By Andy Lohman

The flow of a basketball game is defined in seconds. Five seconds to inbound the ball, 10 seconds to get across midcourt, 30 seconds to take a shot. Often times, games will be decided in a manner of seconds or tenths of a second.

For the past 40 seasons, the gatekeeper of those seconds for SMU men's and women's basketball games at Moody Coliseum has been clock operator Jimmy Cantrell.

"It's just been a blessing for me, I've really enjoyed it," Cantrell said.

Cantrell's journey through four decades of Mustangs basketball actually started at football games. In the late 1970s, Cantrell's wife, Edith, was working in SMU's sports information department and he would work on game days as a statistician.

When basketball season rolled around and the person who kept the official book quit, Cantrell was happy to fill in. After a year and a half of keeping the book, Cantrell slid down the scorer's table to fill in another gap as the game clock operator. That first game was in January of 1980, and he's been doing it ever since.

"It just kind of progressed," Cantrell said. "The years just started stacking up and here I am doing the 40th year now."

Cantrell loves basketball, even though he played baseball growing up.

"I love basketball, I really do," Cantrell said. "I was never good at basketball. I could rebound, but I couldn't shoot worth a lick!"

Cantrell was a high school basketball referee for 18 years, but eventually had to give it up.

"Well I got, not too old, but I got too slow for the high school kids," Cantrell said. "They leave burn marks on the court when they go!"

Continuing to run the clock at SMU games kept him engaged with the game that he loved, and that love for the game kept his concentration sharp for 40 years of basketball.

From seeing SMU beat Notre Dame in the 1988 NCAA Tournament at the Dean Dome in Chapel Hill, N.C. to working the clock at the 1986 Final Four in Reunion Arena, Cantrell has had a lot of great memories over the years. One that stands out goes back to the days of the Southwest Conference.

The Mustangs were hosting Arkansas at Moody, and right before halftime an SMU player ran the length of the floor and made a lay-up right before the buzzer sounded. The Razorbacks' coach, Eddie Sutton, couldn't believe it happened in time.

"Well Eddie comes running over, he and his assistant, and he is screaming and hollering. He's so excited, he has a lot of spittle and it's coming at me!" Cantrell laughed. "I had to put my hands up in front of my face and say 'that's good coach, that's good!'"

"But I'm sure I started that clock exactly when I should have started it," Cantrell said.

As SMU basketball has evolved over the years, from winning Southwest Conference championships to winning American Athletic Conference championships, the game of basketball has evolved too. The NCAA officially adopted the three-point line for the 1986-87 season, opening up a new level of offense. The players have gotten bigger, faster and stronger.

The technology around the game has evolved as well. The NCAA now uses the Precision Timing System, which uses a microphone attached to a lanyard to stop the clock on the referee's whistle, and allows refs to start the clock by pressing a button on their belt pack. But refs are still human, so Cantrell still serves as a crucial failsafe on the clock controls, especially in the final minute of games when the clock stops on a made basket.

This will be the last season operating the clock for Cantrell, who wants to spend more time with Edith. Both their children, Kevin and Kathy, graduated from SMU in the early 1990s.

"It's just been something very special to me," Cantrell said. "It's been a real blessing for me. I've met a lot of good people. It's been a blast, it really has."