Ten years. Ten long years I waited. The first four were hard. They were four years of probation-era Sooner football, years of close calls, rolled Schooners, years that the Sooners were less than primo. Those four years weren’t the worst, but I took to wearing a black OU hat in mourning for the past that was. Gary Gibbs was shoved out the door with the knowledge that it would get worse before it could get better.
Nothing could prepare me for the humiliation of year that Howard Schnellenberger took the field. He insulted our fans by telling us that schools like Texas A&M had better traditions. He insulted our team by marching them on a death march prior to every home game. He insulted the head coaching job by his reported drunkeness on the job. He led the Sooners to the first loss against the OSU Cowboys in seventeen years. Oh, the humanity of it all.
Schnellenberger was ousted to be replaced with John Blake, an assistant coach of Barry Switzer’s down Dallas way, a good former Sooner. All was to be well with the world.
During the Blake years I lived in humiliation in Texas, losing season after losing season. I finally emerged from the Lone Star State in time to see the worst Victory ever won by the Sooners at TCU in ’98. A little quarterback named Patrick Fletcher restored my faith in Sooner Magic just before John Blake was mercifully canned. Enter Bob Stoops.
Last year he gave us a winning season and introduced a guy named Josh Heupel as our new QB. Every loss last year was a squeaker, every win was a vision of new hope. This hope was realized as I stood through the OU/Texas game this year on the front row of the Cotton Bowl taunting Chris Simms during our 63-14 rout of the Longhorns. (Chris Simms, it seems, isn’t a very good loser. Major Applewhite should have been starting all season long. Not that it would’ve helped.)
Hail Bob Stoops, savior of Sooner football! You have crushed our foes. While some are expectant about this season with the hopes it has given the Sooner faithful, I will not comment on it except for to say: Only three foes remain for you to crush before you ascend to Sooner godhood. Colorado must be reminded that they are a bunch of hippies when we play again in three years, Notre Dame needs the gilt knocked off their helmets when we face them in Norman in two years, and lastly Miami will be crushed into the Orange Bowl for the championship after New Year’s Day.
If the last comes true, the black hat of mourning will be retired. Then shall come the black hat of victory.
The other one is getting stinky anyway.
