Former Watonga Hoops Star Runnels Wins Championship with Nearby Enid

ENID – It’s been about a decade since Wayne Runnels played his final game at Creighton, the Omaha school he transferred to after a stint in Enid and after playing high school ball in his hometown of Watonga.

But on April 9, with “Enid” across his chest, Runnels got to step on an Omaha basketball court again. It was the beginning of a journey that would bring a national championship back to his home state and now, he hopes, will reinvigorate Runnels’ basketball career.

Runnels, the former Watonga Eagles star, was part of the Enid Outlaws squad that recently captured The Basketball League championship in its very first year of existence. The Basketball League Finals ended on July 24, when Enid hoisted the trophy on its home court, the Stride Bank Center, after a 120-107 victory over the Syracuse Stallions.

Runnels told the Watonga Republican that the first-year Enid squad was never intimidated by the rest of the league.

“It was something that we started off the beginning of the year saying, in the huddle every game: TBL Champs. You know, ‘1, 2, 3, TBL Champs!’” Runnels said. “We would break it out to start practice, to end practice, with that cadence. To see it fulfilled was – it was amazing.”

Runnels had tried out for TBL once before, he said, before being sideline by an ACL injury and then by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before TBL’s 2021 season began, he was living in North Dakota when team officials contacted him about trying out.

TBL’s season ended up getting pushed back by a month this year, but Runnels came down in January to start training. Training was difficult during the pandemic, he said, so Runnels took the opportunity to get back into game shape. When the season rolled around in early April, Runnels was ready to go.

“Just to get the opportunity to compete again at a high level, it was amazing,” Runnels said. He finished the season as one of the Outlaws’ top scorers despite being, he admits, one of the oldest guys on the team. He began the season with a double-double in his college town of Omaha, and the Outlaws began the year with a league-record 9-0 start.

“To end school in Omaha and think that my basketball career is over,” Runnels said, “and then to have my first professional game in Omaha, was pretty amazing. It was pretty full-circle.”

The Outlaws’ historic run was interrupted by consecutive losses to Houston and Dallas in mid-May; after that, the Outlaws didn’t lose again until the playoffs, again to Houston before ultimately taking the best-of-three series.

After that series, the Outlaws beat San Diego and Syracuse to capture the league title.

The Basketball League, having just completed its fourth season, is a minor professional league that is rapidly expanding. Featuring franchises in cities large and small across the country, the league is designed to give players more exposure and features plenty of former college, G League, and even NBA talent.

“That’s what the league kind of is,” Runnels said. “An exposure league to get seen and then go other places.” One of Runnels’ teammates, former OSU Cowboy Lindy Waters III, signed with a Spanish club during the season and might even get a look from the Oklahoma City Thunder this summer, Runnels said.

Runnels said his TBL experience has left him hungry for more basketball. He hopes his performance will interest a professional club overseas.

“My plans are just to take this and run with it,” he said. “I’m in the process of looking for an agent to hire to market myself. … I’m for sure going to keep playing basketball. I think I found my niche right in time, so that’s the plan.”

Over the 2021 season, Runnels averaged 18 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists for the Outlaws. He shot better than 45% from behind the arc.