What do you get when you combine a great Texas Tech and Longhorn coach?
You get a colorful storyteller, a virtuoso of one-liners, and a master of politically incorrect comments.
Mark is a Midland Lee Rebel, UTEP scholarship football player, sports writer, and author of many books. His son Turk was recruited by Spike Dykes at Texas Tech, and Turks visit to Lubbock speaks volumes about Coach Dykes great character. But first Mark McDonald tells a great story about how Coach Dykes at 21 years of age learned how to dodge flying baloney.
“Beware of Flying Baloney- by Mark McDonald
A story about Spike Dykes”
Early on, Dykes was coaching high school basketball in the smallish ranching community of Eastland, in the cedar bushes between Fort Worth and Abilene.
His team was going home on the team bus one night after a dismal defeat when players started grab-assing in the aisles and hee-hawing in a manner Dykes deemed inappropriate. Worse, the kids used their sack lunches to start a food fight.
Steamed, Dykes stood on hind legs, reminded the players they had just lost and warned that the next kid to throw anything would be put off the bus and made to walk home. You guessed it. The very next instant somebody chunks a sandwich right at the 21-year-old coach.
“If the kid was as accurate with a basketball as he was with a sandwich,” Dykes later wrote, “we would have won the game.”
Stop the bus. The offending player gets kicked to the curb … 15 miles from school … in the darkness of north-central Texas deer country … long before cell phones.
Three o’clock next morning. R-r-r-r-r-ring. The phone awakens the slumbering Dykes household. It’s the school superintendent. Right then and there, Dykes, his young wife expecting their first baby, gets fired from his first coaching job.
Years later, in “Tales from the Texas Tech Sideline,” Dykes admits he could have handled the situation differently. “It was stupid to draw a line in the sand over a little flying baloney.”
“The recruiting of Turk McDonald by Texas Tech Coach Spike Dykes December 1987 By Mark McDonald ”
The sudden passing of Coach Spike Dykes (1938-2017) sent ripples of grief to our hearts here in Midland. Losing the former assistant to Darrell K. Royal and one of the most colorful and genuine characters in the state’s sports history reminded me of son Turk's recruiting trip to Texas Tech, winter of 1987.
Turk was a blue-chip center from DeSoto. On his recruiting trip to Tech Turk was feeling lousy when Tech sent a private plane to pick him up at Red Bird airstrip in Oak Cliff. After a bumpy flight to Lubbock, the kid's flu symptoms had worsened.
A Tech assistant met Turk at the airport and started to take him to a local hotel for the weekend. From there, his host and Turk would paint the town red (and black). Or maybe not. The kid was in no shape to go anywhere but to bed. With a sick visiting recruit on his hands, the assistant called Spike. What to do, what to do. "Bring him to our house," Spike says. "We'll look after him."
So, Turk spends his Texas Tech recruiting weekend convalescing as the house guest of Sharon and Spike Dykes. Two weeks later, Turk shows his gratitude by following his heart. He commits to David McWilliams and the Texas Longhorns.
Ever the sportsman, Coach Dykes took the disappointing news with style and class.
"Son," Spike tells Turk, "if you always wanted to go to Texas, that's where you should go."
Coach Dykes’ departure leaves us with sepia-toned memories of the Southwest Conference, and thoughts of what the Big 12 – indeed all big-time collegiate athletics -- may never be again. Friends and foes alike, Dykes’ built links to athletes and coaches so rare today. For these and a thousand other reasons, the West Texas branches of the McDonald family tree remain a Spike Dykes fan ... for all-time. – Mark S. McDonald, Sr., Midland
{Editor’s note: Let the record show Turk McDonald started at center 1991-1992 and, more importantly, earned a “T” rING.
A Story from One of Royals’ favorites, equipment manager Juan Conde, is spot on Spike Dykes character.
Juan Conde
Billy, I just read the article about Spike Dykes and the bus incident. Spike was a character. One incident that happened at Texas involves Spike and DKR. Spike did not like to wear socks when he dressed for practice or games. DKR noticed that especially when he wore shorts. One day before practice, Coach Royal stepped into the room equipment room, which he had never done before. He pulled me aside and asked me if I issued socks to Spike. I said yes. Coach Royal told me to tell Spike that he needed to start wearing his socks. When Spike comes in for a practice, I told him Coach Royal wanted him to wear socks for practice and games. Spike stood silently for a few minutes. Then he tells me to cut the socks right below the ankles where only the top part of the sock is visible. I told him I can’t do that I’ll get in trouble with Coach Royal. He said he’ll never know unless you tell him. So I cut them and from that day forward he only wore half socks. And Coach Royal never found out about Spike Dykes and the half socks. Did I ever tell Coach Royal? I’ll reveal that in the book I’m writing on DKR. True story.
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