Oral Roberts University: There is No Record of David Barton Ever Playing Basketball for ORU

Earlier this month, David Barton told the audience (at about 5:20 – 6:30) at Charis Bible College his college basketball team set an NCAA scoring record. Watch:

Barton said:

I remember when I was playing basketball, the college stuff that we did. We started every day with a five mile run, then we lifted weights, then we had an hour of racquetball, then we had two hours of full-court basketball, then we came back for another run. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable, but in those years, our college team set the NCAA record for two years in a row for most points scored. We averaged 105, 104, 103 points a game, I forget what it was. But you had to run a lot, it wasn’t a lot of fun, but you get the results.

Barton graduated from Oral Roberts University in 1976. Right Wing Watch writer Kyle Mantyla looked up the roster from those record setting years and did not find David Barton’s name. Anyone can check the roster for ORU basketball at the ORU athletics website.

Wondering if perhaps there was a J.V. team or if he played some other year, I called Oral Roberts University’s Public Relations’ Office to ask if Barton ever played basketball for ORU. According to the PR Office, “After checking with the Athletic Office, there is no record of a David Barton ever playing basketball for ORU.”  While it is possible that Barton played intramural basketball, he is not listed on the varsity roster for any season. In his speech at Charis, he makes a clear connection between the workouts he says he was a part of and the record setting teams of the early ’70s.

Is the Brian Williams disease going around? Recently, the Secretary of the VA McDonald said he was in Special Forces and had to admit he wasn’t. I wonder what Barton, an Oral Roberts University Board of Reference member, will do about this.