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The high-flying exploits of Abe Lemons’ Oklahoma City University basketball teams were heard worldwide thanks to the efforts of Edwin Powell Nall.
Nall, from Waurika, Okla., began work in the OCU athletic department while still a student in 1950. Upon graduation in 1952, OCU coach Doyle Parrack persuaded Nall to become athletic business manager and sports information director. Nall earned another degree from OCU by 1956 and served as business manager until 1958.
Nall was inducted into the OCU hall of fame in 1989 for meritorious service to the athletic department.
“First and foremost Ed Nall loved Oklahoma City University and was proud to be a graduate of OCU,” OCU athletic director Jim Abbott said. “He was part promoter, part horse trader and all business. He was creative and hard-working and had a lot to do with the popularity and success that OCU basketball enjoyed right from the very start."
Nall operated the Chiefs Basketball Network responsible for airing of OCU basketball. At one time, the broadcasts were carried on 26 commercial radio stations and heard via the Armed Forces Radio and Television Network. The broadcasts opened with, “Good evening everyone. From coast to coast and around the world, the OCU Chiefs basketball team is on the air.”
Nall founded KYFM, Oklahoma’s first independent FM radio station, in 1958.
Nall’s ingenuity showed in his ability to make deals. In exchange for radio commercials on the OCU broadcasts, a local car dealer allowed the basketball team to use a World War II C-47 airplane to travel to away games. Nall traded radio time for meal tickets to a local cafeteria the basketball players could use. He also provided paint for a new OCU cafeteria through trading commercial time.
“Whatever he traded for was what you had for dinner,” Lemons once told former players of Nall’s skills.
A newspaper writer once wrote Nall was “a man of boundless energy and limitless vision who is currently engaged in three important projects, any one of which would be considered a full-time job by the man on the street. Nall is the P.T. Barnum of the campus.”
Nall arranged airplanes advertising OCU basketball games to fly over Oklahoma football games. He convinced writers from New York to Los Angeles to write about OCU basketball, got the team on ABC’s nationwide radio program “The Breakfast Club” with Don McNeil and earned all-American accolades for several players.
Construction of Frederickson Field House, where OCU played basketball from 1959-2000, began after Nall enticed the Oklahoma Natural Gas Company to contribute $10,000 towards the $100,000 cost of the arena. Nall created the Chiefs booster club and a booster band called the Band Aids to play at home games.
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