OSU walk-ons compete for love of the game

In the same manner as football, walking on to a Big 12 basketball team takes a lifetime of hard work to prepare for, but just moments to come to fruition.

Players trying out for Travis Ford's OSU basketball team have only a couple of hours in front of coaches to make a good impression.

Sophomore guard Lee Ledford, who played for OSU as a walk-on this past season, didn't even find out about the 6 a.m. tryouts until the night before.

"I was like, ‘I might as well go and try out just to say I did it,'" Ledford said. "I wasn't really expecting to make it or anything, and so 6 a.m. the next morning there was like 65 guys there and we were like, ‘Oh, great.'"

He said the scrimmaging lasted only a couple of hours before the group was reduced to 10.

"They didn't call my name at first, so I was taking my shoes off and everything," he said. "Then one of the coaches came over to me and said, ‘We forgot to call your name,' so I pulled my shoes back on, and I really wasn't expecting much and I was really tired."

Another half hour of scrimmaging, a short waiting game and a phone call later, Ledford was a Cowboy basketball player.

Fellow walk-on Garrett Thomas, a junior guard, said he was surprised the entire search process lasted only a couple of hours.

"(After the scrimmage) they just took four of our names and numbers and called some of us and we just had to go through compliance," Thomas said. "And that was pretty much the whole process."

The tryout process was particularly easy compared to what was in store for them over the next year.

Players would get up early for workouts or class and then spend the entire afternoon in film sessions, weight lifting and practice.

Ledford said the busy schedule made it tough enough, but it got even tougher when he had to start missing classes for games and tournaments.

"Luckily I had tutors for them," he said. "They help out a lot as far as getting with your teachers and everything. If you are good to your teachers, they will help you out and explain it to you a little more."

As with football, basketball walk-ons don't receive some of the benefits that scholarship players do, such as the monthly scholarship checks and training table meals.
Ledford said he became OK with that.

"After a while I was kind of ready to get out of the gym and go home and fix something to eat," he said.

But Ledford and Thomas said walk-ons obviously can't be in it for the glorified things, such as exquisite team meals or campuswide fame. After all, they only registered a couple of minutes of playing time the entire season.

Instead, their motivation comes simply from being around the game of basketball all the time, even if that means doing less-than-glorious jobs on the court.

"A lot of times, you just have to go play defense and catch a few elbows in the face every now and then," Thomas said. "That's just part of it, and it comes with the territory. It's the little, dirty tasks that the scholarship players don't want to do is what you normally have to do."