The most outstanding voices of the University of Oklahoma football tradition come together in this collection of stories. Sooner fans will relish the intimate stories told by Barry Switzer, Bob Stoops, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, Josh Heupel, Jason White, and other figures they have come to cherish. One phrase, one season, or one particular game cannot capture the spirit of Sooner football; instead, the student-athletes and coaches who made the magic happen over the decades blend their experiences to capture the true essence of their beloved school.
The most outstanding voices of the University of Oklahoma football tradition come together in this collection of stories. Sooner fans will relish the intimate stories told by Barry Switzer, Bob Stoops, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, Josh Heupel, Jason White, and other figures they have come to cherish. One phrase, one season, or one particular game cannot capture the spirit of Sooner football; instead, the student-athletes and coaches who made the magic happen over the decades blend their experiences to capture the true essence of their beloved school.
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Overview
The most outstanding voices of the University of Oklahoma football tradition come together in this collection of stories. Sooner fans will relish the intimate stories told by Barry Switzer, Bob Stoops, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, Josh Heupel, Jason White, and other figures they have come to cherish. One phrase, one season, or one particular game cannot capture the spirit of Sooner football; instead, the student-athletes and coaches who made the magic happen over the decades blend their experiences to capture the true essence of their beloved school.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781633194021 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2015 |
| Series: | Nation |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 22 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Sooner Nation
Oklahoma's Greatest Players Talk About Sooners Football
By Jeff Snook
Triumph Books
Copyright © 2015 Jeff SnookAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63319-402-1
CHAPTER 1
The Forties
Paul "Buddy" Burris | Guard | 1946–1948
I always knew from an early age that of all the sports, I was born to play football. In the third grade, I could do some things on the field that none of my friends could do. I know that several mommies around my area thought I played illegally or too roughly because I was hitting and tackling their boys. I guess I was knocking the wind out of them when I tackled them — there's nothing illegal about that.
I was raised on a farm — an Okie from Muskogee, Oklahoma. It was a town of about 50 people. There were six of us boys and we all were raised in a one-bedroom house. We had a water well, an outside john, and we slept on pallets. In the summer, we would take those pallets outside because it was too hot to sleep inside. There was no air-conditioning in those days. You could see the sunshine through the cracks in our walls. And in the winter, you could see the snow through the walls.
But we were happy.
By the time I got to high school, we had some pretty good football teams and won the state championship.
I had always wanted to go to OU, but after graduating high school in 1941, I went to Tulsa and we went undefeated that season — we actually beat OU 23–0. The thing I remember is that I got called for a 15-yard penalty in that game for holding Homer Simmons. Homer weighed about 370 pounds, so I had to hold him.
But then World War II was on and I had to leave Tulsa. I was attached to the Third Infantry, fighting in France, Germany, and Belgium. I always said that I had it better in the war, sleeping on the ground, than I had it at home. Sleeping on the ground was duck soup to me. After Europe, we went by ship through the Panama Canal to the Philippines to help out in the Pacific. That's a long trip — about three-quarters of the way around the world. It took us about 30 days.
One of the things I'll never forget is while I was stationed at Clark Field in Manila I noticed those B-29s. You didn't see them too often. While they were sitting out there, there were guards around them night and day, and I started to wonder about it. Then they used those planes to drop the big bombs that ended the war. It all made sense then.
When I got back home in February 1946, I looked forward to going back to school, but I wasn't going back to Tulsa. There was a new regime at Oklahoma: Jim Tatum had come in that year as head coach and he had been a Navy guy. So he brought a lot of those players with him from Jacksonville.
Jim recruited me hard. One day I was on a tractor in the field when a big, old car pulled up at the other end of the field. Jim took me off that plow and let me in that car and that was the end of it. I was going to Oklahoma.
That first year, the team was full of discharged veterans like me. I think we had 175 uniforms checked out at one time. It was simply a case of survival. They would line you up and run you as long as you could make it. Then we had jumping drills and more running drills. They wanted to make sure we had some athletes. At that time, I was 23 and I could run as fast and jump as high as any of them, and I could kick the football, too. In those one-on-one drills, I was pretty good. Plus, I had that year of experience while playing at Tulsa.
In the first game that season, we went to New York to play a big game against Army. President Truman was there at the time and we had a really big crowd for the game.
I remember we were all getting taped before the game. I was in the locker room, and Darrell Royal was complaining about not being able to sleep the night before. He said his roommate was scratching all night long and it had kept him up. I guess his roommate said he had a case of something that makes you scratch in a delicate spot. Anyway, Darrell didn't get much sleep that night.
We just screwed up every time we turned around that day. We could make three to five yards on every running play, but we couldn't pass. Darrell threw a couple of bad passes that day, and they took one of his fumbles back for a touchdown. Darrell later told me it wasn't his fault, but I always thought it was.
We outgained Army that day, but their two ends beat us. Doc Blanchard suited up that day, but didn't play [due to a knee injury]. And Glenn Davis didn't hurt us — I think he caught a pass or two.
That was Jim Tatum's first game, and he got all excited on the sidelines. He was complaining about some illegal plays and screaming at the officials. At one point, he wanted some water to drink, but they didn't have any nearby. So one of the guys was over there soaking his feet in water. Jim went over and picked that bucket up and drank it. I thought he had just about lost his marbles.
Anyway, we lost to Army 21–7.
We beat Texas A&M in the next game, but then lost to Texas. What I remember from that season was that game at Stillwater when they had sent me into the locker room after I got hurt. I thought I was walking into the locker room and I walked into the girls' restroom. A few girls were in there watching the game through a window and didn't notice me for a while. Once they did, one of them squealed and they all ran out. So did I.
We won eight games and lost three that season. Homer Paine and I were very good friends on that team and we agreed after that season that if Tatum stayed for another season, we would leave and sign pro contracts.
Tatum was a real charmer who was a very good coach, but he played favorites. He played all of those Navy guys over other players who should have been playing. He had been a commander in the Navy and he was very tough to play for.
At one point, Homer and I actually decided to leave, but Tatum had gotten into trouble by overspending his budget. He had given all the players some coupons for clothes and some money when we were down in Jacksonville to play North Carolina State in the Gator Bowl. They made a big stink about that.
At that time, all of the players loved Bud Wilkinson, and he was a very good assistant coach. We all wanted him to be the head coach, too. I don't know of a player on that team who didn't like Bud. So once Tatum left [for Maryland], it was natural that they would name Bud Wilkinson head coach.
And boy were we happy about it.
I was real tickled at the start of the 1947 season when we won the first two games. But against Texas just before halftime — I was playing nose guard at the time — Bobby Layne fumbled and picked up the ball and lateralled to another player who scored a touchdown. The thing was, Layne had his knee down when he picked up the ball, so he should have been ruled down. But they gave them a touchdown and the referees had to stop the game to clear the field of all the bottles the fans had thrown. That blew open a close game, and we lost 34–14.
I know one thing: Bobby Layne had ice in his veins. One time, I hit him so square on his chest and he threw the pass as he was going down. Then I rammed my elbow into his neck as we hit the ground. I really knocked the hell out of his face. After he went off the field, he was back in two plays. To get Bobby Layne off the field, you just about had to kill him.
At Nebraska that year I kicked off once, and the ball went straight up into the air against a strong wind and came straight down. We recovered it. It was just like an onside kick that they do these days, but it was by accident. After the game, Nebraska's coach came running up to Bud and asked how long we had been working on that play.
Bud just said, "Oh, we didn't work on it that long."
I had to laugh.
To start that 1948 season, we lost to Santa Clara 20–17, and Darrell made another bad play. On one screen pass we had called, he didn't throw it — he just put the ball in his belly and fell down. He lost 20 yards. He just froze up. We didn't get along too well after that. When the newspapers came out, someone had bad-mouthed him about it. Well, my locker was right next to his and I heard him say that he didn't play that badly.
I said something like, "Hell, Darrell, you've played a lot worse ..."
He didn't like that too much.
A few years later, we had a reunion party and I guess I was drunk. Once the party was over, I was leaving and said something to Darrell, and he gave it to me — knocked me out with a punch. I was mad over it for a long time, but I finally got over it. I guess I had been telling him that night about all the things he had done wrong.
Even at that time, Darrell was working hard to become a head coach. He was up in Wilkinson's office 24 hours a day. He studied the game. He was a damn good defensive halfback — just not that good of a quarterback, in my opinion.
Heck, I sold Darrell the first car he ever owned. It belonged to a school teacher and I paid $2,000 for it, I think. I sold it to him for $1,000, but he wrecked it some place and it was beyond repair. I think he ran it off into a creek bed.
That 1948 team was a damn good team. We were better organized and that was the best Oklahoma team ever until the 1949 team won them all. Boy, I wish I had one more year to play on that team.
Before that first Sugar Bowl, when we beat North Carolina 14–6, they wanted to get a picture of me and Choo Choo Justice — North Carolina's great player. But Choo Choo didn't want to pose for a picture with the enemy. It really pissed me off. It made me play a better ballgame. I got in a couple of good licks on Choo Choo that day, too.
All my brothers went to OU, and four of us played football. Kurt [1951–1954] became an All-American, and Bobby [1953–1955] was pretty good. Bud thought Lynn [1956] was too small, but it was great to get to see them all play for OU. Everybody knows the Selmons had three bothers play for the Sooners in the seventies, but the Burris family had four long before that. Not bad for four guys who grew up on a river, just east of Muskogee and lived in a one-bedroom house with an outside john.
I think Oklahoma football means more to me now than it did when I played. It became very important over the years, and my memories of it remain very special to me.
Paul "Buddy" Burris was Oklahoma's first three-time All-American. He later played three seasons with the Green Bay Packers. Burris was the first OU player inducted into the Helms Athletic Foundation Football Hall of Fame.
Jack Mitchell | Quarterback/Halfback | 1946–1948
I was born and raised in Arkansas City, Kansas — about four miles from the Oklahoma border. My mom and dad went to Arkansas City High, and that is where they met. Dad played football at Washburn College in Topeka, and when the Depression came he got into the real estate business. Dad was a hell of an athlete, a really good track star. His name was Claude but everybody called him either "C.A." or "Mitch."
After my parents divorced, Mom moved to Norman for a few years to get her master's degree when I was young. I lived with her on campus — I was the only boy living in a girls' dormitory.
I had found this perfect spot where you could crawl under the fence at the football stadium, so on Saturdays I headed to the stadium to see all the Oklahoma football games — for free. All the kids would say, "Go see Mitch, he can get you into the game for free."
After my mother got her master's degree, we moved back to Arkansas City and she became the city's main librarian.
Every Saturday night in Arkansas City, the farmers would come to town and the stores would stay open until 9:00 p.m. That was a big deal in a place like Arkansas City back then. I was in the fifth or sixth grade, and my friends and I would race down the street from one block to the next to see who was the fastest. We were dodging people, sometimes knocking them down, to see who could get to the end of the block the fastest. I absolutely loved it because I beat them every time. I knew then that the Lord blessed me with a little bit of athletic ability.
One of my thrills as a kid would be to take a nickel and buy a big red apple each Saturday and turn on the radio and listen to college football games.
By the time I got to be a sophomore, our high school was running the old singe-wing and we had an A team for varsity and a B team for the sophomores. I started out on the B team that season, but the running back got hurt and they promoted me. I was the first sophomore ever to make varsity.
After football, I even made the varsity basketball team as a sophomore, and that really thrilled me. I couldn't wait to get to basketball practice. And then one morning I woke up and my ankle was killing me. It was as if someone had stuck it with a needle. On the way to school, I stopped at this store in town where my aunt worked and told her about it. By this time, I couldn't walk any further.
She felt my forehead and said, "You are hotter than a firecracker."
I had a 105-degree temperature, and they gave me a drug to get my temperature down and then put me to bed. It turned out that I had rheumatic fever. They took me to a specialist who told Mom, "This boy has a valve problem with his heart caused by that high temperature. You have to be very careful with this — he can never be very active again."
I remember my mother said, "What can I do? This boy is so active — I can't keep him in bed."
I had been one of those kids always running, always playing whatever sport was in season. I never stood still for a minute. All of a sudden they were telling me I had to be inactive for the rest of my life! You can imagine the thoughts that passed through my head.
My grandfather was a fairly wealthy man — he owned about half of the town — so we had found another doctor who was right out of medical school. This young doctor, Dr. Ward — I'll never forget that name — had followed athletics and he knew of me.
He said, "Look, I know he'll be a miserable kid if we don't do something."
My mother said, "Whatever it costs, we can afford it."
Dr. Ward explained that one of my heart's valves needed to completely close for me to be normal again and only one thing would do that: complete rest for about six weeks. I had to go home, crawl into bed, and stay there for six weeks! I couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom or to eat. I used a bedpan and was served all my meals in bed. I guess if you tie a horse up to a post long enough, the horse gets used to it. So I got used to it. I listened to the radio a lot, and my friends brought me my books to study. Mom had a teacher come in every once in a while so I didn't fall behind in school.
It kind of got to be a thing for the local kids to come by and see me in bed, like I was a circus act or something. But the neat thing was that when the girls would leave, they would give me a kiss — and on the lips, too, not one of those cheek kisses. That's how I met my high school sweetheart. She came by with some other girls one day and when I got out of that bed, she was the first one I asked for a date.
About six weeks later, that doctor came to examine me and said, "It's closing! It's closing!"
They could tell by its sound that my heart valve had returned to normal. When I first got up, my legs gave out. I could hardly walk. They had told me I couldn't be in athletics anymore, but I should start walking. So I started to walk. Then I would walk a little and jog a little. Then I started to run.
One day the doctor said, "You can run a little bit if you want, but don't overdo it."
Hell, I had been running already for weeks, but I didn't tell him that.
A little later, he said, "I believe this kid can go out for football again."
That was music to my ears, so I came back and had a good junior year. I had put on weight in bed because all I did was eat, so I was bigger. Then when I was a senior, I made all-state in basketball and football.
Life magazine had published one issue with the entire Texas starting team on the cover — all 11 of them. I remember thinking to myself, "Oh boy, wouldn't that be wonderful to be on the cover of Life magazine in my football uniform?"
One of the store owners in town had graduated from Texas and had gotten wind that I had really liked that Life magazine cover, so he sent a letter along with some of my press clippings to [Texas coach] D. X. Bible. Coach Bible offered me a trip to Austin on the train, and when I got down there I went to this dinner at one of the halls on campus. They served me like I was a king. It wasn't any buffet — they actually waited on me. That was enough for me: I decided to go to Texas.
The next year, I went to Texas and averaged a couple of touchdowns per game on the freshman team. Everybody there called me "Kansas."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Sooner Nation by Jeff Snook. Copyright © 2015 Jeff Snook. Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Barry Switzer,Foreword by Bob Stoops,
Introduction,
1. The Forties,
2. The Fifties,
3. The Sixties,
4. The Seventies,
5. The Eighties,
6. The Nineties and the New Millennium,