Some good news and some bad news came from the Oral Roberts University Athletic Department last week; Director of Sports Medicine, John Joslin, became a hall of famer, and longtime fan Wayne Otto passed away.

Joslin has served in the sports medicine department at ORU since 2008, and was recently named as an inductee into the Oklahoma Athletic Trainers’ Association (OATA) Hall of Fame. The ceremony is scheduled to take place at the group’s annual meeting in May.

In receiving this honor, Joslin joins his predecessor at ORU, Glenn Smith, who was inducted in the OATA Hall of Fame in 2013.

His duties have included supervising athletic training and sports medicine efforts for each of ORU’s 16 intercollegiate teams. Prior to taking the job at ORU, Joslin spent three years as Head Athletic Trainer for the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA Developmental League.

Joslin served as the OATA chairman from 1997-2005 and is a member of the National Athletic Trainers Association and Oklahoma State Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision.

A 1988 graduate of the University of Tulsa, Joslin worked at EOOC for 23 years. He gained valuable experience as Head Athletic Trainer for the Tulsa Ambush of the National Professional Soccer League from 1991-1992. He also served an internship with the NFL’s New England Patriots in 1986.

ON A SAD NOTE

Wayne Otto, better known to those around the ORU sports community as “World-B,” passed away on March 30, following a brief bout with cancer. He was 64. Otto was a member of the ORU tennis team in the mid-1970s, a team coached by Intercollegiate Tennis Association Hall of Famer Bernis Duke.

The High Point, N.C., native remained close to his alma mater over the years, and would often travel to Tulsa for home basketball and baseball games, and he would make several trips each year to see his “Titan-Eagles” play on the road.

Otto was a fixture at the Summit League basketball tournament in Sioux Falls, S.D., each March, and he hosted some great cookouts at the Summit League baseball tournament, for the many years it was held at ORU. In fact, an area at ground level, down the right field side of J.L. Johnson Stadium, was set up to host such cookouts. It came to be known as the “World-B Party Deck,” and I’m sure that name will remain for years to come.

I’ve only known World-B for a few years, but he made it seem like a lifetime. He never met a stranger, and there was hardly anyone who had more love for ORU athletics, especially the baseball team, than Otto. Besides the cookouts, on a grill he purchased and donated, Otto also was known to supply the teams with bubble gum, sunflower seeds, and other snacks. He had a heart bigger than himself, and he was larger-than-life.

If you went to an ORU baseball game, you would see Otto in the outfield shagging balls during batting practice, taking a few swings in the batting cage, standing in the dugout during the games, and celebrating with the team following a win.

Another thing Otto will be remembered for, is his love for God, and sharing the love of Christ everywhere he went, and with everyone he met.

I will personally miss World-B very much. I’ll miss our chats about the basketball and baseball teams, and his opinion on how to fix their woes. I’ll miss sitting down and enjoying a meal together in the press room at the basketball tournaments, and him walking by the Pep Band giving us an approving thumbs up. Of course, I’ll miss him bringing food up to us at the baseball press box, and standing around the grill between games eating another brat or piece of chicken.

I could only hope to carry on such a great legacy, as an ORU alum myself.