Mike Holder will forever be known as the athletic director who connected T Boone Pickens’ money into upgrading athletic facilities across the spectrum on the Oklahoma State University campus.
He never would have become athletic director at that time to replace the very capable Harry Birdwell if Boone hadn’t made it a stipulation in his original donation to the university that the money wouldn’t come unless Mike Holder was his man.
I will write this about Mike Holder first—during his sixteen year tenure as O State’s AD his job rating in overhauling facilities is an A+++. In fact– I would say I wish we had a governor in our state as adept at overhauling state infrastructure as Mike Holder has been as the AD in Stillwater.
During Holder’s tenure the university not only built T Boone Pickens Stadium, but built the Sherman Smith Indoor Facilty. Then there was the Karsten Creek golf course which became the facility for the golf team. Then the new tennis and soccer facilities. And now as Holder is stepping down…the completion of O State’s state of the art baseball facility.
It was MAPS Stillwater. Smart guy.
While MAPS was and is still going on in downtown Oklahoma City…what Mike Holder has been a part in rebuilding and modernizing O State athletic facilities has been nothing less of phenomenal.
Walk the campus sometime if you doubt me.
He brought on Mike Gundy…which in the beginning was a good thing. In fact..Holder, Boone, and Mullet King won a Big 12 championship in 2011 with a team in which to this day is easily the best O State football team I’ve ever seen from the prism of being an OU fan. That wouldn’t have happened without Mike Holder.
Holder brought on Josh Holliday to restore the baseball program. I actually met Josh Holliday on one of my flights back from Denver. Nice guy. I meet a lot of interesting people on those flights back from Denver…just saying.
Holder had to fire Sean Sutton…which had to be done. He had to work around the Eddie Sutton situation at the end. I didn’t even mention the expansion of Gallagher Iba because in reality I wish they hadn’t done it. They ruined a historic basketball gym. I never would have expanded GI Arena beyond 8,500 seats…. but that’s just me. I love history.
As an OU fan that was my favorite basketball venue until they did the expansion.
The O State basketball program under Holder has not been smooth or successful. Since the time Eddie Sutton stepped down…which was around sixteen years ago… O State before this season made the NCAA Tournament field a total of two times and won ONE March Madness game….as in one.
Holder was responsible for the Travis Ford ten year contract which was a fiasco. Ford’s teams made the NCAA Tournament field one time with the Byron Eaton group and never made the field with Marcus Smart’s teams.
To Holder’s credit he did hire Brad Underwood, but then didn’t keep him because he was too cheap to pay the going rate for mens basketball coaches. Of course… Underwood now coaches a top ten Fighting Illini team at Illinois.
But I do give Holder credit for hiring Mike Boynton…which I think will prove to be a solid hire. Not a home run hire, but a solid hire. Bill Self would have been the home run hire.
My major criticism of Holder would be he didn’t keep the Mullet King in check in the years which followed the 2011 football team. The football program became somewhat of a joke with all the theatrics of Mike Gundy playing Boone with the job offers at Tennessee and Arkansas.
You never ever once saw this with Bob Stoops and Joe C. Joe C would have fired Bob Stoops if that had been the case. Mike Holder’s enabling and mishandling of the Mullet King is the one big red mark I give Mike Holder on his final report card….and I think Mike Holder knows he should have handled Gundy differently in retrospect. I’m sure he and the recently departed Burns Hargis both have regrets on that one.
Otherwise—I give Mike Holder A’s across the board as a visionary who helped his alma mater step forward into the future of overall athletic excellence in Stillwater.