Story behind Oklahoma State softball's one-of-a-kind NIL deal is a century in the making
Jenni CarlsonOklahoman
@Wally12
STILLWATER ― Jared Cunningham remembers the way his younger sister changed after she first went to a Sherri Coale basketball camp.
Coale was still the head coach at Norman High at the time, a few years away from taking over the OU women’s basketball program. Cunningham’s sister, Kendall, was very young, too, not even out of elementary school yet.
Even though she was young and the camp was local, it was transformative.
“My sister … was genuinely inspired that she could be a Division-I basketball player,” he said.
A decade later, Kendall Cunningham achieved that goal, going to Oral Roberts University.
Now, Jared Cunningham hopes he can facilitate something similar for other girls.
Cunningham is the driving force behind a unique name, image and likeness deal between his car dealerships, Seth Wadley’s in Perry, and the Oklahoma State softball team. The partnership is unique not only because it is team-wide ― it may well be the first NIL deal involving a Division-I women’s team where every player benefits from a single business ― but also because it seeks to connect the Cowgirls with female athletes in surrounding communities.
And not just by putting them on billboards.
Since the NIL deal was done in August, the OSU softball team has made appearances at several high school softball games around Stillwater. The Cowgirls have gone to places like Perry and Morrison, and their presence there was big.
“Made me feel proud to watch all these little kids run up to these girls and want pictures and autographs,” OSU coach Kenny Gajewski said.
That hits at the goal Cunningham has for this NIL partnership.
“Inspire girls,” he said.
Of course, he wants to help Seth Wadley’s sell cars, too.
“I have to spend money on advertising, as much as I hate it,” Cunningham said with a chuckle. “So if there’s ever an opportunity to spend that money on things that matter to me and that I truly believe can have a positive impact on people’s lives, then I’m gonna give it everything I’ve got to make that happen.”
He might seem an unlikely partner with the Cowgirls. He’s a lifelong OU fan who has season tickets and drawers overflowing with Sooner gear. He admits friends have done a double take when they see him nowadays in orange instead of crimson.
But Cunningham, along with his wife, April, is all in on this partnership with OSU softball because he believes it gives him a chance to positively impact people in communities he cares about, inspiring future athletes and growing women’s sports. In the process, he hopes to honor several generations of women in his family who never got the chance to play like girls today.
This is a partnership, as it turns out, a hundred years in the making.
'The fulfillment of something ... started with my grandmother'
Jared Cunningham played all sorts of games when he went to his grandma’s house. Ping pong in the basement. H-O-R-S-E in the driveway.He had grown up hearing stories from relatives about how good an athlete she was.
“Then, found out firsthand when she beat me,” he said.
Edith Meyer grew up at a time girls didn’t play sports, and even if they had, she might not have been able to play. Her family owned a dairy farm in southern Kansas, and everyone had to pitch in to help.
Meyer even dropped out of high school a couple of years early to work on the farm.
But she wanted something different for the next generation. She talked to elected officials. She lobbied legislators. She pushed for change.
Ultimately, Title IX became the law of the land in 1972. The federal legislation requires public schools and universities to treat women and men equally, and it changed the future of girls’ and women’s sports forever.
Meyer’s daughter, Maxine, was an early beneficiary.
She was a freshman at Alva High School in northwest Oklahoma the year before Title IX passed.
“And she did not have a single sport,” Cunningham said of his mom. “And then, Title IX passes between her freshman and sophomore year, and it enabled her to compete.”
In the first year of Title IX, Alva only had track for girls; Maxine would set a national record for 16-year-olds in the standing broad jump.
The next year, Alva added girls basketball. One night, it went to Enid, a much bigger school, and even though Maxine had the flu, she led Alva to victory, scoring 44 points.
She eventually landed a scholarship to play basketball at Northwestern Oklahoma State.
“But then you fast forward 25 years,” Cunningham said, “and my sister earns a Division-I basketball scholarship.
“It was the fulfillment of something that really started with my grandmother.”
Those strong familial ties created a soft spot in Cunningham’s heart for girls’ and women’s sports, but in 2000, he found himself swept up by softball mania, Sooner style. That was the year OU won its first national title, and he has long been a crimson-and-cream diehard, growing up in Norman, then going to OU for undergrad and law school.
Cunningham was in law school during softball’s 2000 title run, but he was working at a car dealership in Norman, too. Unable to get time off to go to the championship game, he took drastic measures.
“I hid in the backseat of my car and listened to the game on the radio,” he said.
He has followed college softball ever since.
But even with his family’s background and his interest in softball, the NIL deal with OSU softball wouldn’t have happened without the owner of an upstart landscaping company turning to Cunningham for some legal advice.
Guy by the name of Kenny Gajewski.
