when you first moved here,
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and then how has that changed or grown maybe would be the better word,
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in the last twenty eight years. That's a good question. I guess it's
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just developing friendships that perpetuate themselves over that time, you know, so that
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you become know people better, and you developed those relationships and prolong them and
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then I was able to every July for about twenty straight years. Twenty one
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spend three weeks vacation at my sister's place in West Valley, Utah, And
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so that helped because that was kind of kind of my highlight of my year
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was to be with her, And so by doing that then made coming back
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to Bartlesville and working here easier too. So and talk about her. I
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know that was someone you were close with and spoke to on the phone,
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and obviously you've talked about it in the paper and with me personally for a
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while. I know you wanted to move back there, and she passed away
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somewhat somewhat recently. To speak about your sister, if you could sure,
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you know, if it wasn't for her name was Pam. If it wasn't
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for Pam, I wouldn't have been able to really follow what has been really
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a living dream for me for the last thirty something years. She had been
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married for about a year and a half. It didn't work out. It
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was a it was a guy from an end of the country. That's not
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why it didn't work out, but just but anyway, so she went to
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live with our mom, you know, and so Pam was willing to and
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Mom at that point wasn't really able to work after a while, so Pam
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took on the responsibility of being a provider for her and my mom, you
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know, and therefore that freed me up to to follow my goals. And
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so I can't I can't thank her enough of that. And she was just
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a wonderful woman, extremely dedicated to what the things that she believed in,
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and very willing to sacrifice, very non non complaining, even though she had
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some She was a two time press cancer survivor. She had two masectomies,
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but she just kept on going and was happy. Mike Tuba's with this former
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Examiner Enterprise sports editor as we kind of recap his time in Bartlesville mentioned you
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got here in nineteen ninety seven, Mike, and obviously there were a lot
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of big things that you covered, So we can maybe trans transition into the
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job a little bit. First few years. Things that stand out people,
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events you covered, anything, you know, late nineties, early two thousands
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that maybe stick out in your mind. Absolutely. I think the first main
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thing, well, let me just say stuff like covering the first my first
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American Legion baseball games was very special. It was a very special atmosphere that
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year, and really enjoyed that. But in terms of just singular things.
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Interviewing Paul Endicott, he was ninety six years old. He came from Lawrence,
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Kansas, and he had grown up near James Naysmith, of the inventor
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of basketball, and James Naysmith had been his Sunday school teacher. And later
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when Paul played at Kansas, James Naysmith was the director of recreation, which
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is kind of like the athletic director today. And so that was very special
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to talk to a man who had been so steeped in basketball history and was
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he how did that end up happening? I was here, I was here,
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and I just remember his name came up. Somebody told me, oh,
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this guy named James Naysmith. Who knows who I mean, Paul Ndicott,
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who knew James nay Smith lives in town? And so yeah, he
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lived here. Yeah, he had been the former board chairman of Phillips and
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he was retired, obviously, and so I just called him up on the
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phone and back when people had their numbers in the phone book, and made
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an appointment and talked to him few other things from that first five ten years
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whatever. Then I had an opportunity to interview Jess Rennick. He was been
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a former Phillip sixty six ers player. He was the captain of the nineteen
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forty eight US Olympic gold medal team. Several Phillips players were members of that
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team, and he was the third. He was the second Native American born
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in America. I mean, there's been other people of Indian descent who have
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won Olympic things, but he was only the second actually born in the United
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States to win a gold medal, behind Jim Thorpe. And so that was
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a thrill to interview him. He was very down to earth and he died
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just a couple of years later. I got to hold his gold medal and
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it was a nice experience. Any bruined teams Bartlesville hide people that stand out
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from first five is years I enjoyed very much. Lee Brower came in as
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a Browin football coach before my first season covering them, and he was a
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very special man. He was already a gray haired coach you'd already been on
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a college level, but he brought an energy and a focus to Brooin football
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that really continued from it. Before I came, they'd been one in twenty
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nine in their last three years, and so he really was a catalyst to
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turning it around. You know, I enjoyed Wes Brown, the Brown basketball
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boys coach. He didn't have maybe the success that people hoped, but he
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was a very nice man, good coach. Buck Vest was a baseball coach.
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Another good guy, Stan Walton Took Kramer, Steve Hall, and John
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Swanson were the coaching staff of the Indians Exceptional group. And then there was
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the other schools. Jay Hurd at DOO. He was a member of the
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the Oklahoma Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Great coach. My mind is kind
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of full of Joe Gilbert obviously at Barnstall, I think you got to talk
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to and that was special the whole time that he was living and just so
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many others. Talking with Mike tupa Bartlesville Examiner Enterprise sports editor, after he
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announced his retirement a couple of weeks ago. You know two things that you
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kind of hit on right there that I wanted to ask you, is this
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things that maybe you and I hadn't even gotten a chance to talk about a
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ton you obviously started a few years even after. You know, Bartlesville High
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had had a lot of success at basketball, but the Bruins continue to have
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a lot of success at basketball for a long time after you were here.
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And I think that the Just Fort Indians another. Yeah. I think when
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a lot of people think about, you know, big time Bartlesville sports,
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you know, from the eighties on forward, they probably think about Brown basketball
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and maybe Denge's Ford Indians baseball, and I'm missing some and they're obviously swimming
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and has had a really great one and cross country too, but you know,
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think of a big team sports that people really follow, those are the
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two that stand out. If you could, you know, talk about your
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memories from both of those programs, big matchups. I know you spoke about
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some of the coaches and do you agree with that assessment of those are things
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that maybe stand out as some of the biggest things you covered. Sure,
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I appreciate it, and I didn't along that line. I'm glad you asked.
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I didn't want to leave out Tim bart You know, he came in
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a team that had finished two and twenty of the year before they went I
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believe thirteen and eleven in his first season and so starting from there. Oh,
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some big matchups would be obviously the two thousand and five state final where
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Bartlesville just barely lost. I hope I get it right. It was Putnam
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City, I believe, or but I or when the Santa Fe or Santa
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Fe or something that they lost to in a state championship I apologized for.
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They had three I think they had three future NBA players on that team.
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That was a huge game. I remember that it was at Oral Roberts.
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That whole state tournament was at Earl Roberts for for three straight days. I
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took the company truck and drove down there, and they were doing highway work
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then, so you had to go all the way up past the regular stop
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and go in. But anyway, the Bruin fans were so supportive, you
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know, even back then, even when the team was struggling when I first
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got here, and of course obviously during Tim Barts first five or ten years,
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and then even when the team kind of did a little bit of a
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roller coaster there that the fans were still wonderful. Other basketball games, I'm
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trying. I know that. Of course, David Castillo scoring you know,
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over forty points a couple of time times at home. Those stand out the
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first time against Ponkas City and I remember him looking up at the scoreboard afterward
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where they listed the point totals, you know, and I thought that was
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a special moment. Then the team went to State there was you had Noah
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Hartsock and Sam Mitchell on the same bruined team in two thousand and five.
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Sam went on to play four years at University of Tulsa, had a real
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good college careers, kind of a sixth man sometimes starter. And then you
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had Noah who went on to play at BYU and had a really really good
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career. And to have those two on the same team and covering them was
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great. Ben Rovenstein another great basketball player, probably underrated as one of the
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best ones to come through. As far as the team's before me, I've
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gotten to know them just through research and talking to players, and I sate
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their tradition and what they did and the special personalities they had. Same question,
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I guess for the Indians, of course, we had the Stanwell during
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my first year, they went fifty two and twenty I think, fantastic year.
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They had Kent shob hit seventeen homers, Kevin Murphy hit I think fourteen
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or something like that, and Jeremy Silva hit like ten. So they had
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a really fun team to watch. Now they went to State. They we
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hosted State that year and back was back when American Agia was huge in Oklahoma,
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so a lot of teams so at State and I always and I love
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Stanwalton, I think he's a great coach, but I always felt that they
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went they opened up against the three. Back then, the majors State championship
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included seven majors teams and the Triple A champion, so Bartlesol drew the Triple
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A hichampionship. Bartlesow was the number one seed. So I always thought Stan
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should have started our the ace that year, which is Nick Rust in that
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game. But they went with Eric Hare, a really fine pitcher from Knie
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Valley, but he was just a sophomore, I think. So I always
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thought that had they had the gown with Nick, they probably would have beat
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Elk City in that first round and maybe gone to the regional. So but
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other than that, of course, winning Widget was always special. John Panell,
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one of the manager who succeeded Stan, won the Widget in two thousand
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and three, and so he became the first guy to have played on a
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winning windget team and to have coached a winning wingget team and very committed individual.
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I have a lot of respect for John and uh just kind of a
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collage of memories of individuals. I remember Ryan Dunlap, who's Mike Dunlapp I
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think is a communic case kind of commissioner. Was his son Ryan. I
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remember watching a batting practice and Ryan was a big guy, not a hefty
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guy, but a big, strong, muscular guy. And I remember he
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was in the cage and the ball came in and hit him right in the
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left chest and it looked like a fly bounced off him. You know,
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he didn't react and wins and stuff like that stands out. Yeah, what
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about you know, particularly now, maybe less so in the nineties and early
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to mid two thousands, but particularly now, you know, there'd be a
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lot of towns of our size where you know, there's not a job for
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me or you you know, particularly as time has gone on and media has
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changed, and this I think that alone just when you take a step back
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and look at Bartlesville and it's a relationship with sports and media, which obviously
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you and I both deal with dayan out makes it kind of a special place.
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It's always seemed like placed there's not a ton of forty thousand population towns
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that have you know, someone who's been a sports editor for twenty eight years,
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or someone who does all their high school football and basketball games on the
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radio or the live stream or whatever. Can you just speak to you know,
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the the nature of Bartlesville that makes it possible to have coverage and possible
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for you know, it's citizens and parents and grandparents to have relationships with its
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sports teams that I think a lot of other towns, our sides or certainly
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high schools and you know, programs like the Indians our size don't have.
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Yeah, you know, it's a good question, Evan, I think in
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our community in Bartlesvielle and you don't know, how do these things? How
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do these things extend year after year after year? You know, because it
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seems like Bartlesfield has always been so I'm speaking and generally collectively, has always
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been so committed to its young people, to giving him good experiences, to
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raising them the way that will help them be successful and happy. It just
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seems like that's just kind of a theme that goes on and on in Bartlesville,
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and so I think because of that, when media comes in and is
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positive and tries to tries to build up the programs and community, I think
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that people appreciate it, you know. I think that's that's part of it.
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There's not there's not a lot of apathy, you know, towards the
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people cling to the bruin football, basketball, and so on and so forth,
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and even the sports that don't generate the big crowds and things like that,
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there's still people who are die hard bruined soccer fans and swimming fans,
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and wrestling fans and and and so on, and base of course baseball when
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the major worts. But so to answer your question, I just think people
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are so committed to supporting the youth of the town that they appreciate and support
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the media that do their best to try to build up the young people,
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to try to give them publicity and stuff like that. Obviously, you went
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over a lot of this in your last column, but some people you'd like
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to give credit for helping you throughout the last thirty years. I appreciate.
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Real fast we were talking, I didn't mention anything about football highlights, Can
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I talk about that? Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah? Cool? Well,
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you know, and football, obviously, there's something unique about the sport of
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football, kind of like every game is a world in itself, and every
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game is a paget of a separate pageant. It's not like other sports.
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It looks like where the games are connected to make a season. It's like
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football every week is something special. Anyway, Having said that, the coaches,
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of course, Lee Brower, Rich Maguire, Greg Willis, Ron Smith,
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John McKee, Kyle Poole, Lee Blankenship and Jason Sport and Harry Wright,
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all of them have brought something unique to the program. And I have
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memories of all of them, pretty positive memories for the most part. But
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as far as highlights, of course, that you were there during the twenty
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fourteen season, you know, and the win against Booker, I mean sorry
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Bixby, Yeah yeah yeah, and fifty to thirty three. And I remember
24:37
how Nate Hansen returned that pick six to kind of ignite the second half comeback.
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That stands out. I remember a kid named Jeff bowl You who ended
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up later walked down at Oaklahoma State and played some He returned to punt for
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a touchdown in at nineteen ninety seven in a home for Bartow's first homecoming win
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in like five years. Just things like that spent out. But anyway,
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but as far as people, I'd like to to think, there's just so
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many. Marta Manning she ended up giving me rides to many out of town
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games. She was just always very supportive, very kind in her assessment of
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what I was trying to do. When she died, it was truly like
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losing a best friend and in a way kind of a mother figure. Also
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there was Bob palm Roy has been a very special friend to me, the
25:41
head of a Barstbool Sports Commission for many years, and I've appreciated him both
25:48
helping me do my job better and just and just being very nice. The
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oh, I'm sorry, there's just I'm yeah, you're going to leave somebody
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out. My mind has just gone blank. Of course, getting inducted in
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the Barswall Hall of Fame and Marty showing Taller being my my host or the
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guy who facilitated my preparations for that, that was very special to me.
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And Carol Green has always been very nice and so you spoke to it a
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little bit earlier. What what do you plan on, you know, fill
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in your days with now, well, I want to write this autobiography,
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get that done. I want to completely organize all the papers and books and
26:40
things I have at home and get rid of a whole bunch of stuff.
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I probably will write some a few articles as a stringer for the paper I'll
26:52
turn in, but that will be just kind of a I won't be doing
26:57
full time coverage, but i'll but I want to make sure that some of
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the games are reported and and in terms of opportunities to work or something,
27:15
really not really haven't thought about that, you know. I mean, I'm
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not obviously not looking for a full time job, but anything that I could,
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I've thought about getting a website, you know, and putting some of
27:29
my thoughts and literary works and stuff like that on air. So I'm just
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trying to sort it out, you know. Obviously, I think you had
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retired before that first football playoff game and in the basketball season starting up as
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we record this now. I don't know when people listen to it, But
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was it weird not you know, having a vested work interest in you know,
27:52
an event like that. It was in a way, But I've had
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a mobility issue here. It's really been about five years, but it's really
28:03
been more acute here the last couple of years. So in some ways,
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I hadn't been at all the games that I normally would have been before,
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so that kind of softened it. It wasn't like I was at this really
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high level of going to everything and all of sudden one day it's all dead.
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You know. I'd kind of tapered off in terms of getting around a
28:26
lot, so in that way it made it easier. But it yeah,
28:33
I would to doing a preview for the game. Of course I didn't do,
28:37
because you know, I did do a little playoff report, but after
28:40
the fact. But so it's hard to explain, you know. So in
28:47
some ways, I wasn't ready to retire, and I've still have plenty of
28:51
energy mentally and emotionally. In other ways, you know, I'm a little
28:55
bit physically tired, so it's it's kind of a weird feeling. Yeah,
29:00
and anything else you'd like to add, mister Tuba, just trying to think
29:06
of I just wanted to kind of talk a little bit about more about some
29:11
of the people's now. I wanted to mention the people in my church they
29:14
have been so outstanding and to me, and they helped me clean up my
29:18
apartment during a during a certain time when after my sister died, you know
29:23
that, which which was big for me. Then there's so many people I
29:29
want to thank and for some reason, mine just drawing a blank. You
29:33
know, uh, well, and I want to thank Evan. I want
29:37
to thank you. A lot of people don't know this, but you've and
29:41
and the radio station. A lot of people don't know this, but you've
29:45
given me a lot of rides here the last five years out of town games,
29:48
and I appreciate it, and well into some intown games, and so
29:56
in the radio stations, even though we're competitors in the sense of ad dollars,
30:00
but in terms of personal relationships and wanting to do what's right for the
30:04
kids, we're all on the same page. And so I've always just appreciated
30:08
the radios commitment to the kids of this town and to the community as itself.
30:15
Anyway, Well, I appreciate it. I wish I could. My
30:19
mind has just come blank. There's so many people I'd like to think,
30:22
and I find myself at a lot. Well, I appreciate your friendship,
30:29
Mike, and you helping me since I've gotten here. You know, I
30:33
was almost fresh out of college by the time I got here, and I,
30:37
you know, didn't know where Bartlesville was on the map when I first
30:41
interviewed, and I was just a stupid kid, and I'm still stupid.
30:45
But I'm a little older now, ten years older. And you were very
30:51
kind and always helpful to me, So I really appreciate that as well.
30:56
My pleasure, Evan, and I appreciate your commitment to to the town.
31:00
And you're very talented, I believe, and to stay in here for the
31:06
years that you have, and I appreciate that, and selfishly I hope that
31:11
you continue. Of course, you've got to do what's best for you,
31:14
but you're a blessing to the town. Well, Mike, I appreciate it,
31:18
so best of luck. I'm sure we'll see around more than people probably
31:22
think they will. I appreciate it. I appreciate it, Evan. Thank you.