Oklahoma players celebrate title by singing with Toby Keith on stage following WCWS
Do not call Toby Keith a bandwagon Oklahoma softball fan. He has been supporting the Sooners for years.
The country music star was in attendance at USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City for both Women’s College World Series finals games against Florida State this week.
After the Sooners defeated the Seminoles to win their third straight NCAA national championship, Keith joined in the post-game celebrations. At what looks to be his restaurant Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill in Oklahoma City, ESPN’s Holly Rowe videotaped Keith and the Sooners singing along to his famous hit, “How Do You Like Me Now?!”
“Congratulations to Natty Patty and the (Oklahoma softball) team. 7 time champs. Boomer Sooner,” Keith tweeted Friday.
The Sooners finished the 2023 season with a 61-1 record, which marks a .984 winning percentage. That is the best winning percentage in Division I history. The team also finished the season on a 53-game win streak, which was also a Division I record.
Oklahoma’s third straight national championship is tied for the most in a row by a softball program along with UCLA from 1988-1990. Sooners head coach Patty Gasso said this last national title was the most difficult of the three.
“It is incredibly hard. I don’t know how to explain it. I just can tell you the way I feel right now is free because the expectation is overwhelming, the pressure is overwhelming,” Gasso said. “They all have each other to laugh with. I’m standing here by myself, so that’s why you’re hearing my voice do this. I know what they’re feeling. I know what I’m feeling. It’s very difficult. It’s extremely rewarding. Like, I just want to go to Costco and shop and no one care that I’m there. They feel the same.”
Team captain and 2022 first-team All-American Grace Lyons said the team focused on each other throughout the year and not on what other may think of them.
“We work so hard to create a cohesive circle, to where the outside wasn’t that big of an impact on us and our mindset. I think from day one, we had to do that. We had to continue that until now,” Lyons said. “Even hearing some things now of people trying to get in our circle, the focus is eyes on each other and eyes up to keep it as simple as possible. I think that allowed us to have so much fun just celebrating each other’s wins, little things, because just this team is so unique but so awesome and so great to be a part of.”