Tuesday, November 21, 2000

‘O’ word is off-limits to Big Bro/Big Sis

By Bill Whitaker

Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Abilene officials are counting their lucky stars — but also want to make sure they don’t get them unnecessarily crossed.

That’s the situation they risk with their annual dinner Feb. 12. They’re trying to ensure their guest speaker, dashing motivational speaker and Hardin-Simmons University alumnus Stedman Graham, isn’t wrongly introduced about town.

After all, it’s got to be humbling when you’re a man who’s carved out your own niche in the world — only to remain in the shadows of a very famous woman.

“Everyone gets so excited when they hear about it,” Big Brothers/Big Sisters executive director Janet Ardoyno told me. “You can see the light bulbs going off in their heads. You’ll say, ‘We have Stedman Graham coming to speak at our anniversary dinner,’ and they’ll say, ‘Now, wait, I know that name from somewhere …’

“And finally you take pity on them and just mention Oprah’s name — and then it’s like they know everything about this man and want to tell you what a terrific guy he is.”

But whatever else Graham may be, he’s first and foremost the celebrated beau of talk-show queen, literary shaker and movie star Oprah Winfrey. In fact, their possible marriage has been a popular topic of speculation for years now.

When I was covering Winfrey’s 1998 trial for bad-mouthing beef, the wives of Amarillo cattlemen lined up outside the courthouse with everyone else, just to ask when she and Graham were going to tie the knot. And when they weren’t doing that, they were flooding phone lines for tickets to her show, televised from Amarillo during the trial.

HSU basketball coach Dennis Harp, a good friend of both Graham and Winfrey, says he knows full well the tidal wave of attention that can come just from knowing Oprah. During the Amarillo trial, he went up to visit the TV icon and was heartily embraced by her on the air during one of her shows.

“Well, 30 women followed me out to the car afterward,” Harp told me. “They wanted to know how I knew Oprah so well!”

No doubt all of this poses a ticklish problem for Graham, 49, wherever he goes. So what if he’s made his own mark in the world as the chief executive officer of a Chicago-based management and marketing consulting firm specializing in urban markets?

He’s also chairman of Stedman Graham Training & Development, a company that creates customized corporate training and leadership development programs. And he founded Athletes Against Drugs in 1985. And he just authored another book, Teens Can Make It Happen.

If Graham is to be viewed anywhere as something other than just Oprah’s main squeeze, it’s Abilene. Friends recall he was one of the livelier athletes on campus during his spirited days at HSU, long before he met the famous talk-show host.

Besides contributing to some of HSU’s winningest basketball teams in the early 1970s, averaging 17 points and 12 rebounds a game his senior year, Graham helped found the Black Student Fellowship on campus in 1973.

Incidentally, the charismatic ballplayer-turned-businessman stunned Big Brothers/Big Sisters officials when his office informed them Graham would only travel first-class on his flights.

But Ardoyno and board member Shannel Woodard quickly reconsidered when they remembered Graham is 6-foot-7 and “wouldn’t fit anywhere else in the plane … except maybe the cargo hold.”

Contact associate editor Bill Whitaker at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com. Check out Bill’s previous columns at www.brazosbill.com.