Capel gets commit from walk-on/academic scholly

[King Crimson]

kid is 6' 8", honable mention all-state in Kansas largest classification--in hoops and football.


thanks to 87Sooner at Insider:

www.winfieldcourier.com/m...ionID=&S=1

Gerber verbally commits to OU
Gerber picks Oklahoma over 50 other schools because it has a great engineering school and is in the Big 12

By TRACY MCCUE
Sports Editor

Beau Gerber, a dominating force for the Winfield High School boys basketball team for the past three seasons, has made a verbal commitment to the University of Oklahoma.

Gerber will be considered a walk-on at Oklahoma University, and will not have an athletic scholarship. However, because Gerber received a 32 on his ACT, he will go to OU on an academic scholarship starting this fall.

Gerber will be majoring in mechanical engineering.

"When it came down to making the decision, Beau wanted to play in the Big 12 Conference," said Dennis Gerber, Beau's father.

Gerber will be joining the Sooners, who are going through a coaching transition. He will play for new head coach Jeff Capel and his staff. Capel was hired this spring to replace Kelvin Sampson after coaching Virginia Commonwealth University.

"I'm real excited for him," said Rob Fields, Winfield head boys basketball coach. "Good things happen to good people. He's had a great career here and I'm sure he'll make the best of it at OU."

The decision ends a lengthy recruiting process where as many as 50 schools were looking at Gerber. He was heavily recruited from schools from the NAIA, to junior college, to DI.

Dartmouth College was probably the most distant school recruiting. Dartmouth, a school in Hanover, N.H., is an Ivy League school.

[OUstud]

I wonder if he'll contribute or if he'll be an Oleg.

[King Crimson]

hard to know, isn't it? but, Capel has been pretty upfront about not just giving schollies away to fill the bench and maintaining a degree of selectivity in the face of near catastrophe....so i'll crimson eyeglass this one and hope the kid can contribute....at minimum it's 5 more fouls to give in the paint.

it would be helpful to know what other D-1 schools were offering/recruiting the kid.

[NUSooner]

The good news is he'll never be an Oleg because he isn't getting an athletic scholarship...Oleg did and it might be the biggest waste, in terms of athletic talent, ever.

[lubbocksooner]

Well I guess this is a can't loose for both him and OU. With a score like that on the ACT he should not have any trouble graduating. Hopefully he can play as well, even 5 minutes of good relief a game would be great.

[OUGreg723]

cool

[sooner518]

no skin (scholarship) off our back.

[william_brasky]

very nice.

sounds like a good kid.

[suncoastsooner7]

Winfield!!!! Go Vikings (are they still the Vikings?)

My Family is from Winfield.

[Taxman71]

This type of thing is very common in non-full ride sports like baseball. If you already have a full-ride and won't cause a riff in the lockerroom, you should get a chance.

[IronHorseSooner]

You're right. At least it can give some MUCH NEEDED depth in the paint. 5 minutes a game to muscle inside would be great. Remember, KU got some really good productivity out of a walk-on from the state of Kansas- Christian Moody.

[Jeopardude]

Engineering? Could be the next Dave Sieger!

[SleestakSooner]

bad link there dude

[Jeopardude]

bad link there dude

Fixed.

[King Crimson]

Fixed.

that's pretty cool, thanks:

from jeopardude's link--


WATN: Dave Sieger found!

Maybe it was just that the 'Bag spent his eighth-grade basketball season gunning 3s and yelling "Sieeee-GERRRR" every time he made one, but we were jazzed to catch up with the feather-haired Oklahoma sharpshooter whose seven treys against Kansas in '88 is still tied for the NCAA title-game record (with Indiana's Steve Alford in '87 and Kentucky's Tony Delk in '96). Here are some selected highlights from our conversation:

Me: What are you up to now?

Sieger: I work for a hedge fund in Chicago and live here in the suburbs. Plus I've got two boys that keep me busy. They're six and three. [Sieger got an undergraduate electrical engineering degree along with a masters and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from OU.] My kids watch ESPN Classic, and one time an OU-Missouri game came on. I was there for a good 15 minutes or so trying to convince my oldest that it was me.

Me: The 50-50 first half in the '88 title game may still be the best half of a championship game I've ever seen. Can you still believe Kansas pulled off the upset?

Sieger: It's kind of surprising to conceptualize how the outcome could have been what it ended up. It was close at the end, and there were some controversial calls that turned it one way or the other. But it was just a competitively played game. It was essentially a home-court game for Kansas, but you had to factor that in there. They played a great game, and we played a pretty good one too.

I was definitely hot in that game. I knew it was going to be a good night when I got hit on the bottom of my elbow shooting a 3, and it still went in.

Me: Have you still got the '80s hair?

Sieger: No, not really. I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues the other day, and we were talking about how the hairstyles were different back then. I've got some pictures from Sports Illustrated articles, and in one of them my hair is down below my shoulders.

Me: Awesome.

Sieger: I hesitate to bring those to work. It would be fun to see the expressions of everyone, though.

Many thanks to Dave for playing along this week.

[Grimey]

[Sieger got an undergraduate electrical engineering degree along with a masters and Ph.D. in industrial engineering from OU.]

geeze, talk about brainy!

[stoopified]

geeze, talk about brainy!

Great ballplayer for a brainiac.Still one of my all-time glue guys.If we are half as lucky with this new guy we are in good shape.I only live about forty miles from Winfield but have to admit I have never heard of this guy.(Not that it means anything.)

[PDXsooner]

i'm not holding my breath that this kid will be all-conference...