Where I Come From: How I Became An Oklahoma Sooners Fan

sounds delicious

well, I too grew up in Oklahoma. But my father was more of an OSU guy. He didn’t attend either university so he wasn’t a die-hard. He in fact would say he liked both teams equally. He shared season tickets in the 50’s at OU through some friends and was at Owen Field when OU lost to Notre Dame to end the streak.

The very first time I was “aware” of football, was the 71 game of the century with Nebraska. I was 5, but my older brothers, and my father we’re excited and they all sat down to watch the game. I was aware it was a big deal, as I don’t remember them ever doing that before.

My next football memory was the 74 OU team. By then I was old enough to follow them on the radio. I’d stay up late to watch the replay’s and the coaches shows. I fully remember the Orange Bowl against Michigan and getting to watch the Sooners.

I spray painted my shoes silver as did many kids for Joe Washington. I lived in Eufaula, OK, when the Selmon Brothers came back for Selmon day and parade.

But as a kid, I was a Dallas Cowboy fan. They were on TV every week. College football had a “game of the week”, and that meant for OU they would be on like twice a year after they were off probation.

My father took me to one or two OSU games each year, and it was what I knew when I thought of college football. In many ways I was like my father, a little more OSU than OU, but liked both pretty equally.

As the years turned I started liking OU more. They actually played for things like conference championships, and big bowl games. College football got more games on, and that meant more OU. OU and Nebraska during Thanksgiving was a tradition.

My family still went to a few OSU games, and my father even bought season tickets my high school JR and Senior years, in hopes of getting me to go there. Personally I never thought a person couldn’t be a fan of both schools, and both programs.

It wasn’t until I was looking at colleges that I really fell in love with OU. I remember visiting the OU campus for the first time with my high school sweetheart and my father and really falling in love with the whole atmosphere of the campus and of Owen Field and of Norman. We attended the OU-West Virginia game which was my first OU game in Norman. That was the fall of my Senior year in high school, 1982

I knew that day, for sure I was a Sooner. Not a Cowboy. I still root for little brother, but I’m a Sooner.

How did I become a Sooner? Let’s see, it doesn’t hurt that my grandma is a Vessells, huh?

My story is a great deal like CC’s. I don’t remember NOT being a Sooner fan. It’s just in the family. I don’t even know why Dad or my grandparents are…none of them went to college that I know of, and definitely not OU or OSU. Despite the fact that we have a few graduates, I am the only OU alum. I do think that we gravitated toward OU because we’re generally from the OKC area and weren’t really tied to farmers or farming in any way.

I remember as a little kid, my dad would listen to Mike Treps doing the play-by-play on the radio, and my dad would record the games on cassette tapes (this was 1976-77, but Dad was something of an audiophile then and had a good sound system, complete with cassette deck). He still has the tapes somewhere. But experiencing his devotion inspired the same in me. I remember watching OU on TV with Mom and Dad, and us jumping and dancing around the living room when OU would put up a big play or score a big TD. The first game I consciously remember watching was the 1981 OU-USC game, in Los Angeles. OU lost that day and began my personal long-running hatred of the Trojans. I remember listening to the games on the radio, with John Brooks (“JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMINY CHRISTMAS!!!”) doing play-by-play. I loved listening to his interesting and charismatic work for the Sooners…he personified the sound of OU football for me, and still does. I still have the Jamelle Holieway #4 jersey I got at the 1985 OU-Nebraska game, and I still wear it regularly for game days. (Still fits, although I fill it out a little better now than I did then.)

I moved away after I graduated OU, but eventually grew very homesick. Fortunately, OU’s football prowess started to kick back in just as I was getting most homesick, so OU football provided a strong refuge for me while I was not at home. Dad and I would regularly have our “post-game analysis” call, where we’d watch the game, then call and discuss it all and what would come later in the season. We bought a big-screen TV just so we could watch the 2000 National Championship game. OU sports kept me going when I felt down.

I’ve worked hard to bring up my kids the right way: my daughter knew all the words to Boomer Sooner and would sing it with me when she was 3, and at the same age, my son would see the interlocking OU logo and immediately point at it and shout, “FOOTBALL!!” He’s 11 now and we’re planning to hit our second straight Meet The Sooners Day in a few weeks.

This one’s for the guys that know the true meaning of Sooner born and Sooner bred. If you grew up watching the Sooners, if you are a Sooner lifer, say AYE!

….so I’ve lived all over the world. Also thanks to that, I can’t say that I was Sooner bred. I was actually born in NY. I know, a stinking yankee. But there’s always been one constant when I lived elsewhere, we were from Oklahoma. People from all over the world had 2 things to say about Oklahoma. First they wanted to know if there were cowboys and indians fighting in the street. Second, they wanted to know about Sooner Football.

Thankfully my Dad got stationed in OKC when I was 10 so I got to live and grow up in Oklahoma. The funny thing is, my Dad wasn’t a big sports fan and my Mom was more of a OSU fan. She was actually born in Texas and always wanted to root against OU so she liked OSU.

It wasn’t long after moving to OKC that I figured out that I was an OU fan. I was never a person who “rooted for the underdog’s”. If you’re the best, you deserve to win. And that described the Sooners.

I can type forever about memories from watching games with my buddies from high school to friends who cut their hair like ‘Boz’ back in the day. But the best part about being a Sooner fan for me is my life for the last 15 years.

You see, I am a Sooner fan who lives in Mesquite, Texas, just east of Dallas. There’s nothing funner than wearing my Sooner gear in October in Dallas Texas. Like the one time when OU had won 4 in a row (and were about to make it 5) and a guy at a Mexican restaurant was giving me hell in the bar. He was going on about how I shouldn’t be wearing that shirt in Texas. I gave it back to him about how we owned Texas recently. He gave me a drunken, “Nuh uh”. I then proceeded to remind him, if he even knew, the scores of the last 4 years. He suddenly didn’t want to hassle me about OU football anymore.

But even better than that is, the fact that my 15 yr. old son is a diehard Sooner fan from day one. I actually didn’t push him away from Texas or any other school down here. His family all went to Tech. He just wanted to be like his Dad and root for number one. It didn’t hurt that OU won a National Championship in 2000. I hate to think about how different this post would be if Texas had one it first.

Which hopefully will work in our (Sooner Fans) favor in a few years. He was a freshman this last year and already has a Rivals profile. Don’t let those numbers on Rivals fool you. He is now 6’ and weighed today at 260. And by the end of his frosh year he benched 300 and squatted 500.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Alex-Wright-113212

He was actually a camp invite for Mack Browns Football Camp, but we had already payed the fees for Sooner Football Camp. I know he’s my kid and I may be considered bias, but he was the National Underclassmen Combine – Beat the Heat, Dallas Tx. – Defensive Line MVP. This earned him a spot at the NUC Ultimate 100 Southwest in Duncanville, Tx. on July 9th. He’s got an excellent chance to end up back in Oklahoma at the end of the month at the NUC Top Prospect camp.

http://nucfootball.blogspot.com/2010/05/dallas-beat-heat-tx-9th-grade-nuc.html

So I, nor my son may be Sooner Born and Sooner Bred, but we still bleed Crimson. When he was younger he always wanted to play college football. I always wanted for him the chance to do so, wherever it may be. Now it’s not about whether he will, but where he will. Thankfully the Sooners have a recruiting insider in his home.

I’ve only been an OU fan for about 8 years. Ironically that is as long as my wife and i have been together, which is also about the time i met her Father. I come from Northern Illinois, closer to the university of Iowa than the university of Illinois, and we kinda rooted for Iowa, but we really turned it on during basketball season. we were a basketball family through and through. then I moved to the south for college ( small liberal arts school), met the girl and took a trip to Oklahoma to meet the future in laws, were my father in law asked me my sporting loyalties, i responded, " Duke for college basketball, Chicago cubs for baseball and the Chicago Bulls for professional Basketball" his response was, " yeah but what football team" my response was, eh, i dont really care, which put me about three years away from him even shaking my hand. so i sat down, watched some oklahoma games and developed a passion for OU.