I was born and raised in Minnesota, “The Land of 10,000 Lakes.” My parents had a cabin during my formative years that allowed me to seek out frogs, swim, and water ski on the weekends. Both of my parents graduated from the University of Minnesota, and my Dad attended the Golden Gopher football games held at Memorial Stadium, commonly referred to as “The Old Brickyard.” In 1960, my Dad saw the season when the Gophers finished #1 in both the final coaches’ and Associated Press polls. I was raised a Gopher fan in this pre-cable era; however, they were an average team at best during my youth.
One Saturday afternoon in 1977 I watched a contest on ABC between visiting #3 Oklahoma and #4 Ohio State. Oklahoma won 29-28, and I still remember Billy Sims, a sophomore running back, hurdling over Buckeye tacklers.
When my subscription to Sports Illustrated arrived the next week, a hurdling Billy Sims appeared on the cover. I sat glued to the TV the day in which two fine programs participated in a thrilling contest that introduced me to a high octane, exciting offensive strategy: the wishbone. Ever since I have hitched my wagon to the Boomer Sooner Football Schooner!
I have four books about Oklahoma football in my personal library. One was written by a wishbone QB, Charles Thompson, who got busted for dealing cocaine during his college stint and was sent to jail. Another is The Boz, written by All-American middle linebacker and underwhelming Seahawk and actor, Brian Bosworth. Willie Morris, a university professor in Mississippi at the time, wrote The Courting of Marcus DuPree, which is more a history lesson than a book about Oklahoma Sooner football. (DuPree became the nation’s top football recruit as a senior and signed with Oklahoma in the Barry Switzer era.) Born in 1963 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the same year as myself, Marcus Dupree was raised in the Deep South. His kindergarten class was the first in his hometown to ever be desegregated. Philadelphia was also the town where three college civil rights workers – with Jew, Gentile, black, white, northern, and southern backgrounds – were jailed in Philadelphia in 1963 for their efforts to register African Americans to vote. These three students were taken from the jail at night by KKK members and murdered. This brand of terrorism was the subject of the movie Mississippi Burning.
The fourth book, Bootlegger’s Boy, written by the Barry Switzer, the only head coach to have won a college football national championship and a Super Bowl. Coach Switzer has won several national championships and coached the Sooner squad when I got hooked. The other day I lifted his book off the shelf. I had not revisited it since I excoriated Joe Paterno in an EPB post about his inactivity regarding the criminal sexual escapades of his top coaching assistant, Jerry Sandusky.
You see, Coach Paterno wrote the foreword to Coach Switzer’s book.
In part, Paterno wrote, “You might wonder why I am writing a foreword to a book written by Barry Switzer because… I do disagree with Barry about many things.” “So why am I doing this for Barry Switzer? Because Barry has many qualities I admire: loyalty, a lack of hypocrisy, a warmth for young people and friends…” Lack of HYPOCRISY and WARMTH for young people? This is incredibly incongruous with the sordid Sandusky criminal activity. On your watch and with evidence seemingly in front of you, Coach Paterno hypocritically and coldly chose to do nothing.
