Ronnie's ninth grade, a few of the luckier boys planned to attend a baseball camp at a nearby college. Ronnie wanted to go, too, but Roy and Juanita simply couldn't afford it. He persisted; it was a rare opportunity to improve his game and maybe get noticed by college coaches. For weeks he talked of nothing else and pouted when things looked hopeless. Roy finally acquiesced and borrowed the money from a bank. Ron's next project was the purchase of a motorbike, something Roy and Juanita were opposed to. They went through the usual series of denials and lectures and claims that it was something they simply couldn't afford and too dangerous anyway, so Ronnie announced he would pay for it himself. He found his first job, an afternoon paper route, and began saving every penny. When he had enough for the down payment, he bought the motorbike and arranged monthly payments with the dealer.
The repayment plan was derailed when a tent revival came to town. The Bud Chambers Crusade hit Ada -big crowds, lots of music, charismatic sermons, something to do at night. Ronnie went to the first service, was deeply moved, and returned the next nightwith most of his savings. When they passed the offering plate, he emptied his pockets.But Brother Bud needed more, so Ronnie returned the next night with the rest of hismoney. The next day he scraped up all the loose cash he could find or borrow and hustledback to the tent that night for another rowdy service and another hard-earned donation.For the entire week, Ronnie somehow managed to give and give, and when the crusade finally left town, he was flat broke.
Then he quit the paper route because it interfered with baseball. Roy scraped together the money and paid off the motorbike.
With both sisters out of the house, Ronnie demanded all the attention. A less beguiling child might have been intolerable, but he had developed an immense talent for charm. Warm, outgoing, and generous himself, he had no problem expecting unwarranted generosity from his family.
As Ronnie was entering the tenth grade, the football coach at Ada High approached Roy and suggested that his son enroll in the larger school. The kid was a natural athlete; by then everybody in town knew Ronnie was an outstanding basketball and baseball player. But Oklahoma is football country, and the coach assured Roy that the lights were brighter playing on the gridiron for the Ada Cougars. With his size, speed, and arm, he could quickly develop into a top player, possibly a recruit. The coach offered to stop by the house each morning and give the kid a ride to school.
The decision was Ronnie's, and he stuck with Byng, for two more years anyway. The rural community of Asher sits almost unnoticed on Highway 177 twenty miles north of Ada. It has few people-fewer than five hundred- no downtown to speak of, a couple of churches, a water tower, and a few paved streets with some aging homes scattered about. Its pride is a beautiful baseball field, just past its tiny, Class-B high school on Division Street.
Like most very small towns, Asher seems an unlikely place for anything noteworthy, but for forty years it had the winningest high school baseball team in the nation. In fact, no high school in history, public or private, has won as many games as the Asher Indians. It all began in 1959 when a young coach named Murl Bowen arrived and inherited a long-neglected program-the 1958 team did not win a game. Things changed quickly. Within three years Asher had its first state title. Dozens would follow. For reasons that are unlikely to ever become clear, Oklahoma sanctions varsity baseball in the fall, but only for those schools too small for football. During his career at Asher, it was not unusual for Coach Bowen's teams to win a state title in the fall, then follow it up with another in the spring. During one remarkable stretch, Asher qualified for the state finals sixty straight times-thirty years in a row, fall and spring.
In forty years, Coach Bowen's teams won 2,115 games, lost only 349, hauled home fortythree state championship trophies, and sent dozens of players to college and minor-league baseball. In 1975, Bowen was named the national high school coach of the year, and the town rewarded him by upgrading Bowen Field. In 1995, he received the same award again. "It wasn't me," he says modestly, looking back. "It was the kids. I