Mike Holder
FameRank: 5

"James Michael Holder" an American college athletics administrator and former golf coach. He is the current athletic director for Oklahoma State University, having succeeded Harry Birdwell on September 16, 2005. His previous position was head coach of the men's golf program, where he served for 32 years.

Holder was born in Odessa, Texas. He obtained a bachelor's degree in marketing from Oklahoma State while also playing under Labron Harris on the men's golf team. As a player, he won the individual Big Eight Conference championship in 1970 while leading his team to the team championship, and earned third-team All-American honors. After completing his MBA at OSU in 1973, he took over for his former coach. His teams won 25 conference championships and eight national championships.

Holder also was the main force behind the construction of the Karsten Creek Golf Course, designed by Tom Fazio, which was completed in 1994. It now serves as the home of the Oklahoma State men's and women's golf teams, and hosted the 2003 NCAA championship. His main focus as athletic director now is the construction of an "Athletic Village" that will house most of the athletic facilities in one area of campus.

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We won't see many cattle turned out to the pastures before the end of April this year. The grass just isn't greening up. It's too dry.

Coach Sutton will continue to heal and that is something we will discuss at the appropriate time.

It's all his money, and he's on the investment committee. If a person's making a gift of that size, he can stipulate what he wants it in.

Somebody needed to do something. We needed to make up our mind if we were going to be serious about competing in this (Big 12) conference.

While we look forward to Coach Sutton rejoining the team as soon as possible, we want him to take whatever time he needs to fully heal.

Our coaches have been asked about the scholarship reduction as they recruit so we wanted to set the record straight. We support coach Frank Anderson and his staff and understand they will have some limitations over the next couple of years. We are committed to provide every resource possible to help our baseball program be successful under these circumstances.

We regret the errors and took the necessary steps to notify the NCAA and correct the problem. None of our coaches did anything inappropriate.

He's got some fairly serious injuries. He needs to get healthy. That's what we said in the press release.

We all want what's best for Coach Sutton and wish him a speedy recovery. His dedication to college basketball and Oklahoma State University is unquestioned and his tireless effort on behalf of the institution is sincerely appreciated.