Ron Tate was a hidden gem that became an LCCC great

“I thought I should have gotten better offers,” he said.

The 6-foot-3, 220-pound Tate chalked the unsatisfactory list of suitors up to the fact he played center in high school. While he shined with his back to the basket for the Terriers, he wasn’t going to be manning the low block at the college level.

Coaches weren’t sure he had the skills to necessary to play guard at the next level.

“The only way to prove that was to go the junior college route and figure things out from there,” Tate said. “I had to change the perspective people had in regards to my ability.”

Tate’s lifelong friend, Joe Hamilton, spent the 1984-85 season at Laramie County Community College where he led Region IX in rebounding. Hamilton knew Tate wasn’t happy about his college choices, and suggested he give the Golden Eagles a look.

“I was telling him how nice it was out here, and how good everything was,” said Hamilton, who spent a year at Southern Illinois University before transferring back to LCCC for the 1986-87 campaign.

“(Tate) must have thought I was lying to him because he wanted to come out here and see it for himself.”

Tate liked what he saw in Cheyenne, and inked with LCCC. It ended up being a recruiting coup for coach Woody Halverson.

Tate was a two-time All-Region IX selection and an honorable mention All-American during his sophomore season. He helped the Eagles reach the 1987 National Junior College Athletic Association tournament, and was voted most valuable player of the Region IX tournament.

When Tate transferred to Eastern Illinois University, he was No. 2 on LCCC’s all-time scoring list.

Those accomplishments landed Tate a spot in the inaugural Golden Eagle Athletics Hall of Fame class.

One of the drawbacks of Tate playing in the post during his prep career was the jump shot he had honed as a youngster had mostly disappeared.

“I never really had opportunities to shoot perimeter jump shots in high school,” Tate said. “My back was always to the basket, and I was always working on improving my post moves.”

The ball-handling and defensive skills he built while learning the game remained, but Tate knew he was going to have to improve his shooting if he was going to play past LCCC. He spent the summer before he arrived in the capital city shooting hundreds of jump shots per day with Southern Illinois guard Nate Bufford. Tate also played pickup games with other players on the Southern Illinois roster, or any number of the current and former Division I players who emerged from Carbondale. He made sure to play guard in those games.

“I had played against so many older, better, more athletic players that it wasn’t really that college-level basketball wasn’t that big of an adjustment,” Tate said. “I felt comfortable at LCCC from the day I got there, and I was ready to show people that I had a different skill set than what they saw in high school.”

Tate had a consistent shot by the time he arrived in Cheyenne, but it was far from the prettiest Halverson said.

“His shot was as flat as can be and had no arc on it,” said Halverson, who coached LCCC from 1971-92. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, my God, that kid will never make a shot in his life.’ He looked kind of like a diver with his feet completely together and his toes pointed down.

“It was unusual, but I kept watching him shoot, and he didn’t miss many shots. He could flat light it up from the 3-point line.”

Tate averaged 19.1 points per game as a freshman. He and sophomore Rodney Tapp formed one of the most tenacious tandems in Region IX. The roommates came to be known as the RT Connection.

Tate’s size and physique created mismatches, James Dailey said.

“Where I came from, a lot of (shooting) guards were 6-foot-2, 6-3 and maybe 170 or 180 pounds,” he said. “They would cut and slash and shoot. (Tate) was completely different.

“He was a bigger guy and he was tough to guard. He was a really god shooter.”

Tate bumped his scoring average up to 21 during his sophomore season, and was second behind Hamilton on LCCC’s all-time scoring list when the pair signed with Eastern Illinois.

Tate was more than just a scorer, though. He also was a gritty defender capable of making life difficult for the opposition’s best guards. Tate took defense seriously because it was another area where he felt he had something to prove.

“Just like I had to show people I could play guard and shoot, I had to show them that I could defend guards,” he said. “I had to make universities see me in a different light.”

The only drawback to Tate’s versatile skill set is he sometimes had a hard time fitting into a system, Tapp said.

“He thought he could play all five positions,” Tapp said with a laugh. “He would sometimes get frustrated and think he wasn’t getting the ball enough, so he would want to come down and play point guard. By the time he was a sophomore, he had matured and realized he needed to play a defined role.”

Tapp admired how hard Tate worked at being a complete player.

“He worked hard on all aspects of his game because he wanted to be able to bring the ball up against the press, he wanted to be able to shoot the jumper, and he wanted to be able to post up if he needed to,” Tapp said.

Tate averaged 5.4 points across 54 games at Eastern Illinois. He has since worked as a coach and pastor. Three of his four children have gone on to play sports in college. His youngest child was the only freshman to play varsity on his high school team this past season.

Tate looks back on his LCCC experience fondly.

“Cheyenne was different, and it took a little bit of an adjustment culturally,” Tate said. “The players there, (Halverson) and the school itself were all good experiences. All of the people were friendly and made me feel at home.

“I wasn’t sure about being so far from home at first, but that all disappeared once I started playing basketball.”