Oklahoma Sooners

University of Oklahoma logo.

The University of Oklahoma featured 16 varsity sports teams. Both men's and women's team are called the Sooners, a nickname given to early Oklahoma land rush pioneers. They participate in the NCAA's Division I-A, in the South Division of the Big 12 Conference. The University's current athletic director is Joe Castiglione.

Due to the consistent performance of many OU athletic teams, such as football, men's and women's basketball, wrestling, baseball, men's and women's gymnastics, and softball, OU is widely considered to have one of the best college sports programs in the country.

Varsity sports

Several of the main athletic facilities at the Norman campus

The University of Oklahoma was a charter member of the Southwest Athletic Conference (SWC) during its formation in 1914. Five years later, in 1919, OU left the SWC and joined the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association. In 1928, this conference split with OU remaining in the conference which was then renamed the Big Six Conference. Over the next 30 years, more school were added and the conference underwent several name changes, increment the number one at a time from the Big 7 Conference to the Big Eight Conference. It remained the Big 8 until 1996 when four more universities were added and the conference then took the name Big 12 Conference, which it remains today.

Football

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Oklahoma Memorial Stadium

Undoubtedly the most famous aspect of Sooner athletics is the college football program, considered by many to be one of the elite all-time programs.

Calling Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium at Owen Field its home since the 1920s, the team has won numerous bowl games, 39 conference championships (including every Big Seven championship awarded), and seven Associated Press National Championships, making the Sooners the most decorated program in the Big 12. Oklahoma has also scored more points than any other team in Division I-A football history despite the fact they have played over 60 games fewer than the second highest scoring school on that list.

The Sooners possess seven poll-determined national championships in football, with the 1950, 1955, 1956, 1974, 1975, 1985, and 2000 seasons featuring the top team in the Associated Press final poll, and the 2000 Bowl Championship Series National Championship as well. This ties Alabama for the most national titles of any Division I college football team after the end of World War II, an occasion which marked the single most dramatic shift in the power balance of the collegiate athletics landscape of any historical event during the twentieth century.

Also, OU has the highest winning percentage of any team since the start of the AP poll in 1936.

The Oklahoma squad in a pregame huddle.

Individual success is also a major part of Oklahoma football; four Heisman Trophy winners (Billy Vessels, Steve Owens, Billy Sims and Jason White), are surrounded by many other award winners, including Joe Washington, Brian Bosworth, Greg Pruitt, Josh Heupel, Jerry Tubbs, Teddy Lehman, Lee Roy Selmon, Roy Williams, Tommy McDonald, Mark Clayton, Tommie Harris, and Keith Jackson.

Legendary coaches Bennie Owen, Bud Wilkinson, Barry Switzer, and Bob Stoops have passed though the gameday tunnel for the Sooners. Owen was the first highly successful coach at OU and was a major advocate of the forward pass, which at the turn of the century was not popular. The playing surface at Oklahoma's Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is popularly known as Owen Field in honor of his long tenure and devotion to the university. Wilkinson left many imprints on the game, such as the 5-2 defense with five linemen and two linebackers; the perfection of the Split-T, an early option offense; three national championships; and his teams set the NCAA Division 1 record for consecutive wins at 47. Switzer won three national championships and forged arguably the fiercest rushing offense ever, the Oklahoma wishbone formation, throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Though the end of Switzer's career was marked by controversy among players leading to the end of his tenure at Oklahoma, he is generally well-regarded by both his past players and Sooner fans. The university is currently home to head coach Bob Stoops and junior Adrian Peterson, one of college football's most talented running backs.

2006 football season

Main article: 2006 Oklahoma Sooners football team

After last year's disappointing 8-4 season, the Sooners look to return to form in 2006. Sophomore quarterback Rhett Bomar now has a full season of collegiate football under his belt and he appears ready to lead the team. Standout running back Adrian Peterson is once again healthy and ready to present his Heisman credentials.

See also: List of Oklahoma Sooners Football Conference Championships

Men's basketball

The men's basketball team is highly successful and has risen to national prominence since the early 80’s with head coach Billy Tubbs and three time All-American power forward Wayman Tisdale. It currently plays in the Lloyd Noble Center, which came to be known as the house Alvan Adams built and Tisdale filled. While the team has never won a national championship, it ranks second in most tournament wins without a championship behind Illinois. The team played in the 1988 national championship game but lost to Kansas, despite having beaten the Jayhawks three times earlier in the season. The program has won a combined twenty regular-season and tournament championships.

The Sooners headed into the 2005-06 season ranked #6 in the AP preseason poll, led by Taj Gray, Kevin Bookout, Terrell Everett, and David Goldbold. Despite disappointments throughout the early season, after the emergence of Micheal Neal, the Sooners salvaged a #3 seed in the Big 12 Conference Tournament but lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

On March 29, 2006, Kelvin Sampson left the University of Oklahoma to become the head basketball coach at Indiana University. 13 days later, on April 11, 2006, Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione named Jeff Capel III the new head coach. His first few months were met with unforeseen trouble when several of Sampson's top recruits decided to reconsider their commitment to OU.

See also: List of Oklahoma Sooners Men's Basketball Conference Championships

Men's gymnastics

The men's gymnastics program at OU has been a dominant force in collegiate gymnastics this decade. The program, headed by coach Mark Williams, have won four of the last five national championships, winning the title 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006 (they finished second behind Penn State in 2004). What is even more impressive with their 2006 title is the lack of experience of the team. The 2005-2006 national title team consisted of seven freshmen, four sophomores, one junior, and two seniors; 50% of the team were freshmen and just 21% were upperclassmen.

The dominance of the men's gymnastics program is not unexpected and is certainly not new. In addition to the four national titles this decade, OU men's gymnastics teams have also won national championships in 1977, 1978, and 1991. Gymnastics began at the school in 1902. The program folded in 1917 when the original coach left. The program was revived in 1965 with the new coach, Russ Porterfield having to beg students to join the squad. Within 6 years, OU had its first winning season. OU's next coach, Paul Ziert, turned the program into one of national prominence. He led OU to two national championships in 1977 and 1978. One of Ziert's athletes, Greg Buwick, would replace him as head coach in 1980 and would lead the team to its third national title in 1991. Buwick's assistant of 12 years, Mark Williams, took over the head coaching position in 2000 and has continued OU's tradition of gymnastics excellence. OU has produced more Nissen award winners than any other university and is the only school to have back-to-back Nissen award winners.

Baseball

The Oklahoma Baseball tradition is long, proud and storied, with two National Championships in 1951 and 1994, along with numerous All-Americans. Their home field is L. Dale Mitchell Baseball Park, named after famed player Dale Mitchell. The current coach is Sunny Golloway. The baseball program was a source of recent controversy when the head coach, Larry Cochell, resigned after making racially insensitive remarks about one of the players on the team.

During the 2005-2006 season, the Sooners were given a home regional at L. Dale Mitchell Park and were named the #1 seed. They beat out the University of Houston, Texas Christian University, and Wichita State University to win the regional and advanced to a Super Regional in which they were defeated by Rice University in a best-of-three series. Oregon State University went on to win the College World Series.

Women's basketball

OU Women's Basketball began during the 1974-75 academic year. Funding was lax, as the school provided $42,000 to fund six new women's sports. The program was an afterthought with many years of below average performance. In March of 1990, Oklahoma officials released a statement saying that the women's basketball program was to be dropped. Many people voiced their complaints and eight days later, OU reinstated the program. At the time, the average attendance per game was only 65 people. It wasn't until 1996 when OU hired local high school basketball coach, Sherri Coale, that the team became something Sooners could be proud of.

The program gained national prominence, after the 2002 season, when they advanced to the National Title game, losing to the University of Connecticut Huskies. The Sooners are led by their coach, Sherri Coale, and stars, the nationally-known sophomore twins, Courtney and Ashley Paris. As with the Men's team, they call Lloyd Noble Center home.

McCasland Field House, home of OU's volleyball and wrestling teams.

2005-2006 was a particularly good season for the Sooners, winning the Big 12 regular season championship with a 16-0 conference record and winning the Big 12 Tournament. They are the first Big 12 basketball team, men's or women's, to remain undefeated throughout conference play.

Wrestling

The wrestling program is the fourth most decorated in college wrestling, having won seven national championships in 1936, 1951, 1952, 1957, 1960, 1963 and 1974. They are led by their coach, Jack Spates. While Oklahoma State claims the mantle of most dominant wrestling program in the state, the Sooners are considered a power in their own right.

Rivalries

University of Texas

Reminder for OU students of rivarly with the dates of every game for the past 20 years. With construction of a new pedestrian mall, this painting was replicated outside Nielsen Hall close to the clock tower in front of Bizzell Library. Until May 2006, it was located at the South Oval.

The University of Texas is considered the primary rival of the Sooners. Inverted versions of the Longhorn mascot can be seen on automobiles all over the Norman campus, and many T-shirts referring to the rivalry present the word "Texas" in mirror image, upside-down, or possibly surrounded by obscenities. While, unlike most of their Big 12 South opponents, there is no official hand signal equivalent to the Hook 'em or Gig 'em Aggies signs, an inverted form of Texas's hand sign, known by Sooners as the "Horns Down" sign, is highly popular, even when the sporting contest in question does not feature Texas. Also, until recently in the South Oval of the OU campus, there was a painted reminder of the hatred shared by these two schools. Their annual college football match up in Dallas, Texas, known as the Red River Shootout, draws attention from all of the college football world. 2005 marked the 100th "Red River Shootout", taking place on October 8th in the Cotton Bowl, alongside the Texas State Fair. Oklahoma was defeated by eventual national champion Texas, 45-12, in the 100th Red River Shootout. This was the first loss for OU in the series since 1999.

University of Nebraska

A traditional college football rivalry with the University of Nebraska has been less intense over the past several years (although recent off-the-field incidents have heightened the animosity between the two programs and their respective fanbases). This is mainly due to the split-division nature of the Big 12 that now only allows the two teams to play each other twice every four years. Prior to this, these teams were involved in several historical match-ups, including the "Game of the Century" and the so-called "Game of the New Century" that have pitted Nebraska and Oklahoma against each other ranked one and two in the Associated Press Poll, making the games of great importance in deciding the national championship. Historically, the rivalry's most distinguishing quality has been the grudging respect and appreciation between the two tradition-rich programs. Also of note is the game's former status as the premier Thanksgiving Day game for the middle of the country.

Oklahoma State University

Oklahoma has another fierce rivalry with fellow instate university, Oklahoma State, whose athletic contests with the University of Oklahoma are known as the "Bedlam Series". Today, this has developed into a major event for all sports in which these two compete against each other. The football rivalry, while intense, remains lopsided, being 77-16-7 in favor of the Sooners. Basketball has been more competitive with OU owning a 59% winning percentage in that rivalry. Oklahoma A&M, as it's better known, is a hotbed of homosexual activity, especially in its football program. Its basketball program, up until a couple of months ago was run by a well-known alcoholic who had to practically kill a women before getting fired by that lame-ass jumped-up cow college.

Traditions

The "fight song" of the University of Oklahoma is "Boomer Sooner", a version of "Boola Boola", the fight song of Yale University. Other songs played at athletic events by the Pride of Oklahoma Marching Band are a version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!," "OK Oklahoma," played after touchdowns, and the "OU Chant".

The Mascot present at all football games is the Sooner Schooner, a Conestoga wagon, pulled by two crème white ponies, Boomer and Sooner. The caretakers of the wagon are the spirit group called the RUF/NEKS, who shoot off modified shotguns in celebration of scores by the home team. The group was launched in 1915 when an elderly female spectator at an OU-Oklahoma A&M basketball game chided the group for raising hell ("Sit down and be quiet, you roughnecks!")

Recently, in time for the 2005 football season, two new mascots, based on the ponies who pull the Schooner, were created, named appropriately, Boomer and Sooner. They are costumes of two identical (except for eye color) crème white ponies.

The official school colors are Crimson and Cream, with red and white sometimes used as substitutes for simplicity.. The school logo is an interlocking OU design first used on football helmets in 1967.

National Championships

Year	Sport	Coach
2006	Men's Gymnastics	Mark Williams
2005	Men's Gymnastics	Mark Williams
2003	Men's Gymnastics	Mark Williams
2002	Men's Gymnastics	Mark Williams
2000	Football	Bob Stoops
	Softball	Patty Gasso
1994	Baseball	Larry Cochell
1991	Men's Gymnastics	Greg Buwick
1989	Men's Golf	Gregg Grost
1985	Football	Barry Switzer
1978	Men's Gymnastics	Paul Ziert
1977	Men's Gymnastics	Paul Ziert
1975	Football	Barry Switzer
1974	Wrestling	Stan Abel
	Football	Barry Switzer
1963	Wrestling	Tommy Evans
1960	Wrestling	Tommy Evans
1957	Wrestling	Port Robertson
1956	Football	Bud Wilkinson
1955	Football	Bud Wilkinson
1952	Wrestling	Port Robertson
1951	Baseball	Jack Baer
	Wrestling	Port Robertson
1950	Football	Bud Wilkinson
1936	Wrestling	Paul V. Keen

External links

• Official Oklahoma athletics site
• OU Insider
• SoonerStats.com
• SoonerSidelines.com - Oklahoma Sooners Fan Site and the only all Sooners Podcast.
• University of Oklahoma Football - Updated daily news, articles, featuring roster and past history.