“Coach, he called me a ******!”
John Holcomb heard Oklahoma State guard Marcus Smart say those words last Saturday night. Holcomb heard Smart say that just moments after his now infamous contretemps with Texas Tech fan Jeff Orr. Holcomb, the radio analyst for Oklahoma State men’s basketball team, was not reading Smart’s lips. He saw Smart say it. He heard Smart say it.
Holcomb stands by that observation. Emphatically. “As I told my play-by-play partner, Dave Hunziker, ‘Dave, it was so plain,'” says Holcomb, who doubles as the sports director at Tulsa’s CBS affiliate, KOTV. “That was a can’t-miss thing for me.”
“Our broadcast position is right next to the Oklahoma State bench,” says Holcomb, who is in his sixth season as the team’s color analyst on the Cowboy Sports Network, “and during a game I’ll jot down significant plays. So when they turned the ball over I had my head down, writing that had happened. Then I heard the crowd noise swell.”
When Holcomb looked up, he spotted one of the officials, Doug Sirmons, approach the scorer’s table to indicate a technical foul on Smart. Holcomb heard Smart tell Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford, “I had no choice, he pushed the guy.” Having not witnessed the encounter between Smart and Orr, Holcomb at first assumed Sermons was referring to a Texas Tech player.
Holcomb, 49, was wearing his headset when an obviously upset Smart retreated to the Oklahoma State bench. Still, he is certain that he both saw and heard Smart say, “Coach, he called me a ******!”
Anyone listening to the broadcast would have heard Holcomb tell Hunziker, ‘“Dave, Marcus said, ‘He just called me the N-word.’”
