STILLWATER – Mike Holder started his building at Oklahoma State on July 1, 1973, ironically 48-years to the day that he will retire as the active athletic director and become athletic director emeritus. Holder took over as head golf coach from his coach Labron Harris and immediately began building championship teams. Holder ended up coaching Oklahoma State to eight NCAA National Championships. Along the way, he was able to raise funds and build his dream golf course and the home to Oklahoma State men’s and women’s golf Karsten Creek.
It is truly a gift to be able to sit down with very powerful and wealthy individuals and convey to them a dream and have them visualize it to the degree that it becomes their dream as well. The conveyance is so strong that those individuals contribute significant amounts of their money to help make it happen. Holder did that with Karsten Creek.
Then after years of watching other aspects of the athletic department, primarily football struggle. The only exceptions coming with successes just before being caught breaking NCAA rules and being placed on probation, Holder enlisted his biggest supporter and an Oklahoma State alum in T. Boone Pickens to bring his wealth to the table to pull Oklahoma State football out of the despair of playing in a dreadful and rusted out home.
By the time the stadium was completed in 2009 and rededicated Pickens had donated over $185-million that went directly into the project. Overall, Pickens had donated close to $1-billion to philanthropy and that included gifts totaling over $500-million to Oklahoma State.
“I have a unique approach to giving,” Pickens wrote in his 2019 annual letter. “While many others of my status endow foundations that spin out millions of dollars over the course of generations, I want to see the good that’s done with my money today, while I’m alive, and not wonder what is done with it long after I’m gone.
“OSU’s athletic director, Mike Holder, has been a good steward of my funds on the athletic side of the ledger, as has OSU President Burns Hargis been on the academic side.”
In 2018 Holder told Bill Haisten of the Tulsa World that he absolutely believed Oklahoma State would have floundered if not for Pickens $165-million gift in 2005 that really put the wheels in motion to complete the stadium project.
“If we hadn’t had this gift,” Holder said emphatically, “I feel like we would have been dead in the water for the next 20 years.”
Instead of “dead in the water” Holder used Pickens generosity and impact as ammunition to fuel others to do great things. The “Athletic Village” was in full motion as Holder and Pickens had to make back the original contribution of good friend of both, Sherman Smith to build the training and indoor facility.
Holder and tennis coach Chris Young cultivated Michael and Anne Greenwood to fund the new tennis center, a facility as good as there is in college tennis. Had it not been for COVID-19 the facility would have hosted the NCAA Tennis Championships, men and women, team and individual in May of 2020.
Oklahoma State alumni Neal Patterson, owner of the Kansas City professional soccer club Sporting KC answered the call of Holder and soccer head coach Colin Carmichael to fund Neal Patterson Stadium, a monument to Patterson, who died before it was completed. Patterson would have loved the way the stadium turned out as it is gorgeous.
Finally, Holder was involved every step of the way in getting the baseball program a new home. It’s interesting that at one time Holder battled then Oklahoma State baseball head coach Gary Ward for fund raising as Oklahoma State wasn’t exactly loaded down in willing donors. Then as Holder finishes his tenure as athletic director the final jewel in his facility building crown is O’Brate Stadium.
Holder fostered a relationship with Oklahoma State alum and Kansas businessman, rancher and farmer, banker, and entreprenuer Cecil O’Brate.
The new stadium was voted best ballpark in Ballpark Digest. Then in late May finally was dedicated with all of the O’Brate family there and O’Brate’s friend and the 43rd President of the Uniter States George W. Bush to throw out the first pitch alongside him. It was a huge night and Holder had to have a
Part Two of the series will cover Holder’s hiring and dealing with coaches on his watch as athletic director.
