Pros vs. Joes No 17: Charlie Sitton’s turning 60, and he’s still having a ball
Charlie and Tracey Sitton have been married 32 years (courtesy Charlie Sitton)
So many great Oregon high school players have left the state to play their college basketball. Danny Ainge, Richard Washington, Damon and Salim Stoudamire, Terrence Ross, Terrence Jones, Kevin Love and Kyle Singler, to name a few.
One who stayed and thrived was Charlie Sitton, the 6-8 stringbean from McMinnville High who joined Ralph Miller’s Oregon State program in 1980 and was a four-year starter during perhaps the most glorious era of Beaver basketball history.
During Sitton’s time in Corvallis, the Beavers were 93-25 overall and an astounding 60-12 in Pac-10 play. They won the Pac-10 regular-season championship three of four years and were ranked No. 1 for nine weeks in 1980-81— Charlie’s freshman year. They started that season 26-0 before losing the regular-season finale to Arizona State, then getting upset by Rolando Blackman and Kansas State in their first NCAA Tournament game. The next season, the Beavers reached the Elite Eight, the last time they advanced that far until Wayne Tinkle’s crew did it last season.
Want to feel old, long-time Beaver fans?
Charlie turns 60 in July.
“I know,” he says. “It’s true. It’s crazy, but it happens.”
Sitton is in excellent physical shape, filling out to just under 250 after having played at about 215 turning his years with the Beavers. He keeps active with outdoor activities, including golf.
“I’m a 10-handicap,” he says. “I like to hunt and fish. I love chasing elk around. I’ll fish more this spring and summer. I don’t have any major health issues. Everything is good.”
Sitton was one of the most decorated prep basketball players in Oregon history, earning Parade All-American honors. Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps made the trip to McMinnville to watch Charlie play in a summer-league game before his senior year.
“He was a good guy,” Sitton says. “Notre Dame was one of my recruiting trips. Joe Kleine and I visited on the same weekend.”
Sitton also made visits to Duke, UCLA, Washington State and Oregon before choosing Oregon State.
“It was close to home,” Sitton says. “My parents got a chance to watch me play. And they had a really good program.”
Sitton played with the likes of Steve Johnson, Ray Blume, Mark Radford, Lester Conner and A.C. Green, who all made it to the NBA. Oregon State basketball in the 1980s was a happening.
“It was a lot of fun, especially to enjoy that kind of success playing in your home state,” Sitton says. “Even today, hardly a day goes by when somebody doesn’t bring up my years at Oregon State. We played great defense. We defended the whole court. Ray, Mark and Lester — the guys they were guarding turned their heads, they slapped them with a double-team.
“Twice, we completed a season sweep of UCLA and came back to Portland’s airport with a terminal full of Beaver fans. Students slept overnight on the ramp at Gill (Coliseum), waiting in line for tickets to games. It was cool to stay home and get to play in one of the better programs in the country.”
Sitton was a starter as a freshman in 1980-81 alongside Johnson, Blume, Radford and Conner, with Jeff Stoutt, Rob Holbrook, Bill McShane, William Brew and Danny Evans forming a second team that could have beaten half the teams in the league.
“We were playing somebody at home when we were No. 2 and No. 1 DePaul got beat,” Sitton recalls. “When they announced the score, everybody stood up and cheered and just rocked Gill. That was the loudest arena I ever experienced.”
It was a team with national championship potential. But after a first-round bye, Kansas State shocked Oregon State 52-50 on Blackman’s buzzer beater. It was an incredibly slow-paced game, with the Wildcats taking only 33 shots (but making 17) to the Beavers’ 42. K-State had 20 turnovers but made 16 of 18 attempts at the foul line.
“We laid an egg,” Sitton says. “I missed a free throw down the stretch that didn’t help. We got kind of tight at the end.”
With Johnson, Blume and Radford gone but A.C. Green aboard as a freshman, Oregon State made it to the Elite Eight in 1982. What was the difference?
“Lester kept us all loose,” Charlie says. “He was our leader. You have to have somebody to lead you and keep you loose. Coach says one thing and the leader says, “Well, we’ll do it, but a bit more this other way.’ We opened with a win at BYU and that set the tone for the season. We didn’t have quite the talent we had the year before, but we played much better together.”
Four decades later, Oregon State’s 10-0 record against Oregon makes him smile.
“It means a ton,” he says. “In-state rivalries are meaningful, or at least they should be. I never lost to (the Ducks) — here, there or anywhere.”
Sitton had a strong relationship with Miller, who would go on to enshrinement into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
“I liked him,” Sitton says. “He was a no-nonsense coach. I’m that kind of guy, too. He had his system. I saw him run off a lot of good players who didn’t fit into the system the four years there. There wasn’t a shot clock or the 3-point line back then. It was old-school basketball.
“Ralph was crusty. You didn’t want to cross him, but he was also your friend. He was always available for you to talk to him. The times I went into his office, by the end of the discussion he’d be talking about his place in Black Butte. He loved that place. He was good to me. It wasn’t a problem for me to show up every day and go to work.”
Sitton was taken by Dallas in the second round of the 1984 NBA draft. It was a good team led by Blackman, Derek Harper, Mark Aguirre and Sam Perkins and coached by the veteran Dick Motta. The Mavericks lost to the Blazers in the first round of the 1984-85 playoffs. Sitton played in only 43 regular-season games, averaging 2.1 points and 1.4 rebounds in seven minutes a game.
“A learning experience,” Charlie says. “We had a lot of bodies. Dick was a good coach for me. I got a few minutes, but we had a lot of guys ahead of me.”
Sitton broke his thumb during the 1985-86 preseason and sat out the entire season. He was released at season’s end, then participated in summer camp with the Trail Blazers.
“They didn’t offer guaranteed money, so I decided to go to Italy,” Sitton says. “I needed to play.”
Sitton spent three years in Italy before making a final stab at the NBA. He tried out with Charlotte — “(Coach) Dick Harter was good to me until I pulled a hamstring,” he says — and Minnesota but didn’t make either squad. He played one more year in Europe — Belgium and France — before calling it a career.
Sitton married Tracey Roberts in 1990, and three years later, entered into business with her father Don as co-owners of the Century Inn in Tualatin.
“We built the original 40 rooms from the ground up,” Charlie says. “Don was the general contractor. I worked with him every day.”
In 1999, they opened the adjacent Hayden’s Grill with partner Bill Hayden and added 30 hotel rooms. On February 26, Hayden’s closed its doors after a successful 23-year run. Sitton and Roberts leased the restaurant to Mark Byrum, whose businesses include the Brix Tavern in the Pearl District. The remodeled Hayden’s facility — which will be called Brix Tavern South — is expected to open in May.
“We were ready to have somebody else run it so we didn’t have to worry about the day-to-day operations,” Sitton says. “I’ll still manage the hotel. I can do a little less work now that I’m turning 60.”
The Sittons have two children — Jennifer, 29, working as communications director for gubernatorial candidate Betsy Johnson, and C.J., 27, employed by Portland’s Hampton Lumber.
Charlie says he usually fills out an NCAA Tournament bracket in competition with ex-Beaver teammate Brett Starr.
“We banter back and forth,” Sitton says. “I haven’t watched a lot of college basketball this year, but this is always a good time to start watching. I like Gonzaga. I like Arizona. But you know how it is — right time, right place.”
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