To best follow Gary Inglett’s collegiate basketball career, it may help to use Google Maps.
The Plainview graduate has had stops in El Reno (Redlands Community College), Tishomingo (Murray State), Weatherford (SWOSU) and now Oklahoma City (OCU). And the constant through each stop has been family.
Gary Inglett. Photo courtesy OCU Sports Info.
Inglett has not been alone.
“My wife, Jamie, and my daughter, Marley, and my two grandparents and Roy and Myra Martin and my parents, Jeff and Linda Houchin, they’ve been supporting me since I first got out of high school and they’ve come to every game,” Inglett said.
“They’re just my biggest fans. They make sure they don’t miss a game.”
Basketball has been a constant on Inglett’s migration through college, but it has been marked by attending to the needs of his daughter. Marley was born with congenital heart issues and her care has been a priority that has been a factor in the changes of venue.
“I played ball at Redlands when I graduated in 2010,” Inglett said. “And I played there for a year until my wife gave birth to our daughter and she got sick, so I had to sit out my second year.
“Then we moved to Murray State to be closer to home. I got to play only a semester, but it was a great semester and I got a scholarship to go and play at Southwestern Oklahoma State in Weatherford. Had a great year there and finished on the second team all-conference.
“But things didn’t really work out the way we wanted it and so I decided to play even closer to home back at the City for coach Dionne Phelps at Oklahoma City University. And this has been the greatest year I’ve ever had.”
Inglett was named the Sooner Athletic Conference Newcomer of the Year in his first, and final, year at OCU. He has averaged a double-double for the season with 18.1 points per game and 10.3 rebounds per game.
[Update: Inglett was also named to the All-OSN First Team.]
The Stars are 17-7 overall and went 13-5 in the SAC, finishing in a tie for second in the league and will be the No. 3 seed when they play in their first conference tournament game this evening. OCU goes into the postseason on a five-game winning streak and has won 11 of the last 12.
Inglett’s play has been big during the stretch. And he said he feels good about what has been accomplished, but he also talked once again about the support of those around him.
“It’s been pretty good for me on the court,” Inglett said. “I mean, we’ve had our ups and downs like a normal team would.
“But my teammates have put me in a great position to be successful, as well as my coaching staff.”
A journeyman type college basketball career may seem difficult, but Inglett’s perspective speaks of a focus beyond himself in what made this year a year he described as tremendous.
“I would say the fact that my daughter is healthy.
“We have great coaching staff and a great team. But the fact that we don’t have to worry about her being in the hospital and finally having a year that we can just enjoy ourselves and enjoy basketball.”
And he said he wouldn’t change the route he’s taken.
“Well, I would want her not to have gotten sick. But as far as the path we took, I wouldn’t want it any other way. I was fine with the way we did it.
“We came out on top. And she managed to get over all her sickness. She still goes to the doctor. I don’t think I’d have it any other way.”
And so his path winds down with the conference tournament this weekend and a possible berth in the NAIA national tournament.
He will have the opportunity to play on his home court for at least one more game and maybe more, as the SAC Tournament is being held at Abe Lemons Arena this year. But home court or not, he has traversed this bumpy, winding road alone and tonight he will be able to look into the stands to see generations of family, older and younger, who are cheering him on.