STILLWATER, Okla., Jan. 9 (UPI) -- Former Oklahoma State basketball coach Eddie Sutton's wife Patsy, who suffered a stroke in December, has died, the family said. She was 74.
Sutton's two sons, Sean and Scott Sutton, are coaches at Oral Roberts University and are carrying on a family legacy that's had the Sutton clan at the forefront of Oklahoma's basketball scene for decades, The (Oklahoma City) Oklahoman said Wednesday.
The couple met while the two were students at Oklahoma State. Eddie Sutton was a guard for the Cowboys and Patsy, who went to high school with the son of former OSU coach Henry Iba, sought his permission for the two to date.
The couple would go on to marry in 1958 and Patsy traveled with her husband to coaching jobs at the College of Southern Idaho, Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma State. Many of the coach's former players credited Patsy Sutton, who died Tuesday, as an unofficial counselor, mentor and mother-figure along the way.
Darryl Walker, who played for Sutton at Arkansas and went on to both play and coach in the NBA, credited the couple for helping him mature from a tough Chicago kid with a penchant for acting out into a mature adult.
"I owe everything to coach Sutton and Mrs. Sutton," Walker said in 1995. "I love Mrs. Sutton. If it hadn't been for Mrs. Sutton, I don't know what would have happened to me."
