sports spotlight: david lampton
BY MIKE TUPA
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
DAVID LAMPTON
For 30-or-more years David Lampton’s prestige as an area high school girls basketball coaching legend loomed tall.
During the 1996-97 season he guided the Oklahoma Union Lady Cougars to the Class 2A state championship.
How significant was this?
Of the area’s other nine OSSAA teams — Bartlesville, Dewey, Wesleyan Christian, Caney Valley, Copan, Nowata, Barnsdall and Pawhuska — none have ever won an OSSAA girls basketball title.
In fact, the cumulative percentage of these teams even making the state tournament is painfully slim. Bartlesville High, for example, has earned a state berth only twice — 1992 and 2017 — in 42 seasons.
(It should be noted Wesleyan Christian School played for a girls state basketball title in 2008 the Christian association, coming up just shy of the crown despite a star-spangled effort by Rebecca Schluter — 19 points, 12 rebounds, eight blocks and four steals.)
While other area OSSAA schools have made rare — or no — appearances in state girls basketball play the past 34 seasons, Lampton guided the Lady Cougars to state in four different campaigns (1991, 1994, 1997, 2011).
Senior Tathaya Pierce, Sara Jones and Valerie Schufelldt led Lampton’s crew to the 1997 state crown. Pierce scored 18 points — including four free throws near the end — in the championship win against Panama, 47-34. In the earlier rounds, Oklahoma Union (27-2) downed Washington, 35-30, and Velma-Alma, 55-43.
Lampton — who went on in the early 2020s to coach at Fairland High School — was a familiar sight for local basketball fans, standing tall on the sidelines, barking out instructions and encouragement — like a bundle of energy fueled by a consummate competitive desire.
Along his coaching journey he’s made many, many friends with his fellow coaches, players and many others.
Coming into this season he’s also one of the winningest coaches in girls basketball history — 578.
David Lampton
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports