Case, Weiberg remember OSU tragedy 19 years later

To an outsider, January 27, 2020 was a regular Monday. The Madill Rotary Club held its regular meeting. At Madill High School, the cheerleaders practiced in the gym ahead of Tuesday’s basketball homecoming.

The cheer coaches, Kyla Selvy and Lori Vargas, spoke with Coach Brett Weiberg, about having the boys high school basketball players vote on homecoming royalty and the next night’s ceremony.

However, it wasn’t a regular day. Rather, it marked nineteen anniversary of the Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball team plane crash that killed 10 people including student assistant Jared Weiberg.

He was the younger brother of Brett Weiberg, the Wildcats boys basketball coach.

The three Weiberg brothers (Chad, Brett and Jared) played basketball at Tonkawa High School and were coached by Larry Case, who is now the superintendent of Madill Public Schools.

Case and Weiberg drove to Stillwater later in the afternoon to join Mick and Vina Weiberg (the coach’s parents) and others to remember those lost 19 years ago.

Ahead of their drive, both Weiberg and Case visited with The Madill Record about their shared loss.

Weiberg said he hadn’t been back to OSU in a long time because of his basketball schedule.

“I have a guy who can coach my middle school team, so it works out great,” he said. “So, I’m looking forward to going back.”

Weiberg said it would be the first time my parents will present a memorial scholarship in Jared’s name to an OSU manager. “It’s gonna be a pretty dang good scholarship so I’m looking forward to watching them present that,” he said. “They’ll take great pride in that. That’s something Jared would be very pleased with for sure.”

Weiberg reflected on how tightknit the three siblings were.

“I have an older brother [Chad] that’s two and a half years older,” he said. “And Jared was three years younger. I’m in the middle so Jared was the baby of the family. Jared played for Mr. Case in high school and played for two years for my dad in junior college. Then, walked on for Coach Eddie Sutton [at Oklahoma State University] and played for Eddie Sutton for one year and became a manager. He was just a walk on and then became a manager and a student assistant. So, he was there with that program for over three years when that accident happened.”

The Case and Weiberg families have known each other for more than 20 years. Case said Jared looked up to Brett.

“He wanted to wear number 31 just like Brett,” he said. “And uh, the Weiberg family is just class. Not just on the court but also off the court. Their dad was the coach at Northern Oklahoma College at the time. He was always supportive. I was always nervous him being the college coach and I’m coaching his kids. He was nothing but great and supportive. It filtered down to all of his boys.”

Case said the oldest brother, Chad is now the assistant athletic director at OSU.

“They’re all top notch people,” he said. “That’s why I wanted Brett here so bad. That’s just the type of person he is. Jared was top notch also.”

Case, who presents a calm demeanor, was a high school basketball coach for 23 years before later becoming an administrator.

Weiberg called Case a very good basketball coach and agreed that Case doesn’t come across as a typical coach type.

“I know it’s crazy,” he said. “Most of his career was at Tonkawa. He’s won a state championship and lost in the state championship game. He’s very good.”

Weiberg succeeded his father at Northern Oklahoma College. He said Case also felt the loss of the youngest Weiberg son.

“Um he loved Jared and Jared loved him,” Weiberg said. “So, uh I think he’s looking forward to going and supporting my parents and being there. It’ll be good.”

It’ll be good.”

Moments remembered

Weiberg said he’s talked a lot about the crash.

“It was such a big deal when it happened and um and it still is a big deal you know but you know the thing is, we were in such a good spot,” he said.

“All three of our brothers are close. My younger brother was living with my older brother. So, my older brother was a full-time employee at the athletic department while my younger brother was going to school at Oklahoma State. They lived together. I was at the University of Texas-San Antonio when this happened, and Oklahoma State had a 1-800 number cause we didn’t have cell phones. They’re weren’t cell phones. So, I would call him every day cause it was free to call him on the 1-800 number at the athletic office and they would transfer me to him. We would talk basketball. We would literally talk almost every day. And uh, our family was pretty close growing up. I loved basketball. He loved basketball. We had that in common.”

Brett Weiberg said his little brother was a great young man.

“He made people feel good about themselves,” Weiberg said. “He was a hard worker. He loved his parents. He loved his family. And he was a rising star of a coach. He was gonna be a fantastic basketball coach. Those are things I think about and there’s all kinds of other things growing up that you think about when you think about it. What I want people to know is there were a lot of good people on that plane and there are.”

Case said he’ll never forget the moment when he learned about the tragedy.

“I’ll never forget it was my high school principal called me and said have you heard about the OSU plane missing,” Case said. “What we hear now is Jared might be on it. I’ll never forget it. We went over to Mick and Vina’s house, that’s the parents, that night, and waited. Just were there for the confirmation. It took a while to get the confirmation from OSU; that was on their end. I know everyone will say how shocked they were especially a small town like Tonkawa. They though a lot of them. Later on, we retired Jared’s jersey. He was the type of person who still come around our classes and our kids.”