How It Was..' The BUD Days'....Lonnnng, But Worth It!
- Thread starter Senior Sooner
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Madame SS, I really enjoyed that history lesson. It gives some very good insight into the OU program but also the "lay of the land" in those times. With a grandpa that was half Delaware, I recall his trips to the bootleggers in close proximity or the runs up to Caney, Kansas during those "dry" spells in our history.
SS...Your mention of 'Gramps' making his road trips to the bootlegger made me smile, and brought back almost forgotten memories of my husband and a couple of his teammates on the 47 Straight, who had a little side hustle, making 'Home Brew' in the bathtub of our apartment, in Parkview...They even bought bottles and a 'Capper'! Their popularity soared!
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When I was living in Houston, what I heard from my Longhorn business associates was covered in the article. That being the weak Big 8 membership which benefited OU’s win streak. As it was pointed out, Colorado was the only Big 8 member that routinely challenged OU. But OU’s bowl record during the 47 game streak shot that down. Thinking back, Wilkinson’s teams lost one bowl game during the 40’s and 50’s. 6 or 7 bowl wins and one big loss to Kentucky. That’s when the NCAA limited bowl appearances to every other year. Right?? To me the weak Big 8 argument was lame, but it didn’t matter to the horn fans. That’s the only disadvantage I can think of for for living in Houston back then. And that’s my reason for disliking Texas football to this day. Thanks, Senior for sharing. BOOMER!
And Thanks for your personal observations from that same era, Okla...Those WERE The Days, My Friend! SOONER!
BTW, Senior. While I was in Houston (1971-79), we were 6-2-1, so that made it tolerable.
I used to have runs up to Caney, KS when I was 18. 18+ strip clubs. It's been 30 ish years, but I'll never forget the location/name: Club 169.
Strip clubs were open for 18 year olds in Tulsa in the mid 70s, so I seem to remember. Quite a change from the early 60s when everything still closed up on Sundays
Talk about the days before NIL! This was even before fortunes were made playing professional football.
Well I was a few years earlier than you but there was a bar for 18s just across the state line called Black Horse or something like that but everyone just called it "State Line Beer". There was also Grannie's Bait Shop in Caney. Mostly "hole-in-the-wall" type places with picnic tables in the yards with The Doors or Steppin Wolf blaring on loud speakers. The road was treacherous between Copan and Caney then. Drinking and driving on that stretch of curvy road claimed a lot of lives from mid 60s to early 70s. The sexual revolution of the late 60s pretty much negated strip clubs. Any lake on any Sunday provided all the nudity a guy could absorb on a sunny day! Rural Oklahoma! What a life!
I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but a buddy's family on the Phillips swim team with me owned a restaurant on 75 in Copan, and it was the only place around that served cow fries. Every year, the Stavanger swim team would send one male and one female to our team to train and race in Philip's big meet of the year, and we'd send one male and one female to race in their North Sea Meet.
Our Okie joke was to always take the Norwegians to that restaurant and get them to eat cow fries.
Because you're in the oil biz, I'll add this. Phillips is big into swimming, because I think it was Pete Silas that loved swimming, the CEO prior to Jim Mulva. So no surprise, both of Mulva's sons were swimmers. I grew up with Stephen and Johnathon. When I was in grad school at OU, probably 2000, Johnathon was one of OU's pilot instructors. That was the last time I sat down with him and shared a meal.
Our Okie joke was to always take the Norwegians to that restaurant and get them to eat cow fries.
Because you're in the oil biz, I'll add this. Phillips is big into swimming, because I think it was Pete Silas that loved swimming, the CEO prior to Jim Mulva. So no surprise, both of Mulva's sons were swimmers. I grew up with Stephen and Johnathon. When I was in grad school at OU, probably 2000, Johnathon was one of OU's pilot instructors. That was the last time I sat down with him and shared a meal.
Phillips 66 Swimming is as old as I. Splash Club coached by Ken Treadway was a legend and coached US Olympic teams. Boots Adams was the 1st President of Phillips 66 after Frank Phillips. He was a Kansas Jayhawk and was the prime promoter of the Bartlesville 66ers semi-pro basketball team and the Splash Club. That indoor pool was a treasure in the winter months.
I was on it from 1985 - 1996. I was one of the ones elected to go to Stavanger in 1995,I believe.
OU and the Big 8 was labelled "Oklahoma and the Seven Dwarfs" during the 1950's and it was a valid label as OU's opponents during the 47 game winning streak had a winning percentage of 38%, including non-conference games.
But if ANY team had the same success under the same circumstances, especially other "blue bloods" like Notre Dame and Texas, their fans would be just as loud and proud as OU fans are.
The absurd rantings of Texas fans about the streak and how OU "raids" Texas for talent is stale. Are we suppose to think that a player in Texas.....and every other state....should be prohibited from going to college out of state? Texas has a population 6-7 times larger than Oklahoma and is one of the top three states in producing high school football talent. OU would be stupid not to make Texas its main recruiting turf annually. I'm sure Darrell Royal, a Sooner All American and native Oklahoman who resurrected a floundering Texas program in 1957 and gave Texas its greatest seasons over 20 years which included a 12-1 streak over OU (1958-1970) would agree.
Royal's Oklahoma roots and Sooners career has never been recognized by Horn fans too often. That to me trumps any and every discussion when Texas fans chirp about OU recruiting in Texas.
I’ve never researched how Royal turned to the dark orange side. Surely no one burned his family’s homestead or raped their livestock ?
They made him an offer he couldn't refuse...Often repeated story was that when he beat Bud, his old coach, the first time, in 1958, that DKR cried, and 'upchucked'...
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I read where Royal threw up after the 1976 tie with OU, as he wanted to beat Switzer due to cheating allegations. His regard for his Sooner legacy or at least Switzer was at rock bottom then, but I think he accepted his place in OU history after Switzer retired. (I have a red OU helmet autographed by Royal).
Hindsight is 20-20, but I wish OU had realized how strong Wilkinson's political desires were after the 1959 season and had gone after Royal, but by then, I think DKR was fully entrenched in Austin.
Wilkinson said after his coaching career at OU was over that OU's program starting to decline because he did utilize jet travel, which I guess meant that he could have recruited all of Texas (instead of north and west Texas) and coast to coast.
I have yet to talk football with a Horn fan with any civility. They are like Red Sox fans in that they want to remind me how much they hate my team and how great their team is, rather than just talk football/baseball.
I haven’t had that experience except when living in Texas. The Horn fans I know here in Tulsa are pretty quite. So evidently all Texas fans aren’t necessarily stupid.
I've lived amongst for the past 36 years. Cowboy fans also. What a dispirited clan.I haven’t had that experience except when living in Texas. The Horn fans I know here in Tulsa are pretty quite. So evidently all Texas fans aren’t necessarily stupid.
I have known 3 Texas fans that I could calmly and objectively talk football with, one of whom is my great nephew who attended UT for one semester in the early 1980's and was somehow sold on the Longhorn legacy in his brief stay.I haven’t had that experience except when living in Texas. The Horn fans I know here in Tulsa are pretty quite. So evidently all Texas fans aren’t necessarily stupid.
In recent years, I have grown away from the fist-clenching, us-versus-them hatred of following sports teams. This is due to having people I have loved (family and friends) pass away and finally realizing some things.....sports and politics mostly....just are not worth getting riled up about or being a factor in whom I choose to befriend. Simply put, there are too many more important and meaningful things to life. And it took me over 60 years to find this out.
I won't go to Austin and poison trees on the UT campus or fret over OU allowing Auburn to score a cosmetic touchdown on the last play of the game in the 2017 Sugar Bowl, won by OU 35-19, or Oregon kicking a 4th quarter field goal to avoid a shutout in 1972, a game won by OU 68-3. And the limited level of OU teams since the 2000 season with its not-so-stellar postseason resume is a concern, but until OU starts using Alabama's template for success, there's not much to say.... although that may be close to happening with Venables in charge.
You know Senior, I think it would be really cool for you to tell us your background and history with Sooner football. I know I would be very interested.
Awww...Thank You, MIkee...What a nice thing to say, but You are late to the party!
After lurking, for several years, primarily because the board was almost exclusively Male and enjoying all of the guys who posted such strong OU thoughts and opinions, I finally posted stories from what I considered The Golden Years...long ago, and far away. My story was almost like a Fairy Tale...It was wonderful being a part of The Magic Circle of The 47 Straight, but so many Wonderful People, Players, and Coaches, have come and gone since then, that all of that is Old News...It was the Best of Times...Until it Wasn't...You do know, that that was the Sports Illustrated story that started their well documented cover jinx. Tex Maule wrote that article just before Notre Dame broke the 47 game win streak on the 50th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood. Turns out, we weren't unbeatable. But the article didn't reach newsstands until after seven-oh. I was six and don't remember it. But my dad and I bonded over OU football a few years later. We had a great team with a great coach in a horrible conference.
We are about to be in a conference that is just the opposite of that.
We are about to be in a conference that is just the opposite of that.
Great post, Plaino.
As great as the decade of the 1950's was for OU, the stain that still stands out for me were the three losses to Notre Dame in 1952, 1953 and 1957 and the 40-0 rout in 1956 against perhaps Notre Dame's worst team ever (2-8) hardly makes up for it.
But it was that decade that elevated Oklahoma to the elite status that it has maintained ever since.
And as Plaino stated, OU's future in the SEC is far removed from its Big 8 days. Hopefully, the Sooners won't have the same limited success that ATM with its loaded rosters has had.
That was actually the Big 7 day. OSU hadn't joined the conference yet. When the Big 8 began, the conference was much better. OU didn't dominate. Nebraska's new coach, Bob Devaney more than equaled the four Oklahoma coaches of the 1960's. And other teams got better.
Mizzou under Dan Devine became a quality program. By the end of the 60's, he led Missouri to a co-title with Nebraska. They beat us 44-10 and 44-14 in 1969. That year, Jack Mildren's soph year, back when freshmen weren't eligible for the varsity, K-State even broke their 36-year losing streak to OU. We won outright only two conference titles in the 60's. We tied for the conference in 1968 with Kansas, but even though we beat them, they went to the Orange Bowl. We went to the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, and lost to SMU when OUr best defensive player and best offensive player, suffered knee injuries five minutes apart in the first half.
But Mildren's recruitment changed OU into a national power, that only dipped in the 90's, for the next 50 years. Four more national titles and top five national rankings as much as anybody and top tens more than half the time. Mildren was really the first really nationally known high school football recruit. LIke a dozen other great great national recruits at several schools, he didn't win the natty. But the guys who came to play with him, produced greatness just after he left.
But unlike Cincinnati with Oscar Robertson, or Tennessee under Peyton Manning, or even Bill Bradley at Texas, OU sustained the greatness. And I think Brent Venables will do the same.
Mizzou under Dan Devine became a quality program. By the end of the 60's, he led Missouri to a co-title with Nebraska. They beat us 44-10 and 44-14 in 1969. That year, Jack Mildren's soph year, back when freshmen weren't eligible for the varsity, K-State even broke their 36-year losing streak to OU. We won outright only two conference titles in the 60's. We tied for the conference in 1968 with Kansas, but even though we beat them, they went to the Orange Bowl. We went to the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, and lost to SMU when OUr best defensive player and best offensive player, suffered knee injuries five minutes apart in the first half.
But Mildren's recruitment changed OU into a national power, that only dipped in the 90's, for the next 50 years. Four more national titles and top five national rankings as much as anybody and top tens more than half the time. Mildren was really the first really nationally known high school football recruit. LIke a dozen other great great national recruits at several schools, he didn't win the natty. But the guys who came to play with him, produced greatness just after he left.
But unlike Cincinnati with Oscar Robertson, or Tennessee under Peyton Manning, or even Bill Bradley at Texas, OU sustained the greatness. And I think Brent Venables will do the same.
I enjoy absorbing the OU history and experiences that you "old timers" grant us. Although I believe I am the same age as Plaino my OU days started much later and were never as enriched. My first OU football game on TV was also the first time I saw a color TV ..... Jan. 1, 1968. OU vs Tennessee. I was hooked.
Another good post, Plaino.
I would say that Mildren's recruitment in 1967 jump started OU to becoming a national power AGAIN and coupled with a great Orange Bowl win over Tennessee following the 1967 season OU had the momentum of regaining OU's legacy after Wilkinson's time....even in view of some ups and downs in the 1968, 1969 and 1970 seasons.
I attended the OU-Texas game in 1971 and came away knowing that OU was to be a team for the 1970's. That team had a wishbone that dwarfed the 1969 Texas wishbone with its backfield of Worster, Bertelson, Dale and Koy (all-white and slower) backfield. I think Pruitt AND Mildren could both be considered "godfathers of the wishbone" as it was Pruitt's speed at halfback that the OU coaches wanted to unleash as much as it was Mildren's overall talent and his ability to run a wishbone offense.
I would say that Mildren's recruitment in 1967 jump started OU to becoming a national power AGAIN and coupled with a great Orange Bowl win over Tennessee following the 1967 season OU had the momentum of regaining OU's legacy after Wilkinson's time....even in view of some ups and downs in the 1968, 1969 and 1970 seasons.
I attended the OU-Texas game in 1971 and came away knowing that OU was to be a team for the 1970's. That team had a wishbone that dwarfed the 1969 Texas wishbone with its backfield of Worster, Bertelson, Dale and Koy (all-white and slower) backfield. I think Pruitt AND Mildren could both be considered "godfathers of the wishbone" as it was Pruitt's speed at halfback that the OU coaches wanted to unleash as much as it was Mildren's overall talent and his ability to run a wishbone offense.
Yes, thanks to my friends on this board. I have been privy to experiences that won't show up on Youtube or ESPN. Mickey Ripley was a family friend and enchanted my mother with his tales of OU football from inside the program.
Yes! Inside the program were some of The Best of Times, and occasionally, The Worst of Times...Each of the players had been used to having the Spotlight on his abilities...When he came to OU and everyone else brought similar Sensational Statistics and Talents, it got 'Interesting' seeing how each one handled their change in status. There was quite a lot of 'on-the-job-training' in lessons on acceptance and adjustments... sharing, and caring. Coaches then, and now, face indescribable challenges in making those pieces of the puzzle fit...When They Succeed, it leads to Winning Teams, and Championships!
Senior, did you ever meet Prentice Gautt? He was my favorite Sooner in the late 1950's.
I have always wondered if Wilkinson could have given him more carries as his films showed him to have more of a combination of power and speed than the other backs.
And he was a very good linebacker in those days of two-way football.
And, FWIW, I'm okay with Mayfield's statue this year, but players like Gautt, Kalsu and Mildren, who represented themselves both on and off the field should be given the same, or more, recognition in my opinion.
I have always wondered if Wilkinson could have given him more carries as his films showed him to have more of a combination of power and speed than the other backs.
And he was a very good linebacker in those days of two-way football.
And, FWIW, I'm okay with Mayfield's statue this year, but players like Gautt, Kalsu and Mildren, who represented themselves both on and off the field should be given the same, or more, recognition in my opinion.
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CT...How ironic that you should call me out on this...I've been sitting on this recent story of Prentice, considering if the time was right for me to share it with my fellow Scoopers...Thanks for Nudging me, as, IMO, it is one of the Strongest Individual Stories coming out of OU Football History...That is probably because it was lived by one of the Strongest Individuals to ever set foot on Owen Field...Prentice Gautt's background is interesting, in itself, and can be googled, by anyone. It is the events that were not covered by the media that still stand out in my memories...My husband was a year ahead of Prentice, so we were already at OU when he and his wife, DeDe came on board. There is no way to describe the uniqueness of the situation...No handbook on teammate behavior...No play books for the coaches on how to integrate ONE BLACK PLAYER into a multitude of White Players who were all comfortable in the spotlights of their respective high schools...Of course there was a lot of jockeying for positions among them, but that was expected, and accepted, because They 'Belonged'...There were problems, from the beginning...From the Fans, the Students, and in the Locker Room. Prentice was a divisive presence, in the beginning. After getting to know Prentice, the Person, many of the players relaxed their opinions, and treated him more cordially, but not warmly. He never complained...Never tried to insert himself into any situation...He was humble, and never responded when jealous teammates treated him poorly. My husband and I both grew up in all-white communities, but neither of us was prejudiced about color. We became friends with Prentice and DeDe and the four of us often made road trips together to Speaker-Type Dinners throughout Oklahoma. One night, Prentice invited us to go to a Special Banquet honoring him! When we arrived, we realized we had come to an all black community. We were the only white people who were present, and for the first time, we were the Minority. We were warmly welcomed by the crowd..Completely the opposite of how Prentice was often treated. It was fortunate that Prentice was such an outstanding player, and earned his position and playing time. If it had been otherwise, his role would have been viewed as 'A Gesture...A Token'...Prentice paid the price for making the team with his own blood, sweat, and TEARS...As many players as there were, so were there that many 'Prentice Stories'...One of the best was when Jake Sanderfer went to Bud and volunteered to room with Prentice on road trips...Jakey was easily the most privileged player on the team, coming from a Very wealthy Texas Oil Family...He was also the most gracious, down-to-earth friend we had...This recent publication, which detailed Joe C's Friendship with Prentice was news to me...You may have been aware of it, Scottsdale, but if not, I'm guessing you'll enjoy reading it, and maybe even shedding a tear, as I did...I've always been proud to call Prentice Gautt 'My Friend'...https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-football-trailblazer-prentice-gautt-legacy/39267372 ...(This link may not work on here, but can be googled.)
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When I lived in Houston from 1956-60 I had a picture of Prentice Gautt taped to my bedroom wall over my bed.
I never really saw a black player, just a great Sooner. That's more of a tribute to my parents (both from Oklahoma) than it is of me.
The late Jakey Sandefer was a special person, especially for someone his age at the time and during a time when bigotry was so commonplace.
I never really saw a black player, just a great Sooner. That's more of a tribute to my parents (both from Oklahoma) than it is of me.
The late Jakey Sandefer was a special person, especially for someone his age at the time and during a time when bigotry was so commonplace.