YOUR UNPRECEDENTED GENEROSITY HAS PROPELLED OSU TOWARD THE $1 BILLION GOAL OF THE BOLDEST HIGHER EDUCATION CAMPAIGN IN OKLAHOMA’S HISTORY.
YOUR UNPRECEDENTED GENEROSITY HAS PROPELLED OSU TOWARD THE $1 BILLION GOAL OF THE BOLDEST HIGHER EDUCATION CAMPAIGN IN OKLAHOMA’S HISTORY.
THANK YOU to the nearly 67,000 alumni and friends who have helped the university earn recognition as a premier land-grant institution. Maintaining this incredible momentum is crucial to fulfilling the Branding Success Campaign’s promise to unleash OSU’s full potential.
It’s a good t I me to be an osU fan. It’s even a better t I me to be an osU adm I n Ist rator.
We recently gathered the athletic department for our annual compliance meeting, and i shared with the staff our four guiding principles for the department.
one — Follow the rules. Winning doesn’t mean anything if you didn’t do it the right way. Two — Be good sports. Three — graduate our student-athletes. While our student-athletes are here to play sports, it’s more important that they become well-rounded young adults and complete their college education. four — we want to win.
a nd that’s where you come in. Your aTT endance is a crucial parT of our home field advan Tage. Your energY empoWers our stuDentathletes. But more than that, as fans anD supporters of our programs anD stuDent-athletes, Your contriButions in the forms of donations and the purchase oF season tickets makes a diFFerence in the lives oF these young people, on the Fie ld and in the classroom. thank You for purchasing season tickets, anD i’ll see You at the games.
Go Pokes!
Mike Holder Director of intercollegiate athletics
september 2011 0 0 0 8 0
posse magazine
POSSE Magazin E S taff
a ssociate v ic e p re sident of e nr ollment m an agement / m ar keting Kyle Wray
e ditor- i n- c hi ef Cory Cheney
a rt d irector / d es igner Paul V. Fleming
d irector of p ho tography Phil Sho CK le y
c ontributing p ho tographer g ary l a WS on assistant ed itor Clay Billman
c ontributing w ri ters m att e lliot
c ontributing de signers, m ar K Pennie, r o SS m au te, e li za B et h h ah n, Sarah Dun B ar
a thl E ti c S a nn ual g iv ing (POSSE) D E v E l OP ME nt Staff
a ssistant ath letic d ir ector / d ev elopment Je SS e m artin
a ssistant d ev elopment d ir ector e llen a yre S
p remium s er vices d ir ector Karyl h enry
p ublications c oo rdinator Clay Billman
p rograms c oo rdinator
102
Donations received may be transferred to Cowboy Athletics, Inc. in accordance with the Joint Resolution among Oklahoma State University, the Oklahoma State University Foundation, and Cowboy Athletics, Inc. POSSE magazine is published four times a year by Oklahoma State University Athletic Department and the POSSE, and is mailed to current members of the POSSE. Magazine subscriptions available by membership in the POSSE only. Membership is $150 annually. Postage paid at Stillwater, OK, and additional mailing offices. Oklahoma State University, in compliance with Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 11246 as amended, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other federal laws and regulations, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, disability, or status as a veteran in any of its policies, practices or procedures. This includes but is not limited to admissions, employment, financial aid, and educational services. Title IX of the Education Amendments and Oklahoma State University policy prohibit discrimination in the provision of services or benefits offered by the University based on gender. Any person (student, faculty or staff) who believes that discriminatory practices have been engaged in based upon gender may discuss their concerns and file informal or formal complaints of possible violations of Title IX with the OSU Title IX Coordinator, Mackenzie Wilfong, J.D., Director of Affirmative Action, 408 Whitehurst, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, (405) 744-5371 or (405) 744-5576 (fax). This publication, issued by Oklahoma State University as authorized by the Assistant Athletic Director, POSSE, was printed by Southwestern Stationers at a cost of $0.9577 per issue. 10M/Sept 2011/#3963.
firsT, thank yoU for yoUr contInUed sUpport of osU athletIcs through the purchase of season tIckets and posse membershIps. Your commitment makes it possible to provide quality educational opportunities for more than 450 student-athletes.
As you know doubt know, OSU Athletics operates as an auxiliary enterprise of the University, and relies upon private donations and ticket sales to fully fund 18 varsity sports.
With the 2011–12 sports season upon us, I would like to take this time to revisit some additional benefits available to you as a POSSE Member and Season Ticket Holder simply by logging into your osu aThleTics accounT manager. Getting started is easy. Visit www.oksTaTe.com/TickeTs, and login to your osU athletIcs accoUnt manager. You’ll need to enter your unique Account ID or e-mail address and password. If you are a ticket holder in any sport at OSU or a POSSE Member, then you have a predetermined Account ID and password. If you do not know your Account ID or password, contact osU athletIcs at (877) 255-4678 .
Your “osu aThleTics accounT manager” is loaded wiTh The following greaT feaTures:
make addItIonal donatIons / become a posse member —
Supporting OSU’s studentathletes has never been easier. When you are logged into your account, click “Donate Today!”
From there, you can choose to make a donation of any amount to the Varsity Athletics Fund or to a specific sport.
revIew yoUr posse poInts and prIorIty rankIng — This feature allows you to see current and lifetime POSSE Point totals. You can also view your POSSE ranking and calculate potential POSSE Points, and view the Priority Points system and key dates that apply to seating for particular sports/events. manage and share yoUr tIckets — Via Ticket Forwarding, you can send your tickets to virtually anyone, up to two hours before the game. This service allows you to email tickets to friends, family or clients when you can’t attend a game. You don’t even need to have the tickets in hand. Avoid the hassles of Will Call lines and in-person delivery and start enjoying the benefits of this new print-at-home service.
edIt yoUr profIle — Update and edit your profile from wherever you have Internet access. You’ll be able to keep your account information up to date quickly and easily make changes to your password, your contact information, billing information and more.
make payments — View statements and pay invoices directly through our secure website. It’s a safe and easy way to renew your season tickets and/ or POSSE membership! Simply select “View/Pay Open Invoices,” then select the invoice you wish to pay.
payment plans — You are able to set up separate payment plans for both season tickets and POSSE donations. Enrolling in an online payment plan offers additional flexibility, convenience and security. POSSE payment plans offer the flexibility of making your donation more manageable with the following options: 12-month (July 15), 6-month (Jan. 15), 5-month (Feb. 15), 4-month (March 15), 3-month (April 15) or 2-month (May 15) for the 2011-12 year. Payment plans are also available for Season Tickets for Football and Men’s Basketball.
tIcketexchange — Want to maximize the use of your season tickets? Can’t make it to a game? Need to sell your seats to another Oklahoma State fan? Now you can use TicketExchange through Your OSU Athletics Account to sell your season tickets anonymously to other fans. TicketExchange utilizes Ticketmaster’s secure online selling service.
We hope the addition of these features to your OSU Athletics Account Manager will make your experience as a POSSE Member and Season Ticket Holder more enjoyable and convenient.
As always, if you know someone who would like purchase season tickets or join the POSSE, please call us at 877-all-4-osu (877-255-4678) or visit www.oksTaTe.com. Annual contributions to Athletics totaling $150 or more qualify for membership in the POSSE and include an annual subscription to the award-winning posse magazIne, the posse star for your automobile and an educational tax deduction. Get your friends and family involved today!
We are verY appreciative of Your support of osu athletics!
The posse is Your Team Behind The Teams!
phoTograph Y BY Phil Shockley
phoTograph Y BY Phil Shockley
PRESCRIPTION S u C CESS for
Calvin a n thony’s l ife s tory i s f illed w ith o ne a C C o mplishment a fter a nother s u C C e ssful p harma C y o wner; b ank b oard m ember; m a yor o f s t illwater; m ember o f t he s t ate h o use o f r e presentatives; C e o o f t he n a tional p h arma C y ; a nd, f inally, t he C h air o f t he o k lahoma a & m b o ard o f r e gents.
And yet, to he A r him tell his t A l e, it’s A l most like he’d h A v e you believe it h A p pened by A c cident.
“Don’t get me wrong,” says Calvin. “I always wanted to succeed. I didn’t have a background in science and math and chemistry, but I had a good work ethic. Average intelligence, but good work ethic. I was way behind when I started at OSU, but I was so afraid of failure, that I studied night and day and learned what I needed to learn to do well.”
Calvin learned about hard work while growing up in Carney, Okla., where his family owned a country store. He and his brothers and sisters grew up in the store, helping their parents.
“All of us kids worked in it all the way through our school years,” says Calvin. “It started out as a grocery store. It ended up having dry goods, feed … like a precursor to Wal-Mart in a way. We handled all kinds of merchandise.”
Calvin, valedictorian of his class of 12, was also a talented athlete, playing both basketball and baseball for Carney. He excelled on the diamond, being named to the All-State team his junior and senior years, as well as playing in the state championship as a junior. Baseball ended up helping him get to OSU with a scholarship to play
for the Pokes. Scholarship or not, his parents expected him to go to college.
“My folks were very emphatic about us kids getting more education than they had,” says Calvin. “When I came to OSU as a freshman, it was a big jump. Fortunately, I had an older brother who’d come to OSU three years before me. None of our family had ever had college education before, so he started and set the pattern.”
While an undergrad, Calvin got a job working at Tiger Drug, which in turn influenced his decision to become a pharmacist. Unfortunately, that led him to Norman, which was home to
one of the two pharmacy schools in the state. Even then, he kept working weekends at Tiger Drug.
While driving back and forth from Norman to Stillwater, Calvin still found time to play baseball, which in a roundabout way is how he met his wife, Linda.
“Calvin was playing baseball across the street from the church I attended,” says Linda. “I was a senior in high school, and he was a senior in pharmacy school.”
They knew of each other, of course. Though Linda attended school in Chandler, her family lived just five miles away from Carney. They got married the August after Calvin finished pharmacy school.
“I had no plans to marry as young as I did,” says Linda, “but the Vietnam War was at its height, and Calvin was drafted. We didn’t think we could bear for him to go away and us not be married.”
But Calvin didn’t get sent to Vietnam. Calvin had suffered from asthma during his childhood, and the doctor doing the screenings in Oklahoma City knew about it. Calvin was sent home.
“So we moved to Stillwater, rented a little apartment by what is now Eskimo Joe’s, and I started at OSU as a freshman,” she says.
While Linda attended school, Calvin worked as a pharmacist at Humpty Dumpty, a grocery store in the current IGA location.
“I made $1,000 a month,” says Calvin. “Each check was about $400 after withholdings. We lived on one and saved the other.”
Within six months, the gentleman who owned Tiger Drug called Calvin and asked him if he’d like to buy the pharmacy.
“Mr. Phillips was ready to retire,” says Calvin. “He had planned for his son to take over the business, but his son had gone to medical school, so he asked me if I’d like to buy the store. I’d worked there enough to know it was a really good business, but I had no money. He offered to help with some financing, but I had to come up with the down payment. My dad co-signed a note with me at the Carney bank so I could get it.
“I took over there in the spring of 1969, and everything came up roses for us. We had the business paid off in four-and-a-half years.”
At this point, the ball really got rolling for the young couple. Calvin worked long days while Linda went to school, though soon, she was spending long days at the pharmacy, too. She’ll tell you that though she was an elementary education major, she really majored in Tiger Drug.
Starting with the one store, the Anthonys opened more pharmacies. There was Central Drug on Main Street in Stillwater. Then other locations in Perkins, Perry and Yale. Then they opened a home healthcare business, Tiger Home Healthcare, which they eventually sold to Stillwater Medical Center.
Calvin’s work ethic was on display every day in his pharmacy, and people noticed. When the Stillwater mayor became ill, she asked him to run for the office. He did. Later, a State House of Representatives legislator became ill, and some people asked Calvin to fill in. He ended up serving two terms, and was on the fast track for Speaker.
“All during this time, I was really involved in the National Pharmacy Association,” he says. “It’s a national association representing about 75,000
pharmacists and 25,000 pharmacies. I ended up going through most the volunteer chairs. When I finished my term as president, the CEO retired. They asked me if I’d take the job and move to Washington.”
He did, and the Anthonys moved to Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. While there, Calvin worked to influence healthcare policy during the Clinton administration. He and Linda traveled the world. They kept their home in Stillwater, however, as well as Tiger Drug. And after six years, they moved “home,” and got re-engaged with OSU and the community.
“As a businessman in Stillwater, I realized early on that my future was tied to the success of OSU and the community,” says Calvin. “What’s good for one is good for both, and you have to work together. OSU has been a key part of our success, so it makes it easy to step up and make a contribution.”
They contribute in a number of ways. Linda is a Friend of the Library, and the Anthonys are long-time (since 1970) season ticket holders in football, men’s basketball and wrestling.
“When we started, we didn’t really have a lot of money,” he says, “but we thought it was an investment. And we still look at it this way. Now we have tickets to everything.”
They’ve also contributed tuition money. All three of their children are OSU alumni.
“We’re pretty much through-andthrough OSU,” says Calvin. “We do what we can. There are a lot of people more successful than us, especially financially, but for t Wo kiDs from little Bit t Y spots in the roaD, We feel prett Y gooD aBout What We’ve Done.” POSSE
The 2011 Hall of Honor
The OSU athletic department inducted seven new members into the h a ll O f h O n O R the weekend of OSU’s 2011 football season opener. These honorees join the likes of BarrY s a nders , h e nrY i B a , BoB k u rland, BoB f e nimore and wa lT g a rrison , to name a few.
More than 35 individuals were nominated, and each of them had an O-Club member pleading their case. Each nominee had to have “attained O u tstanding athletiC aC CO mP l ishments as a student-athlete, C OaCh
O R administ R atO R as a R e P R e sentative O f Oklah Om a s tate u niveRsity
O R beyO nd.” Ideally, the candidate would have been an All-American, a world record holder, an Olympian or played or coached on an NCAA championship team.
It’s a tall-order to make the Hall. All 35 candidates had strong cases for inclusion, with some names no doubt to be on future-inductee lists.
T he new mem Be rs of T h e h a ll of honor are …
Bill Platt
Platt was honored with the Distinguished Service Award after working as the voice of OSU baseball from 1958-95. A 1989 inductee into the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, Platt was also named the Oklahoma Broadcaster of the Year five times. Additionally, Platt served as president of the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters.
He is fondly remembered by radio listeners for his signature sign-off: “This is your Cowboy Baseball reporter, Bill Platt ... rounding third and heading home.”
Don Johnson
Johnson competed for Henry Iba’s basketball squad from 1949-52. As a junior, he helped lead the Aggies to a 29-6 record and a berth in the 1951 NCAA Final Four. That season, he averaged a team-best 12.1 points per game and was named a first-team AllMissouri Valley Conference selection.
As a senior, Johnson again led the squad in scoring at 14.0 points per game en route to earning All-America status from the Helms Foundation. He was a fifth-round pick in the 1952 NBA Draft by Boston.
Eric Guerrero
Guerrero captured three NCAA individual crowns as a member of the OSU wrestling team. Currently serving as the assistant head coach at his alma mater, he won national titles in 1997, 1998 and 1999. Guerrero was also a four-time AllAmerican and compiled a 117-13 record while helping the Cowboys to three conference team titles.
A participant at the 2004 Athens Olympics, Guerrero was a four-time USA senior freestyle champion. He also won four U.S. Open titles, was a World Cup Championship winner and a member of the World Team for five consecutive years.
Mark Moore
A standout for the Cowboy football team, Moore earned Associated Press All-America honors in 1985 and 1986 at the safety position. He amassed 311 tackles during his collegiate career. Moore also intercepted seven passes, one shy of the school record, during his junior campaign.
Moore earned All-Big Eight honors three times during his career and was a fourth-round pick in the NFL Draft by Seattle in 1987.
Melanie Roche
Twice selected a first-team All-American as a member of the Cowgirl softball squad, Roche helped OSU reach the Women’s College World Series on two occasions. The right-handed pitcher was a three-time All-Big Eight pick, a Big Eight all-tournament selection in 1992 and a member of the all-region team in 1993.
Roche holds several school records, including career shutouts, consecutive scoreless innings pitched and season victories. She has represented the Australian National Team at the Olympic Games on four occasions, winning one silver medal and three bronze medals.
Toby Greene
Greene directed the OSU baseball program for 21 seasons, tallying a record of 318-132. He led the Cowboys to their first four College World Series appearances, captured seven district titles and won the 1959 NCAA title. Greene’s national championship squad produced seven professional players.
Greene’s 1955 squad became the only team in program history to complete the regular season undefeated, winning 22 games in a row. That squad also sent nine players into the professional ranks.
Willie Wood
Wood earned All-America status during all four of his seasons as a member of the Cowboy golf team. A firstteam selection in 1982 and 1983, he won the Big Eight title in 1982 and was named the Fred Haskins Award winner as the nation’s top player that same season. Additionally, Wood played the 1982 Masters Tournament as an amateur, tying for 41st place.
A member of the 1983 U.S. Walker Cup squad, Wood’s eight career wins currently rank third on the school’s all-time victories list. As a professional, he won the PGA Tour’s Deposit Guaranty Golf Classic in 1996.
as of august 5, 2011
1.
T. boone & madeleine Pickens
6,084,803
2 M alone & Amy Mitchell
3. Sherman & Eloise Smith
4. John Clerico
5. K arsten Manufacturing
6. W & W Steel Co
7. Ross & Billie McKnight
8. D ennis & Karen Wing
9. Walt & Peggy Helmerich III
10. A .J. & Susan Jacques
11. E d & Jana Evans
12. Robert A. Funk
13. m i ke & r obbie holder 6 6,222
14. ONEOK, Inc.
15. H arold & Joyce Courson
16. G ary & Jerri Sparks
17. Stillwater National Bank
18. D ennis & Cindy Reilley
19. Watson Family Foundation
20. Vickie & Tucker Link Foundation
21. Joe & Connie Mitchell
22. Kent & Margo Dunbar
23. Ken & Jimi Davidson
24. Patrick & Patricia Cobb
25. B ob Howard
26. R ichard & Barbara Bogert
27. C had Clay
28. RCB Bank
29. Joullian & Co.
30. A nonymous #1
31. James & Mary Barnes
32. O G&E
33. F lintco, Inc.
34. A nonymous #2
35. G reg & Rhonda Casillas
36. O SU President’s Office
37. C hesapeake Energy Inc
38. l e w & Suzanne meibergen 29,634
39. G arland & Penny Cupp
40. Vicki & Jim Click
41. Sparks Financial
42. B ob & Kay Norris
43. Jon & Suzanne Wiese
44. Blueknight Energy Partners, LP
45. O SU Foundation
46. B ryant J. Coffman
47. B rad & Margie Schultz
48. Philip & Shannon Smith
49. Jameson Family, LLC
50. Jay & Connie Wiese
51. A ndy Johnson
52. Atlas Paving Company
53. K NABCO Corp
54. I ke & Mary Beth Glass
55. David Bradshaw
56. S ally Sparks
57. G riff & Mindi Jones
58. T homas & Barbara Naugle
59. C alvin & Linda Anthony
60. S andra M. Lee
61. A nonymous #3
62. L es & Cindy Dunavant
63. L ambert Construction
64. B arry & Roxanne Pollard
65. B erkeley Manor Enterprises
66. m a rk & l isa Snell 19,973
67. A merican Fidelity
68. R ichard & Joan Welborn
69. Neal & Jeanne Patterson
70. M ark & Beth Brewer
71. K .D. & Leitner Greiner
72. H arvey & Donna Yost
73. Jerry & Lynda Baker
74. E d & Mary Malzahn
75. S outhwest Filter Co.
76. S cott & Kim Verplank
77. David LeNorman
78. Jerry & Rae Winchester
79. Wittwer Construction
80. Ameristar Fence Products
81. a - cross r anch 16,561
82. John & Gail Shaw
83. Ba ncFirst
84. The Oklahoman
85. Steve & Jennifer Grigsby
86. Doug & Nickie Burns
87. Joh nsons Of Kingfisher
88. La rry Bump
89. The Foothills Foundation
90. Austin & Betsy Kenyon
91. Ba nk of Oklahoma
92. Russ & Julie Teubner
93. AE I Corporation
94. La rry & Shirley Albin
95. Joh n & Jerry Marshall
96. Ron & Marilynn McAfee
97. Tom & Sandy Wilson
98. Ja mes D. Carreker
99. Russ Harrison & Natalie Shirley
100. Thomas Winton
101. Jack & Joyce Stuteville
102. Diane & Steve Tuttle
103. Terry & Martha Barker
104. St an & Shannon Clark
105. Anonymous #4
106. Em rick’s Van & Storage
107. Brent & Mary Jane Wooten
108. Bi ll & Claudean Harrison
109. Chandler USA, Inc.
110. Norman & Suzanne Myers
111. SS T Software
112. Ja mes H. Williams
113. Jay & Fayenelle Helm
114. Anonymous #14
115. Mi ke & Kristen Gundy
116. Z- Equipment, LLC
117. The Bank of America
118. Shaw’s Gulf
119. Mi ke & Judy Johnson
120. Bob & Tammie Tway
121. Bob & Mary Haiges
122. Dennis & Bonnie Smith
123. r andy & Pati Thurman 10,881
124. Chip & Cindy Beaver
125. Joh n & Patti Brett
126. Da rton & Jamie Zink
127. F & M Ba nk & Trust
128. Ji m Vallion
129. David & Marellie Littlefield
130. Greg & Kay Massey
131. Dr ummond Investments
132. Titleist & FootJoy Worldwide
133. Ra ndall & Carol White
134. Ch ris & Julie Bridges
135. Joh n & Sue Taylor
136. Ron Stewart
137. Jack Bowker Ford
138. Ed & K athy Raschen
139. Bi ll & Laurie Dobbs
140. Pi xley Lumber Co.
141. Br yan Close
142. Bi ll & Karen Anderson
143. Fred & Kellie Harlan
144. Ma rk & Susan Morrow
145. Connie & Stephen Tatum
146. OS U Center for Health Sciences
147. Robert & Sharon Keating
148. Southern Cross Alliance, LLC
149. The Siegenthaler Family
150. Henry Wells
Final Hurdle Cleared
After his competitive career, he continued to blaze a trail of excellence as he impacted the OSU family with his loyalty, strength and humor.
Bolding’s final race, this time against the life hurdle of cancer, was completed July 30, 2011. He ran this final race just as he did his others — with courage, focus, and endurance. He leaned in on the curves, took each hurdle in stride, and crossed the finish line surrounded by his loving family.
bOlding’s gRin, unfla PPable POsitive attitude and twinkling eyes weRe veRy familia R tO the Osu family. He was quite literally everywhere there was an Orange and Black competition or event. As owner of International Tours, he good naturedly loaded and unloaded countless buses, passed out ticket upon ticket and gave directions upon directions, always getting the OSU faithful to the stands or bleachers in plenty of time to enjoy the event and cheer on their Cowboys.
A very humble man, many OSU fans may be surprised to learn of all his athletic accomplishments. His office, which could have been decorated from wall to wall with plaques,
trophies and medals, was filled instead by his wa Rmt h and genuine enthusiasm f OR l ife and all things O su . A dedicated husband and father, Bolding’s family lore recounts the true story of his son, Taylor, being unaware of his dad’s athletic fame until he was in high school.
Bolding was simply not one to sing his own praises. He preferred to encourage others to their own spotlights, fulfilled and satisfied to watch an athlete he had coached achieve a goal or to watch a group enjoying a bus ride or a plane trip he had orchestrated. Also known to be frequently “out of the spotlight” while orchestrating a friendly practical joke, his phone impersonations inevitably resulted in many laughs that grew exponentially with each retelling of his prank.
As a record-setting Cowboy hurdler from 1969–1972, Bolding earned two All-American honors, multiple Big Eight accolades and was named the 1972 OSU Athlete of the year. Then, as the Cowboy Head Track and Field coach from 1985–1988, Bolding grew his orange roots deeply into the Oklahoma soil. He did not leave his
roots behind when he stepped into his business career in Stillwater. In fact, his OSU-grown Cowboy Character became the foundation of all he did.
Strong and gentle, carrying on steadfastly in the face of any obstacle, schedule change, health challenge or cancelled flight, he was always the “go-to guy.” Hundreds of people have a Bolding story to tell. Invariably it will include a travel conundrum of some sort — from lost luggage to emergency medical transportation to a seating change for a nervous first-time flyer — and a solution that was handled for them by a smiling Bolding who did so without missing a beat. He delighted in helping all people, but did have a special bond with his OSU folks.
bO lding was t Ruly a man f OR a ll seas O ns. Whatever the situation, whatever the need, he could always be counted on to assist in any way and to do so with ease, grace and friendship. Cut from the cloth of the Oklahoma plains, he was a man who was true to his word, whose handshake was firm and was more than a social courtesy, a man who was and will always be a true Cowboy forever.
sTorY BY Toni Martin
A
COnverSAtiOn with OSU’S dynAMiC dUO
bR a ndOn w eeden and Justin bl aCk mOn a Re tiRed Of talking. not that they don’t like it, but it’s more exhausting than they realized. even for elite athletes.
ever since oklahoma state’s most heralded quarterback/ wide receiver combo called a press conference in january to declare their intentions to return to campus for another go-round, the media spotlight has been pointed squarely in their direction.
the osu ambassadors have handled the attention with the poise expected of a 27-yearold former pro baseball player and the disciplined son of a military man.
weeden and blackmon have each given dozens of interviews and signed countless autographs for fans far and wide. the pair has graced the cover of regional and national magazines and websites, along with osu’s own media guide and reporters’ notebook. espn’s sport science broke-down Blackmon’s amazing athleticism in a los angeles sound studio. national broadcast crews have hovered around practices, chronicling the cowboys’ offseason. a social media campaign (@weeden2blackmon on twitter and facebook) was even launched to promote the pair for postseason honors, including the coveted heisman trophy. as cowboy football continues to rise on a national scale, this is the new normal. coming off a programbest 11-win season, expectations and excitement continue to build. POSSE Magazine caught up with the popular pair as they donned new nike uniforms for a poster photo shoot. here’s what they had to say …
story continues
phoTograph Y BY Phil Shockley
PoSSe: WhaT do you
ThiNk of all The hyPe leadiNG uP
To ThiS SeaSoN?
BW: “we had a great season last year but it’s a new year. i might sound cliché but i’m not a guy who gets overhyped and worries about what we did in the past. it’s a completely different year. realistically, we have a tougher schedule this year. it’s going to be tough. we’ve got to play some tough road games. i can understand why we’re getting the hype, because we won 11 games last year. we had a lot of success, scored a lot of points, did a lot of flashy things. but i’d rather be the underdog personally. i’d rather be the guy flying under the radar, but when you have the success we had, you just can’t do that.”
JB: “we’ve got a lot of talented players. i’d like to say we’re more experienced this year, and we’ve got a lot of young people who have come in, and they want to play. compared to last year, we’ve got just about everybody back on the of fensive side. the defense is stepping up, too. compared to last year, i’d say we should be better. we’re working to get better.”
PoSSe: do you eNjoy The aTTeNTioN from The media?
BW: “i have a blast with it i have a good time. i don’t want to sound cocky, but we’ve kind of earned it in a way, by the year that we had last year. not to say anything’s been given to us, but i guess when you’re a quarterback and a big-time wide receiver like justin is, that just kind of naturally falls into place. zac (robinson) was the same way. he was the spokesman. that’s just kind of how it works.”
JB: “i guess i really wasn’t prepared for what it would be like. it’s a little more than what i thought. it’s busy, but fun. it’s a good time, but at the same time you’ve still got to work hard and make sure that you stay focused for the upcoming season.”
PoSSe: are you burNT ouT oN iNTerVieWS?
BW: “if i get asked about my age one more time i’ll be honest, i’m just sick and tired of hearing that question.”
JB: “we’re just ready to get out there. we’re starting to focus on the season.
PoSSe: you boTh rePreSeNTed The Team aT biG 12 media day iN dallaS. hoW did ThaT Go?
JB: “it was a lot of talking. i never knew you could get tired – physically tired – from sitting and talking to people. it was just brutal. that one day was just loaded with media. we had to workout that morning, get on a plane, fly down there and start doing interviews. bam, bam, bam. no nap. go down. fly back. it was a really long business day. all work. no rest. it was a long day, but it was a lot of fun.”
BW: “we literally walked in, walked up the escalator and it started – seven straight hours of interviews. i’m not kidding. last year, media day was kind of low-key. i didn’t really do a whole lot. nobody knew who i was. this year, the minute we walked in the door, we were doing interviews and never stopped.”
PoSSe: WhaT’S iT like haViNG ThouSaNdS of adoriNG faNS?
BW: “we enjoy it we both like interacting with fans. for the most part we do a pretty decent job of tr ying to interact with everyone. when you play for a big time program, you’re a quarterback or a receiver, like i said, it’s just part of the drill. we accept that role. it’s part of being at a big-time program like oklahoma state.”
PoSSe: iT SeemS like Social media haS TakeN oN a life of iTS oWN laTely.
JB: “it’s fun. it’s different. you get to interact with people that you probably wouldn’t normally get to talk to, so it’s a lot of fun.”
PoSSe: haVe hiGh exPecTaTioNS added aNy exTra PreSSure oN ThiS SeaSoN?
JB: “no. i don’t feel any pressure. it’s not like we’re just going to go out and tr y and re-enact what we did last year. we’re just going to go out and execute and do what we can to put us in the best position to win the game. there’s no pressure.”
BW: “last year there were zero expectations, so if we just had a decent year, people were going to be excited. i don’t feel any added pressure, although the expectations are going to be higher. as a player, if you put more pressure and expectations on yourself, chances are you’re not going to have the kind of success you can have just naturally. playing this game is hard enough, when you tr y to put more pressure on yourself, it’s hard to function on saturdays. you’ve just got to go out and do what you’re coached to do and play well, and all those expectations kind of take care of themselves.”
PoSSe: hoW maNy
PhoTo ShooTS aNd iNTerVieWS haVe you doNe SiNce laST SPriNG?
BW: “a lot. i couldn’t even tell you. i don’t know. Quite a few.”
PoSSe: iS iT STraNGe To See yourSelf oN a maGaziNe coVer or WebSiTe?
JB: “i think it’s a little weird to look at myself, but it’s cool. i don’t pay much at tention to it, but my dad does. people are always telling him about it or sending something to him..”
PoSSe: hoW Will The offeNSe look uNder a NeW coordiNaTor?
BW: “i think the transition between coach monken and coach holgorsen will be pretty smooth. we’re going to keep everything pretty much the same. we kept the terminology the same, we just changed a couple route concepts. it’s smart because sometimes last year there would be a couple guys completely out of the read. there were some plays where blackmon was not even a read, and that really didn’t make a whole lot of sense. so we just tinkered with it and changed a couple routes where you get everybody involved.”
JB: “there haven’t been too many changes. it’s pretty much the same of fense. the only changes we made are to tr y and make it better, to improve of f what we did last year. we still have everything in the package from last year, all the same plays.
PoSSe: WhaT iS your ouTlook oN ThiS uPcomiNG SeaSoN?
BW: “i think all the pieces are there. obviously, returning all five guys up front helps. that’s huge. it helps me definitely sleep better at night. and my weapons outside in addition to blackmon there are guys like josh (cooper) and hubert (anyiam) and tracy (moore). we’ve got a bunch of guys who can make plays. i think with joseph (randle) and jeremy (smith) in the backfield, all the weapons are in place. we’ve just got to go out there and execute. i think if we have the mindset that everything’s been given to us because of the year we had last year, we’re going to be in for a rude awakening. but we’ve got all the pieces to the puzzle we’ve just got to go out and execute.”
JB: “i feel very confident. it’s going to be a good season for us.”
PoSSe: juSTiN, you haVeN’T Said aS much aS braNdoN.
JB: “weeden does most of the talking. that’s how it always is.”
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Whittemore
sTorY BY Clay Billman phoTo BY Gary Lawson
OPPORTuniT y KiCKs
in 2006, k risTa lopez ClOsed the dOOR On sOCCeR.
The prep standout from Carrollton, Texas, was willing to call it quits on a promising future.
As a forward on the elite D’Feeters ’90 club team, as well as the Region 3 Olympic Development Program (ODP) and Creekview High School, Lopez had been a rising star in the Lone Star State. But family and personal pressures pushed her away from the sport she loved.
Lopez lived with her mother, but maintained a close bond with her father despite the divorce. Like most devoted dads, her father paid particular attention to his daughter’s performance on the soccer field. However, the relationship ultimately became too focused on the sport.
“I would call my dad, and all he would talk about was soccer,” says Lopez. “He kept nagging me and telling me what I needed to improve on. I wasn’t able to handle that at times.”
Coupled with a feeling of being burned-out on soccer, the strained relationship led Lopez to a desperate and definitive course of action.
“We had a falling-out, basically. I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ I didn’t understand what his motive was. I was thinking maybe if I quit soccer maybe the relationship between my dad and me will be based on something other than soccer. So I quit.
“For the longest time, I didn’t talk to my dad, I didn’t talk to my club coach or anybody from my club team. It was actually a relief.”
Weeks went by. Months. Meanwhile, during her junior year of high school, a number of her former teammates were accepting college scholarship offers.
“My family isn’t financially well-off, so I basically wasn’t going to get an education if not for soccer,” she says. “My club coach, Hugh Bradford, and
club manager, Charlie Fuller, kept calling me and trying to get in touch. They would leave messages checking up on me. They said, ‘We still want you to get an education.’
“I thought about it for a long time. Finally, I called my coach and told him I’d like to come back. ‘I’ll apologize to the team for quitting. I’ll apologize to everybody that I have to, I just want to come back.’ I am so thankful they never gave up on me.”
Before her first practice back with the club, Lopez faced her D’Feeters ’90 teammates.
“They took me back with open arms. It was just like I had never left.”
Lopez says the break actually helped heal her relationship with her father.
“Our relationship did get better after that,” she says. “I think my dad learned that he should care more about things other than soccer. His heart was in the right place, though. h e knew soccer could Be m Y T icke T T o a college educaT ion.”
By that time, however, most Division I schools had already filled up on recruits.
“We watched her play growing up, through youth soccer, so we obviously knew who she was,” says Cowgirl head coach Colin Carmichael, “but she went off everybody’s radar for a while.
“Her club coach called us and asked if we had an opening because Krista Lopez is playing again — she had rededicated herself to soccer. One of our players had transferred, so we happened to have some scholarship money open up late. We thought, ‘Yeah, we’d love to have Krista.’
“We followed up with her club coach and asked, ‘Is this going to be a problem?’ She said, ‘No. Krista just had kind of a rough six months. She’s a good kid.’
“Because all the (interested) schools had given away their scholarships, the only schools with scholarships left were OSU, Villanova and Houston,” Lopez says. “I ended up visiting those three schools. I just loved it here. That’s how I ended up a Cowgirl.”
“She came up and visited with her dad, and we really liked her on her visit,” Carmichael says. “She didn’t strike me as having any sort of issues off the field or anything. We’re really glad that it worked out. s h e’s no T onlY a greaT plaY e r, Bu T a good kid.”
In her first two seasons in Stillwater, Lopez helped the Cowgirls claim two Big 12 trophies and a pair of NCAA Tournament bids. Few could predict, however, her breakout junior season in 2010.
The Cowgirls started 2010 with a road win over Oregon, but it was a costly victory. Midfielder Annika Niemeier, OSU’s leading goal scorer, had gone down with a season-ending knee injury. Privately, the coaches wondered if the team had enough offensive firepower to compete. After only a handful of games, a promising season was already in jeopardy. Lopez, who had only four career goals on her résumé, was challenged to step up her game.
“We actually called Krista out at halftime,” Carmichael says. “She was playing pretty well, but didn’t have any goals up to that point. I got on her a little bit. I said, ‘Look, you’re a forward. How are we going to win if you don’t score?’
“She actually came to me later and said, ‘I’m going to make a commitment to try and score more goals,’ and she took off.”
The next week, Lopez scored the game-winner, in a 2-1 win over No. 13 Memphis. Lopez would find the back of the net 14 more times in 2010, the second-highest single-season total in school history. Seven of those goals were game-winners.
“We really thought she had a chance to have a really good season,” Carmichael says. “But who knew she’d score 15 goals?”
The Cowgirls would go on to win 20 games, highlighted by the 2010 Big 12 Tournament title and a remarkable Elite Eight finish.
“Nobody questioned her ability,” Carmichael says. “In practice and some games, you looked at Krista play and thought, ‘Wow, this kid’s pretty special.’ The talent has always been there, but once she got the opportunity, I think her confidence grew and she started playing better and scoring. I don’t know if a light bulb went off or what, but you could tell there was improvement.”
“It has to do a lot with confidence,” Lopez says. “We had really good players my freshman and sophomore years in my position, and I would never get enough time on the field to really feel comfortable. If I messed up I thought, ‘Oh no, I’m going to get benched.’
Once I became a starter and was playing almost the whole game, I wasn’t afraid to mess up. I’m able to get over it and just keep playing.”
Pho
i ’m the player i a m because i w ork hard. i was never the person who had the perfect touch or was the star in high school. i always had to train. i just ran and ran and ran.
That’s why i ’m the player i a m.”
An a ll-Big 12 and a llcen T ra l r egion honoree, Lopez has become a go-to player on the squad, using her speed and determination to beat defenders to the corner. Her 35 shots on goal led the team, but she also added five assists.
“She’s a kid that gets us going offensively, no doubt,” Carmichael says. “When Krista is playing well, not only does it make her dangerous individually, but it opens up things for other people.”
“Whenever I get the ball, my first thought is to BeaT T he defender down T he line ,” Lopez says. “I’m going to run at them and use my footwork and speed to get by them.”
Carmichael says a key to her improvement has been to channel that aggressive energy.
“Early in her career, she would just want to go and attack the whole time. As a coach I think that’s great, but we were getting killed on the other end.
So we asked her to do some things defensively and tactically.”
“I’m the player I am because I work hard,” Lopez says. “I was never the person who had the perfect touch or was the star in high school. I always had to train. I just ran and ran and ran. That’s why I’m the player I am.”
“Krista is one of the hardest working kids on the team,” her coach confirms. “She plays pretty much 90 minutes every game, and there’s no letdown. It’s just constant energy the whole time. Her fitness level is off the charts.”
Going into the 2011 season, Carmichael expects Lopez to be even better, even if the statistics don’t show it.
“She’s not going to sit back and say, ‘I’m really good, I scored 15 goals.’
That’s not in that kid’s makeup at all,” he says. “Krista is going to try and get better. I’m not sure it has to be reflected in her goals, but certainly in her play and her intensity. If the goals fall for her, then great. If she doesn’t score and we kept winning, she wouldn’t care. She’ll be out there high-fiving the people who do score. That’s just how she is.”
With a healthy Niemeier back in the lineup, along with talented forwards Megan Marchesano and Kyndall Treadwell, the coach believes other teams will have a to pick their poison.
“We’ve got more firepower this year,” he says, “a lot of kids who can score goals. That’s invaluable, because Krista is going to have an offday or she’s going to be shut down by kids double-teaming her, but we have other people who can step up.”
“Colin said I need to be prepared for everybody’s best this season,” Lopez says. “Last year nobody knew about me so they didn’t double-mark me. Other teams are going to be more prepared for me and try to get more physical, so I’m just going to have to work even harder to make an impact.
story continues
Pho T o / P hi l S hockley
“It’s more like self-motivation, because I don’t want to be anything less than what I can be.”
Carmichael says her drive to be the best extends well beyond the pitch.
“She’s an ultra-competitive kid,” he says, “and her competitiveness shows in the classroom. The kid hasn’t made a B in her entire college career.”
“I hate getting B’s. It kills me,”
Lopez admits. “I’m really competitive, so I want to be a winner, and i have T o give m Y all in B a sicallY everY T h ing i do.
“She’s going to compete as hard as anybody,” Carmichael adds “But right afterward, she’ll be goofing with the girls. She’s just a good-natured, likeable kid. I know her teammates like her a lot.”
Whether it’s practice or a pick-up game, Lopez doesn’t like to lose.
“You can ask a lot of people on the team,” she says. “We’ll be playing sand volleyball, and I’ll be yelling and getting into it. People who don’t know me will be whispering to their teammates, ‘What’s wrong with her?’
“i ge T T h aT from m Y dad.”
COwGirlS nOw the teAM tO BeAt
the fall of 2010 was a dream season for ok lahoma s tate soccer. this year, the Cowgirls are wide awake.
no longer hoping to advance in the nCa a tournament, the current squad is confident in its abilities, expecting to win. the underdog has
become a favorite, and the goal is not to simply be invited to the dance, but to prove they belong.
l ast season, Cowgirl fC (football Club) compiled a sChOOl-ReCORd 20 wins and captured the 2010 big 12 tOuRnament title on the way to the nCa a elite eight. eventual national
Despite their differences in the past, Lopez says she appreciates her father’s motives.
“He’s always trying to get me to be the very best I can be,” she says. “He is the reason why I am the way I am today, because he has pushed me so far. If it wasn’t for him pushing me, I wouldn’t be who I am. I love my dad.
“It’s kind of bittersweet,” Lopez adds. “I know he did force me to quit, but I feel like everything ended up working out. It was just really hard for me at the time. I couldn’t handle the pressure then, but I’ve grown as a person.”
champ notre dame put an end to osu’s spectacular season (2-0), but the upstart Cowgirls had earned a no 5 national ranking in the final national soccer Coaches association poll.
“every year, when you have success, it raises the bar for your program,” says head coach Colin Carmichael. “ we’ve now become one of the elite teams that everybody wants to beat. if you beat us, your rpi goes up, and it helps you get into the nCa a tournament. the best programs texas a&m in our conference, north Carolina, notre dame, s tanford they deal with that every week. we’re k ind of climbing to that level, and we’ll definitely see it this year.”
w ith a veteran squad returning, Carmichael believes the Cowgirls have a chance to be even better.
“ we had a great season last year, and for us to have a better season, obviously, the next step would be to get to the final four and win a national championship. our at titude about it is ‘Why not?’
sTorY BY Clay Billman
Pho T o / P h il S h ockley
Lopez sometimes wonders how her life would be different had she given up soccer for good.
“w i T hou T soccer, i wouldn’ T Be here,” she says. “I wouldn’t be at any college. I think about that a lot. If I had quit, there would be no education. No Big 12 championships. No Elite Eight. No once-in-a-lifetime experiences …
“I met my best friend here. My roommates. The whole college experience. I became more social and learned how to meet new people, introduce myself and be more outgoing.”
Lopez is a nominee for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS award, recognizing excellence in character, community, competition and the classroom.
“I’m really happy for her,” Carmichael says. “She’s a kid who worked hard, bided her time, and now she’s getting all the rewards for it. Krista deserves it.”
We’ve now become one of the elite teams that everybody wants to beat.”
— coach colin carmichael
“having said that, we’re not naïve enough to think that we also couldn’t drop of f a little bit and lose some tight games or maybe have some injuries and things. we know that we have the potential to reach that level, but we also are grounded enough to know that we have to play well every week to have a chance to do that.”
t he 2011 seni OR C la ss is seven P laye R s st RO ng and the m O st d e CO R at ed bun C h t O m at R i C ul ate at Oklah O ma s tate. s a R ah bR O wn , e li zabeth d e lO zi e R , C O ll een dO ug he R ty, kR is ta lO P ez , m el inda “ m in nie” m e RC ad O, a nn ika n ie meie R a nd k yn dall tR ea dwell have all been
a Pa R t O f th R ee n C aa tO u R na ment
a PP ea R an C es , tw O b ig 12 tO u R nament C ha m P i O ns hi P s (2009, 2010) and a R eg ula R -s eas O n CO nf e R en C e ti tle (2008).
“it’s incredible,” says mercado. “ever since our freshman year we’ve been comparing ourselves to other teams. let’s get to where a&m is let’s tr y to beat them. now, being in that position where everyone looks at us like that, it’s incredible. now we have a big target on our back, and everyone will come out and tr y to beat us.”
the all-american defender says the attitude in the locker room is di fferent af ter last season.
“s tarting in the spring, we had a whole di fferent approach,” mercado says. “usually our spring is more laid back, but Colin really stressed to us that we can’t let down. you always have to play each game like it’s that championship game. we set the bar high, and we put ourselves up there with those top-ranked teams now.”
in five nCaa appearances prior to 20 10, osu had never advanced to the s weet s ix teen. in ’08 and ’09, the Cowgirls su ffered heartbreaking second-round exits from the 64-field tournament, falling in penalty kick shootouts both times. l ast year, the barrier was finally broken, if not shattered.
“af ter we got past the s weet s ix teen, it was kind of like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ ” mercado says. “it was always our goal, but when you get there it’s di fferent, because maybe you really didn’t expect it af ter we got past that point, we were all excited to be playing that game, but we really weren’t going into games thinking we have a right to be here.”
this yeaR is diffeRent.
“ we’re good enough to be here. let’s go play. i’m excited. i think our whole team is excited.”
Lopez will graduate in the spring with a double major in management and accounting. She is considering playing professional soccer overseas, but is leaning toward entering the business world. Doors are now waiting to be opened. story continues
“i think we went into the notre dame game hoping we could win the game. it was something we had dreamt about,” Carmichael says. “but notre dame came in believing they would win the game. i think that’s another step for this program. we believe we’Re gOing tO beat eveRy big 12 team that we Play. we probably believe we can win most of our nonconference games. now we have to believe that if we’re matched up with a stanford, a Carolina, notre dame, florida state … that we should go on the field thinking that we should win. that just comes with experience and being in those close games and winning them. i think if we’re fortunate enough to get into a situation like that again this year, that drawing on those experiences will make us better.”
“ we’ve been through a lot,” mercado adds. “ we’ve been through the highs and lows. i think we all have the right mindset, af ter last year, of just staying focused, keep competing and stay together as a team. i think now that we’ve made it that far and have more confidence in ourselves, this year we’ll be mentally stronger and push past that barrier and hopefully make it further than last year.”
despite the preseason praise and increased expectations, Carmichael says he isn’t changing how he and his staff approach the season.
“it’s exactly the same,” he says. “business as usual. we just keep reminding our team, ‘don’t forget why we’re here.’ nobody walked up and said, ‘okay, you’re an elite eight team.’ we worked very, very hard over the last five or six years as a staff and as players even players that graduated a few years ago. they put a lot into this building process. obviously we have talent, but we work very hard. and that’s what we keep selling to our kids. our approach is going to be just like it was last year. we’ll tr y to do the same things well and correct the mistakes we were making and go from there.”
in addition to senior leadership, the Cowgirls also return junior all-ameRiCan gOalkeePeR ad fR anCh, whO alOng with meRCadO, is On the heRmann tROPhy watCh list fOR the natiOn’s tOP COllegiate sOCCeR PlayeR. niemeier, who went down with a season-ending knee injury in osu’s second game last fall, was a hermann nominee a year ago.
“if annika’s 100 PeRCent, she’s an elite PlayeR,” Carmichael says. “so getting her back is better than any recruit you could bring in as a freshman. we’re thrilled for that. the kids who graduated were very good players, but certainly weren’t the leaders in any statistical categories. returning lOPez — OuR leading sCOReR with
15 gOals last yeaR along with ad, minnie and annika, those are some big-name kids. so we’ve got a lot of expectations on them.”
par t of the coach’s challenge will be to maintain the chemistry that was so evident in the 20 10 team.
“i think every coach talks about chemistry and how important it is, and it becomes a little cliché at times,” Carmichael says, “but this group genuinely enjoys what they do, they enjoy being around each other. i really think that’s been key to this whole group’s success. they work hard for each other. they’re very encouraging of each other.
“it’s difficult with college athletics,” he adds. “it changes every year. you lose a group and you bring new kids in but with our returning group of upperclassmen, you would think that it will be a similar situation to last year, chemistry-wise. every year other things happen, and you’re never quite sure what you’re going to get, but we think our kids will all be on the same page.”
Carmichael knows that expectations will be high for his program, which was R anked 7th natiOnally in the preseason and PiCked tO win the league in a poll of big 12 coaches. the pressure is on to repeat, if not surpass, the 20 10 campaign.
“people will say anything less than that is not a good season,” he says. “that’s not necessarily true. in the nCaa’s, you might be sent to minnesota to play in the snow … you don’t know what’s going to happen. we just tr y to keep our feet on the ground and not get too carried away.
“welcome to the big time. hopefully we get to stay here for a while.”
Pho T o / P hi l S hockley
september 2011
phoTograph Y BY Phil Shockley
september 2011
sTorY BY Clay Billman
phoTo BY Gary Lawson story continues
l ev Y a dcock is hard T o miss.
StAndinG 6-FOOt-6
And tippinG the SCAleS
ArOUnd 320 pOUndS, he
iS
literAlly A big
man on THE oklaHoma
STaTE
campuS.
And yet, with a superstar tandem like wide receiver Justin Blackmon and quarterback Brandon Weeden garnering the lion’s share of the headlines, one can see how an offensive lineman might be overshadowed.
Despite not being a household name (yet), No. 73 stood out among his peers last season, earning unanimous All-Big 12 honors. Heading into the 2011 campaign, the senior is being mentioned as an All-America candidate and potential early-round NFL draft pick. He has also been put on the watch lists for the prestigious Outland Trophy and Rotary Lombardi Award, presented annually to the NCAA’s best linemen.
The impressive list of accolades belies the fact that Adcock has only one full season of starts under his belt. His position coach thinks he is just beginning to realize his potential.
“He can get a whole lot better,” says Joe Wickline. “Nobody wants a guy who has topped-out. You want a guy with a big upside. Levy is continuing to grow and get better. He’s still learning.”
Recruited out of Northeastern Junior College in Miami, Okla., Adcock was an intriguing prospect.
He turned down scholarships offers from the likes of Alabama and Arkansas to play for the Pokes.
“Levy was a great addition to our program — a big, gifted guy who obviously has a lot of athletic skills. Coming from NEO, he had three years of eligibility and was someone we felt could help this football program at some point in time, whether immediately or not.”
After a season spent as a backup behind a veteran line, Adcock was in competition for a starting tackle spot in 2010. But few could predict the country boy from Claremore (Sequoyah High School) would emerge as one of the league’s best blockers so quickly.
“Levy came in at a time that we had some pretty decent players,” Wickline says. “He was behind a group of five guys who signed contracts: Brady Bond, Andrew Mitchell, Andrew Lewis, Noah Franklin and obviously Russell Okung. It was a little bit of a slow adjustment – it’s a different deal coming from a junior college – but he made the adjustment and got some playing time. He learned in that first year, and he got better.
“Then he saw his chance was T h ere and T ook advanTage of i T.”
Adcock says the turning point came in practice prior to last season.
“During two-a-days, it just clicked,” he says. “We were out there about the third or fourth practice, and I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to be moved ever again. I want to be on the starting
line.’ I had to work extra hard to get there, and then once I got my shot I had to try my hardest to keep it.”
“There was a confidence issue there,” adds Wickline. “When he first got here he was kind of waiting his turn and not understanding why, but he turned the corner. It was such a big adjustment, just learning a new offense and playing at a different speed, compared to teammates who’d been around it for five years at that point. But he saw his time was coming and accepted the challenge. He buckled down. He took the bit. He said, ‘It’s my time.’”
“All the hard work paid off finally,” Adcock says. “It was a long road, but it was a fun road.”
Football is definitely fun for Adcock, Wickline says.
“He’s kind of a throwback,” Wickline says. “Back in the day, when I played, football was really important to you at that age, and a lot of other stuff didn’t matter. It’s refreshing to see. Football is almost brand new to him again.”
“ i love football,” a d cock says. “ i t ’s life.”
“I’m not saying Levy’s a scholar, but he’s a sharp guy,” Wickline says. “He’s going to graduate. He’s got a good balance. School’s okay, but he wants to be a good player and have fun.”
“I’m serious on game day, but I try to have fun at practice,” Adcock admits. “Sometimes it gets a little bland.”
“He does like to have fun,” Wickline agrees, “but there are times when I’ll have to tell him I’m not interested in him having fun, you know what I mean? He can go to the apartment and have fun if he wants to. Levy likes to have fun, but he knows when to
shut it off. There’s not a bad bone in his body. He’s a big teddy bear.”
“Coach Wick isn’t too bad,” Adcock says of his coach. “Everything he says is for a purpose. He isn’t going to be saying something just to be saying it. But he yells a lot and takes off sprinting everywhere. It’s pretty funny.”
Wickline is an equal opportunity drill sergeant.
“I try my best to bark at all of them and get in everyone’s face,” Wickline says. “That’s my deal.”
As the Cowboys’ offensive line coach since 2005, Wickline has seen a number of talented tackles in orange. It’s difficult to compare Adcock to other players, he says.
“He’s a little bit different. Most of those other guys were here for all five years, I really got to see them through their fifth year and through their best year. I don’t really know that I can do that right now with Levy. That’s probably a comparison you want to do maybe in January once he finishes. When you’ve really only played one season, it’s just not enough of a portfolio to really build a career on.
“He has the talent and the size and love for the game to be one of the best to come through here, but it will depend on what kind of year he has. I’ll do the best I can to work with him in camp and throughout this season … I just hope it’s not me holding him back.”
According to his coach, Adcock possesses several key attributes that make for a top-flight offensive lineman.
“I think it’s a combination of three things,” Wickline says. “First, football is important to him. To me, that’s the biggest aspect. Does his passion level match the game? I think that’s critical for guys to really separate themselves. a lso, he’s aT h leT ic. The guy can throw a football a mile. Athletically, he can pick up a racquet or a golf club and be good at it. He played a lot of sports in high school. He can run and catch the football like a tight end, so he’s got natural athletic ability, and I think that makes him a better player. Finally, he’s a big kid. He’s got the basic measurables that me and you or my mom could figure out. He’s obviously a big guy who looks like a player.
Pho T o / P h il S h ockley
B.M.O.C.
“That’s the start of it. I don’t think he’s matured yet. I think he can get a lot stronger, a lot more powerful. I think he can do more things.”
“I’m wanting to work on everything,”
Adcock says. “I have a few strengths but many more weaknesses, so i J u sT wan T T o ge T as good as i possi BlY can T h rough T h is final season. I don’t know how good that is, but I don’t want to leave any doubt out there.”
Adcock anchored an offensive unit that was among the nation’s best in protecting the quarterback, giving up only 10 sacks on the year in 13 games.
“They kept me off my back,” Weeden says. “As a quarterback, that makes it a lot easier if you’re not worried about getting hit in the mouth every time you let it go. You can kind of sit in the pocket and deliver and make more accurate throws. Those guys up front, really and truly make
Wick’s Line
our entire offense go. It all starts with those guys.”
Individually, Adcock didn’t allow a single sack during the season. His performance graded out at 100 percent during OSU’s 33-16 victory over Texas in Austin.
“I’ve graded the same way since day one,” Wickline explains. “The bottom line is, did you get your job done on that snap? Did you get your guy blocked? Did he make the play? Did
c o wboy c o A c h d i scusses h i s p h ilosophies on the Guys u p Front
entering the 2011 football season, oklahoma state is ranked in the top ten. a major reason for the cowboys’ lofty status is a veteran offensive line returning from last year’s 11-2 squad. the always-quotable
Joe Wickline was asked about his squad recently, and his answers didn’t disappoint.
posse: a s a unit, what is your outlook on the upcoming season?
J w: “Our only charge is to be the best offensive line that Oklahoma State can be. That’s really our first line of business, to play to the best of our ability. Don’t do anything that will, either by penalties or pre-snap (mistakes) or missed assignments, downgrade what we could bring to the table. Obviously, the second thing is, we want to win the national championship. That’s our goal as a team. I see us taking one game at a time and saying, ‘Okay, who’s up next?’ Don’t look down the road, and don’t look back. Just take it one game at a time and win that game. Now LouisianaLafayette is really the only thing on our mind. Can we be a good enough line to help our football team beat Louisiana-Lafayette or not? That’s where we’re at.”
posse: you have an experienced group coming back. h ow do you feel about your starting lineup?
J w:“I think you have to feel better than you felt last year. Prior to last year we had a lot of question marks. I don’t think there’s any substitute for experience. I don’t think there’s any substitute for having been to the dance, for having been put in scenarios (down and distance, areas of the field, whether it be an overtime or a last kick or a 3rd-and-14 or a 4th-and1) over and over again. There’s just no substitute for that. That makes you feel a little better. Next year we’ll lose three good players. So we’ll have to replace them. What are we going to do? It’s a cycle. If you’re in it long enough, you bounce back and forth. I kind of like those years where everybody doubts you. What are you going to do now? You’re up a creek, you
know … but it’s a whole new year. We have a whole new challenge.”
posse: talk about the depth chart and how you’ll plug in your best guys up front. J w: “The bottom line, to me, is that every player on the offensive line should know what every other guy is doing. The only catch is, is it right or left? That’s more of a factor than guard and tackle to me. Right and left can be a little bit weird. Switching between guard and tackle, we do it all the time. In the meeting rooms, they hear it over and over again. It helps you when you have one concept: get your best five on the field. When you have the luxury, which is very rare, to have everything about evened out, and guys can stay put, you would like to do that. Because the chemistry and continuity and all the stuff I might say wasn’t important (when we don’t
Pho T o / Ga ry laW S oN
B.M.O.C.
you get it done or not? That’s really all that matters. For a guy who was a first-year starter in the Big 12, there weren’t a lot of guys that came free from his side.
“In this offense, 80 percent is a winning grade. Ninety percent to me is an extra effort. It’s a great game. One hundred percent is outstanding. It means everything just fell together. Either he got it done every time or had enough bonus points by knocking a
guy down or doing something downfield that put him in the plus bracket.” Adcock was a fixture at right tackle for most of the 2010 season, until an injury to teammate Nick Martinez necessitated a move to the left side, where he was equally effective. Entering the 2011 season, Adcock is back on the right side and Wickline is expecting him to pick up where he left off. Expectations will be high for the second-year starter.
“now l ev Y’s go T a no T he r Big challenge,” his coach saY s. “h e had a good Y ea r, Bu T e verYBodY’s saY ing, ‘w haT’s nex T ?’”
have it) actually is important. But they still have to know what each person is doing, and I still move them around just for that reason.
This group I’m working with now, they’ve probably held more snaps at their position than any group since I’ve been here. I really have six starters. I have the five from last year (tackles Levy Adcock and Nick Martinez, guards Jonathan Rush and Lane Taylor and center Grant Garner). Those are obviously proven players, they’re warriors, they’re good guys, and they’ll come in to camp in great shape. They’re proven winners, so we can win with them. I also have Michael Bowie, a talented left tackle who’s come in from junior college. He’s got an upside and can do some things. So within the scheme of things, we really have six starters, in that Nick can play either tackle or either guard at any given second.”
posse: w hat’s the key to having success on the offensive line?
J w: “ I think you get as many talented guys in the skill positions as
possible and use as whatever smoke and mirrors you can to try and mask the lack of coaching you have inside. There is no question that is the philosophy I’ve always lived by. It’s why I recruited Dantrell Savage. It’s why I recruited Kendall Hunter. And that’s why I’m looking for more of those guys, because it takes the pressure off of me.
But seriously, there’s no question that a good sound scheme (no matter what it is) that can get the ball into those playmakers’ hands where it’s tough to tackle those guys in space, and a quality quarterback who can make the right decisions and not turn the ball over or have lost yardage plays … that’s probably the best thing to do. That’s what we try to do, and we’re pretty good at it.”
posse: w ith all the talk about O su’s n ew offensive coordinator, todd m onken, replacing dana h olgorsen (now the head coach at wes t v ir ginia), how will things change up offensively for your group?
J w: “ When that issue came up with Larry Fedora and Mike Gundy, even
going back to Les Miles, I’ve always said this … Mike is Mike. Larry is Larry. Dana is Dana. And Todd is Todd, as silly as it sounds. He’s going to coach his personality. Now within that, he’s going to take the playmakers at hand, the personnel we have, the concepts and the things we’ve done that have allowed us to be successful as a team, and continue to use those. We’ve all talked about this as a staff. If there’s something we’re trying to get done and we can do something better, then it will change. There will be some things that alter, like it or not. It changed from Houston to Stillwater. It will change from Stillwater to Morgantown. It changed from Stillwater to Hattiesburg. It’s just the way it is. Offenses are moving all the time. I would say, foundationally, just from an offensive line standpoint, Coach Monken has done a great job with it and he’s kept the same concepts in place. There will be tweaking and some alterations, and there may be some big things.”
OKLAHOMATE
EvERyOnE Has E xPECTaTiOns.
sTorY BY MATT ELLIOTT
my expectations are to get up each day, drink coffee, eat breakfast, read the Wall Street Journal, feed the dogs, get to work by 8 a.m., do my job and hit the gym.
If I accomplish those things, my expectations are met. I place higher expectations upon my entertainment.
Such as football. I was hired at OSU in 2007 after six years as a newspaper reporter. Not once since then has OSU looked as good on the gridiron as they do in 2011 — although 2009 and 2010 looked pretty good. Others who’ve been OSU fans far longer than I agree. No T o N ce , N o T e V er , ha V e ex P ec TaT io NS b ee N T hi S h i G h, although at times OSU has had preseason rankings and other early accolades, especially since 2009.
Every game in 2011 looks winnable. That’s something OSU fans are not used to seeing, despite the school’s back-to-back 9-win seasons under
head coach Mike Gundy and 2010’s record-breaking 11–2 finish, threeway split of the conference title and Alamo Bowl victory.
If you believed the national media last year, Satan donned an overcoat in 2010. OSU, predicted to be a Big 12 bottom-feeder, set single-season records for points, total offense, pass attempts, touchdown passes, passing yards and completions. On defense, OSU was ranked fifth-nationally in takeaways and kept opponents from scoring on their opening drive 11 ti mes.
Quarterback Brandon Weeden was a total unknown before 2010. But he blasted school records in his first year as a starter. He threw for school records of 34 touchdowns, 4,277 yards and produced 4,209 total yards of offense during some of the best individual performances ever for an OSU quarterback.
Weeden’s jaw-dropping 154.10 pass efficiency rating was tops in the Big 12. No small part of his success was due to a stout offensive line that allowed less than one sack per game, and former offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen’s air-raid offense.
Wide receiver Justin Blackmon was unstoppable in 2010. The Biletnikoff Award-winner shattered records like the ankles of hapless cornerbacks. His 1,782 receiving yards broke the national record for a sophomore and was the NCAA’s sixth-best singleseason total ever. He caught 20 touchdowns and set a national record of 12-straight 100-yard games with one touchdown.
Both are back for 2011, foregoing NFL careers for college-hero status. OSU returns its offensive line from
“aT sOME POin T in TiME , iT ’s GOinG TO HaPPEn. WE WiLL Win aLL Of OuR GaMEs. WHy nOT THis yE aR?”
Mike Holder
last year, behind which the team averaged more than 174 rushing yards per game. Two-time All-American and Doak Walker Award finalist Kendall Hunter is gone, but two talented backs, Joseph Randle and Jeremy Smith, will get more carries.
The defense didn’t match the offense’s lofty statistics. But it was still good enough to win 11 games.
Defensive tackles Shane Jarka and Chris Donaldson are gone, along with defensive end Ugo Chinasa and linebacker Justin Gent. The secondary remains strong, despite the loss of All-Big 12 cornerback Andrew McGee, who is being replaced by Justin Gilbert.
In short, questions remain. But questions abounded in 2010. And the Cowboys blew the doors off much of the Big 12.
i ca N ’ T W ai T T o S ee W haT h a PP e NS .
Neither can OSU’s athletic director, Mike Holder. No one has expectations higher than the man himself. But Holder might have different expectations from those of a casual fan.
“The most important thing — and I guess you could qualify that as saying it’s an expectation, or a given, a tenant, a principle, a guiding principle … whatever you want to call it — would be three things. We W a NT T o G ra duaT e our P la yer S .
We W a NT T o P la y by T he r ule S . aN d W e W a NT T o be G oo d SP or TS . And while doing those three things, we would like to win, showing you can do it the right way and win at the highest level.”
Of course. Do fans feel the same way? No, says poor attendance in the 1960s, 70s, parts of the 80s and 90s.
“The only other time we had a co-championship in the conference was the tri-championship in 1976, and we had a lot of good players in the 1980s,” Holder says. “But the landscape of college football has changed a lot since then. There’s a lot more media exposure. There’s a lot more interest from fans across the United St ates.”
Holder believes fans are concerned with what happens on the field. They saw Boone Pickens pouring $165 million over OSU athletics in 2005. They see a shiny new stadium. They W a NT r e S ul TS .
Gundy was hired as head coach in 2004, and after starting 4–7 in 2005, his Cowboys went 7–6 two straight seasons. Then, in 2008 came the first of consecutive nine-win seasons (as well as appearances in the Independence, Insight, Holiday and Cotton bowls) before 2010’s record year.
OSU still hasn’t won more than 50 percent of its games all-time, Holder notes. But he says the stars have finally aligned.
“There’ S N o rea S o N W e ca N ’ T W i N a ll our G am e S T hi S y ear,” h ol der S ay S . “I don’t think there’s a game on our schedule we’re not capable of winning. We couldn’t have said that five years ago. We’ve come a long way. At some point in time, it’s going to happen. We will win all of our games. Why not this year? I’d like for it to all come down for all the marbles on December 3rd when we play OU in Bedlam.”
Holder expects OSU to set season ticket and attendance records in 2011. [editor’s note: the season ticket record was broken aug ust 29] The decades are gone of Lewis Field being attended only by a smattering of Cowboy fans every Saturday.
Cowboy Envy
tH e 2011 p re se A so n wAtc H l is ts
M A xw ell Aw A rd (College Player of the Year)
Justin Blackmon Br andon Weeden
wA lter cA M p p l A ye r of t H e y e A r Aw A rd (Nation’s Most Outstanding Player)
Justin Blackmon Br andon Weeden
Biletnikoff Aw A rd (Nation’s Most Outstanding Receiver)
Justin Blackmon Jo sh Cooper
dA vey o ’B rien Aw A rd (Nation’s Most Outstanding Quarterback)
Brandon Weeden
r i M ington Aw A rd (Nation’s Best Center)
Grant Garner
rA y g uy Aw A rd (Nation’s Top Punter)
Quinn Sharp
o utl A nd t ro p H y (Nation’s Most Outstanding Interior Lineman)
Levy Adcock La ne Taylor
Bronko nA gu rski t ro p H y (Nation’s Most Outstanding Defensive Player)
Markelle Martin
Ji M tH or pe Aw A rd (Nation’s Most Outstanding Defensive Back)
Markelle Martin
r ot A ry l o MB A rd i Aw A rd (Nation’s Most Outstanding OL/DL/LB)
Levy Adcock Shaun Lewis
pA ul Hornung Aw A rd (Nation’s Most Versatile Player)
Joseph Randle
p rese A so n Big 12 o ff ensive p l A ye r of t H e y e A r
Justin Blackmon
p rese A so n All-Big 12 f ir st t e AM
Levy Adcock Ju stin Blackmon
Markelle Martin Qu inn Sharp
“I’m like every other fan. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen. I keep thinking maybe this is the year, the one we’ve all been waiting for for decades.”
What about the coach?
His expectations are simple. Gundy, as he has often said, expects his team to put itself in position to win each game every week. There are all kinds of things that go into that.
Going to class. Staying out of trouble. Playing well on the field. Even then, sometimes doing that isn’t enough to win.
“There’s a lot of talk about Blackmon and Weeden. And Markelle Martin. And Johnny Thomas. There’s just a lot of talk. And none of that is relevant to the game. The first team we play could care less about that. The team’s focus and its preparation is more important to me than anything.”
In 2010, Gundy built the team’s confidence because the outside world’s expectations were low. This year, his concern is high expectations could make the team overconfident.
So Gundy reminds players they’re only as good as their next game. During media appearances, he talks about things the team needs to work on, such as a defense that needs to grow up fast, as he said during Big 12 Media days in July. But he’s quick to note the program’s goal is to win a conference and national championship.
2011 kicks off with potential trap games.
Louisiana-Lafayette, the season’s first game, has a new head coach in Mark Hudspeth and an unknown style of play. Arizona, the second september 2011
game, will want to avenge its 36–10 loss to OSU in the Alamo Bowl.
The Golden Hurricane, OSU’s third and final nonconference foe, won 10 games last year. That team also finished 2010 at No. 24 in the season’s final Associated Press poll. Then comes a tough road game and conference kickoff against Texas A&M Sept. 24.
“If you’re not ready to play, you can get beat at any given time in any given week, and that’s the truth,” Gundy says. “That’s the way it is. You see it happen all the time.”
Like others, Gundy can’t remember a time when expectations of OSU have been this high, not even in 2009, when OSU football had its only two Sports Illustrated covers ever. In 1988, Gundy says his team was as good as any other team, and only about 32,000 fans attended games featuring the best college football player ever, Barry Sanders.
Thi S year, Gu N d y
fa N S ex
S o me W i ll be di S a P P o i N T e d if T h e T e am fall S S h or T. He says he’ll remain focused on getting the team better each year. Setbacks will be inevitable.
His idea of a disappointing season is probably different from fans’ ideas. A disappointment to him is not having a chance to win on Saturday, or his players not doing what they need to do to win.
“If there’s people out there who love Oklahoma State, and who are disappointed if we lose two or three games, then we’ve gotten this place into a pretty good situation. We’ve come a long way.”
Gundy won’t put any numbers to his expectations, nor should he be expected to do so. He never loses sight of the fact that he’s coaching kids. They’re not professionals. If his team is playing poorly, sometimes all a coach can do is hope the opposing team is playing worse. He cites the Cowboys’ unfortunate Cotton Bowl loss in 2010 as an example.
“We played terrible in the Cotton Bowl. Zac Robinson was injured. Guys would catch a ball, then we’d fumble it, or we’d drop it. We had the bad call where Zac was throwing the ball away and it was intercepted, and the officials didn’t call offsides on the play when a guy was this far (gesturing with his arms) offsides. Things didn’t go our direction. Both teams played terrible (hits his desk), okay? Ole Miss didn’t do anything. We just played a little worse than they did. Everybody was upset and justifiably so. The team is not going to play well every game. They’re kids. You just hope you maintain and keep going.”
The Oklahoman sports columnist Berry Tramel also can’t remember a time when expectations for OSU have been this high. Flooding local talk radio and Internet chat rooms, Cowboy faithful are saying this is it. This is finally their year, the one where they might win it all.
Are they delirious from the summer heat, Mr. Tramel?
“If OSU goes 10–3 in 2011, fans will be disappointed,” Tramel says.
“Heck, I’ll be disappointed if they go 10–3. I will. Just because this is a chance to win a bunch of games. You’ve got to seize the opportunity. High expectations are not a bad thing. I don’t blame anybody for
“TheTeamisnoTgoingToplaywelleverygame.They’re kids. you jusT hope you mainTain and keep going.” Mike Gundy )
getting fired up and saying, ‘hey, let’s win them all.’ Because never before in history has OSU had the allconference quarterback returning for another season. Never. Never before have they had the Biletnikoff winner coming back. i f i W ere a N o S u f a N , i ’d be di S a PP oi NT ed if T he y did N ’ T W i N T he b i G 12.”
Until now, the pinnacle of Cowboy football was in the 1980s, when Pat Jones’ teams had two 10–2 seasons with Gundy and Sanders leading the way. Expectations were certainly high then, Tramel says.
“In twenty-five years, college football has just really zoomed up,” Tramel says. “There’s not a pecking order anymore. And today people aren’t willing to wait. Pat Jones went to the Gator Bowl in ’84. People thought that was great. The next year, they weren’t like ‘Orange Bowl or bust.’”
But Jones didn’t have returning players like Blackmon, who was the Big 12’s Preseason Offensive Player of the Year for 2011. In 2011, both Weeden and Blackmon were in the running for Walter Camp Player of the Year Award leading up to the preseason. Safety Markelle Martin was on the watch list for the Bronko Nagurski and Jim Thorpe awards. The USA Today poll has OSU ranked No. 8 and the Associated Press has OSU ranked No. 9.
“Today people want stuff, and they want it now,” Tramel says. “When somebody goes 11–2 and ties for the Big 12 South title, finishing just a whisker away from a BCS, then it’s just natural today for fans to say, ‘It’s time to step up even more.’”
story continues
OSU’s two losses in 2010 came against Nebraska and OU. The Nebraska contest was the defense’s worst performance all season, Tramel says. It made Taylor Martinez look like the second coming of Bart Starr. Martinez became the first player in Husker history to pass for more than 300 yards and run for more than 100 in a game. OSU lost 51–41.
The OU game, well, you know how that went. Both teams hung on for a wild shootout that came to a jawdropping end when OU scored twice in the game’s closing minutes thanks to good play calling by the Sooners and a blown coverage by the Cowboys. OSU scored 41 points in that game, too, but OU had 47.
An Associated Press headline the next day read “No. 14 OU upsets No. 10 OSU.” How many times have modern fans seen “upset” appear in a Bedlam story headline that wasn’t about OSU beating the Sooners?
Tramel picked OSU to win that one. In fact, he says until OSU wins a big Bedlam game, he’ll stop picking the team, — even if it’s favored in the spread.
Ouch, Berry.
“OSU lost two games last year, and they scored forty-one points in both games. The last two times OU has come to Stillwater, OSU has scored forty-one points. They’ve got to fix that. If you score forty-one points, it’s got to be enough to win.”
Defense is also how you go undefeated, Tramel says. Doing so is another matter entirely.
Boise State last year couldn’t go undefeated last year, he notes. That is “tough duty.”
“Bill Young (OSU’s defensive coordinator) is a phenomenal coach. But
his guys played just so-so against OU. They got three interceptions, which was big – that’s not to be discounted. But they played awful against Nebraska. We saw the rest of the year Martinez isn’t that special of a quarterback.”
Tramel expects OSU to finish at either 9–3, 10–2 or 11–1 in the regular season. That’s because this year’s road opponents include Missouri and Texas A&M.
“That would not be a big deal if you lost two or three of those. You could have a very good team and lose three games. You could lose at A&M. You could lose at Missouri. You could lose to OU and still have an excellent football team.”
What else does Tramel expect?
He says the loose Gundy fans saw last year will probably still be on the sidelines in 2011. He says since the coach gave up calling plays, he has seemed less pressured. Tramel has covered Gundy since he was a high school quarterback at Midwest City in 1985. Tramel also expects new offensive coordinator Todd Monken to fit in well and have great success leading the offense
What about the man in the huddle?
Weeden says his expectations are the same as they are any year. No matter what the fans say.
“ i T h i N k e V e rybody ex P e c T S u S T o T o P ele V e N W i N S T h i S year,” Weede N S a y S . “That’s just part of having a good fan base that understands football.”
Regardless, Weeden expects everyone, including himself, to leave it all on the field just like last year.
“I’m going to approach it the same way,” Weeden says. “I’m going to play hard each week. I’m not going to put any more pressure on myself than what’s already there from my coaches. I’m not going to think, ‘I need to throw for more yards and more touchdowns than I did last year.’ That’s just crazy.”
Weeden doesn’t expect to sneak up on anyone this year. Winning 11 games in the Big 12 makes noise. But he is stoked. Partly because he was extremely impressed with his offensive line during the summer. He has never seen the team as deep as it is this year.
Although losing Hunter was huge, he expects speedsters Randle and Smith to more than compensate for his loss. He calls them “overly c apable.”
What about after this year? Weeden says he expects to try to play football as long as he can. A 2012 NFL career depends on what happens in 2011.
“It’s hard to prepare for the future. My wife and I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen. We’re just flying by the seat of our pants.”
So, what about those fans?
Some aren’t as hell bent on beating the 11-wins record as one might think.
Take Tim Nokes as an example. The Oklahoma City-area doctor was an OU fan as a kid until his dad, also a doctor, took a medical position at OSU and helped out with sports medicine in OSU athletics.
That was in the doldrums of 1994. Tim spent time around players in the training room and other parts of the campus. Nokes befriended some of the players, guys such as Marc Spatz, whom he still knows today. That same year he saw the team beat OU 12–0.
“At a young age, the whole thing made me question why we root for people,” Nokes says.
Back then, Lewis Field looked like a huge, rusted-out high school stadium, he says. It was so rusty it made him nervous to sit in the stands.
There wasn’t much going on inside the stadium, either. OSU was in the midst of a drought that stretched from 1989’s 4–7 season under Pat Jones to Bob Simmons’ last year, 2000, when OSU went 3–8.
So it’s easy for him to appreciate just how good things are now.
“When I first started rooting for them, we were bad. We had one good year with Bob Simmons,” Nokes says. “Then came Les Miles, and things got a lot better but we still needed consistency. But then Coach Gundy took the reins, and I thought, finally we’d gotten someone who was not going to leave. I think that was one of the important things he said at his press conference — that he had no intention of leaving. After all the uncertainty with coaching changes, it’s really encouraging to see how the team is playing now.”
Nokes knew last year was going to be special when he saw the Cowboys beat Texas Tech 34–17. OSU outgunned Tech on offense and contained them on defense, outgaining them 581 yards to 401 in total offense. Blackmon exploded for 207 yards receiving. Kendall Hunter ran for 134 yards and his backup Joseph Randle peeled off 95. Both ran for a touchdown each.
“I watched us take the field, with everyone saying we never win in Lubbock, we’re terrible in Lubbock, and we dominated them,” he says. “I was like, ‘this is not the same OSU you’ve been watching for several ye ars.”
OSU also showed it could win without Blackmon, who missed the team’s road victory over Kansas State. Nokes remembers thinking, “These guys are growing up, systems are working, we’re figuring things out and we’re winning.”
The year’s tough losses didn’t faze hi m.
The OU game came down to a couple of plays. But Nebraska was a tough lesson for the team. Afterward, he had decided he wasn’t going to let a bad game ruin one season for him.
“yOuCOuLDLOsEaTa&M.yOuCOuLDLOsEaTMissOuRi.yOu
This year, the only way he could see being disappointed is if the team didn’t reach its goals. He doesn’t care so much about numbers. But he’d love to go undefeated just like any fan.
He’d also love for a win in Bedlam. But he doesn’t see it as the season’s defining moment. Some fans might dismiss a season based on whether or not OSU beats the Sooners. OSU’s critics in the media might see it the same way.
“I think that’s just a remarkably pessimistic view of life,” Nokes says. “‘Yeah, I’ve never accomplished this one thing, so I guess all my other accomplishments are meaningless.’
The W ho le S ea S o N i S N o T W ra PP ed u P i N o N e G am e.”
If OSU wants to take the next step, it eventually has to find a way to all its games on the schedule, he believes. He hopes he’s traveling to a BCS game in Ja nuary.
He expects Randle and Smith to blaze opposing defenses.
On defense, it remains to be seen what emerges. Regardless, OSU is on the verge of a historic football season.
fan
CAN BE PURCHASED AT any OSU NIKE RETAILER
sTorY
“ hen i look aT running B acks, i ask ‘whaT ’s his zero T o s ix T Y,’” s i ngle T on saY s. “how fas T can he go lef T T o righ T ? k e ndall’s fee T, his acceleraT ion and his change of direc T ion were all ver Y good. h e’d make a cu T and ou T of his cu T he’s B ack T o full speed ver Y quicklY.”
BY MATT ELLIOTT
A low center of gravity to survive hits. A small but wide, solid frame. The ability to run with power and strength.
Hunter had it all, Singleton says.
“He made guys look bad,” Singleton says. “You’d see him on the goal line running a guy over or knocking him into the end zone. A guy that’s capable of that, who also has great feet, really good speed and toughness is awesome and fun to watch.”
What do you do when a player like that leaves?
Please. This is Tailback U. And the Cowboys have two very talented running backs in the backfield for 2011, Joseph Randle and Jeremy S mith.
“It’s hard to replace somebody like Kendall,” Randle says. “But Jeremy is a hard worker. We compete against each other to make sure we’re always working hard.”
Randle, at 6-feet 1-inch and 191 pounds, is a race-to-the-edge runner with the athleticism to play wide receiver. Smith is just as fast but shorter, heavier and stronger with the power to run inside. Combined they ran for 714 yards and nine touchdowns in 2010. Randle added 427 yards receiving.
One day OSU running backs coach Jemal Singleton was going through game film after his hiring at OSU, checking out the talent he’d be working with in Stillwater.
“I saw that No. 24 was a pretty dang good player,” says Singleton, an Air Force alumnus who replaced Robert Gillespie after the Alamo Bowl victory over Arizona. “Kendall Hunter did a lot of great things. Part of me hoped he had more eligibility left.”
A two-time All-American, Hunter was drafted in the fourth round by the San Francisco 49ers last April and graduated in May. It’s hard to think of OSU’s resurgence without him.
Nicknamed “Spud” for his characteristic loquaciousness, Hunter turned in big game after big game for the Cowboys but his efforts didn’t always show up in the stat books. He blocked well. He caught passes out of the backfield and acted as a decoy. He was also a finalist in 2010 for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS award for players who lead in the classroom, on the field and in the community.
Although fleet-footed, agile and strong, Hunter was not a highly touted high school recruit out of Tyler, Texas. Coaches initially intended to redshirt him as a freshman in 2007. But his work ethic couldn’t keep him off the field.
He left OSU its fourth-leading rusher, with 4,181 yards, 37 touchdowns and a bruising 5.9-yard average per run, despite missing most of the 2009 season due to an ankle injury. He averaged more than 130 yards per game in 2008 and 2010. He ranks third all-time at OSU in 100 and 200-yard rushing games. His swan song was 1,548 yards and 16 touchdowns his senior year.
story continues
With OSU’s entire starting offensive line from 2010 returning, the two have a chance to gore the Big 12. But that didn’t come overnight.
The sophomores have had a heckuva time with strength and conditioning coach Rob Glass. Randle jokes by the time the season starts they’ll be scoring touchdowns with defensive tackles on their backs.
Glass knows how to motivate him. Randle says Glass is always telling him there are no skinny running backs in the NFL.
“I never thought I’d be repping 455 pounds on the back squat,” Randle says. “I realized last year I needed to have very strong legs to break those little arm tackles.”
By the way, Smith says, he’s up to 500. Nothing like a little friendly competition. It’s kind of a cliché, but working hard in the weight room adds to success on the field. It gives players confidence on the field when they’re facing off against guys who look bigger than human beings should.
“Coach Glass, he’ll put that in you. He’s always saying things like, ‘man, you ought to be eatin’ nails,” Randle says. “I feel like I can go up against anybody on the field. Whether it’s a D-lineman or a safety.”
Smith has been working on his catching ability. Running backs tend to have stiff hands, so players that can catch are threats out of the backfield. They force the defense to be less aggressive on passing downs.
“You’ve just got to relax,” Smith says. “Me and Randle, we do this thing every day. After every practice. We do the one-hand drill. We throw it to each other. You’ve just got to catch it with one hand. We do a lot of catching with tennis balls. That helps you see the ball better.”
Smith has also been working on his footwork and exploding out of his cuts to make defenders miss.
“You try to take them one way and you go back the other,” Smith says. “If we’re both going straight, I’m going to probably take him right and then he’s going to lean his body right, and then I’ve got to go back left. I’ve got to put my foot in the ground as fast as I can and get up field.”
Smith says he tries to hit defenders who come up to pop him. He has learned if he runs to meet them and throws his body into them, then he’s more likely to break the tackle and get up field.
To improve his game, Randle watches clips of NFL greats on YouTube. Walter Payton. Barry Sanders. Eric Dickerson. Bo Jackson. LaDainian Tomlinson. Adrian Peterson. Randle has watched them all, dissected their moves, and tried to put his own stamp on them.
“LT has a great stiff arm. He’s also got great I-don’t-want-to-touch-you type moves. Adrian Peterson, he’s just like crazy with his stuff. Barry Sanders always had the moves where he
i f a guy has a tendency to duck out of bounds when he’s about to get hit … that’s not how we play here.”
doesn’t want to touch you. Peterson, he’s going to smash you if you get in his way. He might juke you if he doesn’t feel like touching you. Reggie Bush is kind of like Barry Sanders. I watch him a lot, too. Most of these
guys I’m talking about are about six feet tall and 200 pounds like me.”
They’ve also been working on recognizing defensive cues they can use to adjust their runs — their presnap reads. Singleton has helped them pick up on those visual cues.
Singleton’s main focus has been ball security. OSU fumbled the ball 19 times last year. He has some “training aids” for drills that have been the source of much laughter around the program.
“I’ve got a big PVC pipe with a boxing glove strapped to the end. I basically punch the guys with that stick and try to knock the ball out.”
He also has a simple way to explain how to hold the ball so defenders can’t pop it out. He calls it “high and tight, nose to the sky.” He tells players to hold the ball close up to their chest at a 45-degree angle, where the nose of the ball is up toward the sky.
Some guys teach the “10 pressure points” method, he says. He prefers to
keep it simple. If he can see the ball as the player is running away from him, he knows the player isn’t holding it correctly. He also uses a heavy football filled with water on one side that requires players to use more muscle when they carry it. That makes them hold on tighter.
Oh, yeah. One more thing.
There’s no running out of bounds to avoid hits. We don’t do that at OSU, Singleton says. He works his players through a sideline explosion drill to coach toughness and get his players to deliver their own blows.
“What you see on film is either coached or tolerated. My coaching philosophy is if a guy is doing something, it’s not just his fault. It’s my fault. If a guy has a tendency to duck out of bounds when he’s about to get hit, I’m going to reinforce that that’s not how we play here.”
Ideally, Singleton says he’d like to have four running backs taking snaps during the season. That keeps everyone fresh as the season wears on.
But he likes what he sees in the two guys who will take over for No. 24. POSSE
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Together at last
t his yea R is the 36th anniveRs a Ry O f e s kimO J O e’s.
i t als O ma R k s the fiRs t time e s kimO J O e , bu ffy and Pist O l Pete have a P P e a R ed O n the same t-shiR t.
Say what? They haven’t? Eskimo Joe’s and OSU go together like OSU wrestling and national championships, like root beer and ice cream, like Orange and Power. You’d be hard pressed to find an OSU alumnus who doesn’t have a Joe’s memory. Joe and Pete together? Seems like a no-brainer.
“We’ve been skating around it for a long time,” says Stan Clark, founder and CEO of Eskimo Joe’s. “We’ve been doing things in celebration of OSU’s success for years, but never with the official indicia of the university. Never with OSU. Never with the words ‘State,’ or ‘Cowboys.’ We couldn’t use those words before, but now we can.
“It’s very exciting.”
For Clark, being able to co-brand his life’s work with one of his other passions — OSU — is what he calls an affirmation of his whole career.
“Everything I’ve ever done …. The whole reason we located here was our proximity to Oklahoma State. The whole reason I came to Stillwater in the first place was to go to Oklahoma State. So when OSU calls and says, ‘Hey, how would you like to officially co-brand with us?’ That was powerful. It was meaningful and very moving. It was the ultimate affirmation of everything we’ve worked toward and tried to become.”
Clark’s affection for the university and his hometown of 40 years is as evident as the smile on his face and that of his restaurant’s mascot. Clark is entrenched on the POSSE 150 list, and has not expanded Eskimo Joe’s
into a true franchise. If you want a Joe’s burger, you have to come to Stillwater.
It’s that way for a reason.
“One O f the P Rima Ry R e as O n s i’ ve neveR ex Pa nded the R e stau R a nt O P e R atiO n s O u tside O f s t illwate R is my lOv e f O R the Ci ty and O s u,” Cla R k s ays. “When you think about the fact we came from literally almost nothing, less than 900 square feet, a little bitty bar, to what you see today, and what that’s all meant to the hundreds of thousands of OSU alumni over the years …. It’s pretty special. And the tens of thousands of people who’ve worked over there.
“And even though we’ve extended the retail brand beyond the city limits, the shirts still say, ‘Eskimo Joe’s, Stillwater, Oklahoma.’”
Cla R k CR edits the unive Rsity f O R instilling that l Oyalty in him.
september 2011
“I absolutely loved my college experience at Oklahoma State,” he says. “I grew so much as a person, and certainly intellectually. It gave me the background I would use to work for myself right out of college.
“When my original partner said, ‘Hey, Clark, I’m going to open a bar,’ I said, ‘I want to be partners with you.’ And because of my time at OSU, I knew how to create a business plan and how to go to the bank and ask for a loan. I graduated in May of 1975 and we opened in July. That was beyond my wildest dreams.”
His professors would no doubt be glad to know he wasn’t just daydreaming about opening his own business while sitting in their classes. He was daydreaming about how he’d put what they were telling him into practice.
“When I went through the College of Business, I was just always trying to think of how I’d apply those principles to my own ventures,” he says. “I took twelve hours of accounting. I took fifteen hours of economics. Interestingly, I only had three hours of marketing.”
Cla R k, like many Pas siO nate O su a lumni, des CRibes himself as a huge O su s PO R ts fan.
“i’v e had Clu b seats sin Ce they beCame available. i’v e had seas O n tiCke ts f OR ev eR . men’s basketball, t OO. m y kids a R e PistO l Pete Pa R tne Rs whiCh is the g R eatest deal in the wOR ld. w e lOve that PROg R am a nd t Ry tO gO t O e veRy thing.
“But I love football and basketball as spectator sports. For football, there’s just so much energy that comes with forty, fifty or sixty-thousand fans in the stands. There’s nothing quite like it. For me, it’s like a reunion every game day. So many people I’ve
known in the past thirty-six years come back for the games.
In 36 years, Joe’s has grown from a ‘Jumpin’ Little Juke Joint’ half a block off campus into a family-oriented retail business and restaurant. In fact, Joe’s apparel sales power the business.
“The retail side is way bigger than the bar and restaurant,” says Clark. “If you just look at the restaurant, the bar is less than twenty-five percent of that. I’m still proud of the legacy. We started that way and people had a great enough time they wanted a souvenir. And those souvenirs and T-shirts gave us a tremendous amount of word-ofmouth advertising over the past 36 years. It’s amazing how it’s evolved. tOday we a R e a family- ORie ntated R es tau R an t and have tO u Ched multiP le gene R at iO ns O f P eOP le .”
Much like Oklahoma State’s athletic facilities, the grounds of Eskimo Joe’s have been expanding and updating in recent years. The restaurant has gotten larger, and the retail store has expanded its space on Elm Street.
“The timing is really good, with the release of the first-ever co-branded t-shirt,” he says. “This new footprint allows us to do a lot more than we’ve ever done. It’s really going to let us broaden our inventory, and to test some things we’ve never been able to test. There’ll be completely new product categories, I’m sure. At least we can try it. We’re not limited by space anymore.”
As for Joe and Pete T-shirt … it figures heavily into the future of Joe’s apparel.
“Obviously, we’re excited about it. We’ve got the go-ahead with OSU.
The idea is that, clearly, we’re going to do more of them.”
Cla Rk says the shiRts will be designed by mik e staubus, the a Rtist whO’s been bRinging JOe and buffy tO life sinCe 1983. Staubus, who handles the marketing for Eskimo Joe’s, will be handling Pete with the same care he devotes to Joe and Buffy. Clark calls Staubus’ designs works of art.
“Mike’s time is one of the scarcest commodities we have around here. He might only do fifteen designs in a whole year. These are works of art. So in effect, this might become a large percentage of what we offer. It’s going to be a lot of our focus.”
The first design, Clark says, put some pressure on Staubus.
“I think it was a lot of pressure on Mike,” says Clark. “When we brainstormed, we thought of football first. Obviously, our athletic facilities have drawn considerable accolades. We’re doing the best we’ve ever done in football coming off of last year’s eleven-win season.
“So we thought that putting Joe and Pete on top of Boone Pickens Stadium seemed like a great approach. There’s Joe in his infamous left-handed stance throwing one to Pete. And the cut-line at the bottom — ‘All Americans.’ I just love it.
“It’s just hard to believe. Here we are thirty-six years later, and I didn’t foresee all the stuff that’s come of it. I hope that for many, when they think of Stillwater, they think about Oklahoma State and Eskimo Joe’s. I think for lots of people, that’s the case. And that’s all I could ever hope for.”
t he new shiR ts a R e available at all e sk imO J O e’s l OCat iO ns, O nl ine at eskimOJ O es.COm, OR by Cal ling 800-256-JO es
These numbers reflect the 2010 savings available.
The Alumni Association exists to "serve its members, alumni and Oklahoma State University, its students, faculty, staff and friends." The continued vitality of the Association depends on the commitment of time, energy and resources from members like you.
september 2011
phoTograph Y BY Phil Shockley
Cowboy/Cowgirl Tennis Complex
Sherman e . Smith training Center
though the start date ended up being more fluid than initially planned, progress on the athletic v illage continues.
l ate this summer, construction began on the s herman s mith indoor training Center (fans can see the green new practice fields to the nor th of boone pickens s tadium), and on the outdoor portion of the osu tennis facility.
according to John houck, manager of Cowboy athletic facilities, the s mith indoor practice facility should be completed in early s pring 20 13. the outdoor portions of the tennis facility should be ready in the next six to 12 months, but the athletic department is still seeking some funding to complete the indoor portion.
september 2011
Sherman e . Smith training Center
Sherman e . Smith training Center
Sherman e . Smith training Center
Indoor/outdoor tennI s complex
Indoor/outdoor tennI s complex
“THEWALK”(2HRS.15MIN.PRIORTOKICKOFF)
phoTograph Y BY Phil Shockley
The c owboys’ New clothes
b u zz A b out just
wh A t they’d look like be G A n to build
A l most be F o re
l A s t se A s on ended.
p h otoshoppery w A s
d one. i m A G e s were posted in F o rums.
r A m p A n t specul A t ion
A b ounded. And then words A n d pictures rele A s ed.
ge tting new unifORms is not a new thing for Oklahoma State. Unlike, say, Penn State, the Pokes’ attire has been changing with the times, the last switch taking place shortly after coach Gundy took the reins of the program.
But this isn’t just getting a redesign. This is something a little more extensive. Four different jerseys. Three helmets. This is something like Oregon would do. So in a way, we have Oregon to thank for the new uniforms. And Alabama. Alabama?
Yes, in a roundabout way. Sort of like the story of the new uniforms.
Three or so years ago, Nike made a special one-off jersey for Alabama. The jersey featured a houndstooth collar to honor Paul Bear Bryant. Additionally, the university gave away 5,000 hats to students in the student section; each hat was Alabama red with a big white A on the front, and featured a houndstooth bill.
“The team played in the jerseys one time,” says Kyle Wray, OSU’s Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management/Marketing, “and then they auctioned off the jerseys as a fundraiser. Nike told us that people were offering the students $500 apiece for those hats before they even left the stadium.”
After that game, Nike and Alabama sold more than 40,000 of the hats between September and December. There’s not an athletic department in the country that wouldn’t mind collecting the royalties from 40,000 hats.
If Nike could do something like that for Alabama, why couldn’t it do it for Oklahoma State, too? Wray and some other OSU representatives spent that initial meeting discussing marketing opportunities, as well as ideas for future football uniforms, and then scheduled Nike for a visit to Stillwater.
Once in Stillwater, Nike’s representatives meet with several players, including Brandon Weeden, who was at the time buried on the depth chart behind Zac Robinson and Alex Cate.
“Nike talked with the players about what it is they wanted,” says Wray.
“It wasn’t just about color. It was about design of the uniform. About unique things that could be put on it, as well as how it functioned as a uniform. How the pants functioned, how the jersey functioned. And Nike is the industry leader in that. They wanted it to be lighter and cooler, because that affects the performance of the player.
“When we were at Nike, they showed us a shoe where the same design two years earlier weighed x ounces more than than it does today. Obviously, it stands to reason, if you’re running and your shoe is lighter than it was two years ago, it sets the environment for you to be faster and have more energy at the end of the game.
story continues i t wasn’t just about the colors or the logo. i t was also about the performance of what was worn.
“Then we began to talk about some things they could have on the uniform. We talked about stripes and where they go. But ultimately, what it came down to was the players told Nike, ‘We want it to be like when you open your closet up on a Friday or Saturday night and you’re about to go out on the town with your friends and have fun, and you have all these options.’ Khakis, jeans, t-shirt, button-down. Whether or not to tuck your shirt in or leave it untucked. Whatever it is, you have all these options.
That’s what young people liked about what they were seeing out of o re gon. i t’s not the same old thing when you’re having a home or an away football game. you have options, from helmet color or design, to jerseys to pants.
80
“That was the genesis of how the whole thing came about.”
From there, Nike took the ball and ran. They had basic parameters they had to stay within. For instance, they were instructed to use only official OSU colors. And yes, one of those colors is “Cool Gray No. 5.”
As it turned out, the gray jerseys, helmets and uniforms have seemingly drawn the most discussion in the media and on various internet forums. It seems the majority like it, though there are some dissenters.
“I see the OSU logo a lot in my position,” says Wray. “It has four colors in it — PMS 166, or ‘OSU’ orange. PMS 151, which is the lighter orange. And then it has ‘Cool Gray No. 5’ and flat black. Well, a lot of people miss the gray.
“Nike wanted to work within that color palette and come out with a fourth jersey,” he says. “Nike is not calling it gray. They’re calling it ‘anthracite.’ It’s a cross between gray and metallic silver. It has a lot more syllables than gray does, but that’s what they’re calling it.
“I think most of our fans really like it. Now, when we first run out on the field wearing those, who can say. Some of the questions I have can only be answered by the Big 12. Is the gray light enough for us to wear on the road? We don’t know the answer to that yet.”
As a matter of personal preference, Wray prefers the Orange, though the gray is growing on him. However, that brings up another obvious question. Why no Orange helmet?
“We played with the thought of that,” he says. “Maybe some day. At some point, it gets to be down to a matter of money and what you can afford to do. Having the gray and black helmets, in addition to the traditional white, seemed the logical place to go.”
When the team gets new gear, fans can expect to see new offerings reflecting the changes in the shops of their favorite OSU gear vendors. Fans should be able to get their hands on replica jerseys in all four colors. They can also see elements of the uniforms carried over onto Nike’s 2011 “Live Orange” fan shirts.
Fans wanting the new gear should be able to find it everywhere OSU gear is available, though Wray hopes they considering buying it from either the store at the Student Union on campus, the store in Boone Pickens Stadium, or from the virtual storefront at okstate.com.
“That’s buying it directly from OSU,” says Wray. “More of your dollar is going to go directly to the university. But obviously, there are a lot of great local vendors who are going to have the new apparel as well.
“when you buy officially licensed osu merchandise, you help oklahoma state, just like when you buy season tickets or send your children to school at osu all these things help the university prosper and thrive.”
2011
phoTograph Y BY Phil Shockley
Tailgating season
“a re You readY for some fooT Ba ll?”
that phrase, put to music by hank williams Jr. years ago, set in motion a series of productions for the sport that has become a spectacle (and the norm) for networks across the country. it’s not just a game anymore. it’s an entertainment event.
as far as i can tell, singing, football and television first were coupled on abC’s mOnday night fOOtball in the mid-1970s. hOwaRd COsell (love him or hate him) was the main talent. his quirky personality, sometimes strange antics and distinct manner of speaking was a constant from play-by-play to the halftime highlights. frank gi fford provided the expert analysis. don meredith was the singer.
playing the “aw shucks, good ‘ole boy” role, don was genuinely funny. his humor was never forced, but revealed itself in a flowing, honest manner that made audiences feel he was a long-lost friend from high school. when don sang, “turn out the lights, the party’s over,” there would be time left on the clock, but the outcome of the game had been decided.
w hen osu fans mention being ready for some football, they are usually talking about tailgating, which seems to be a spectacle all its own. you can see it all in the parking lots, this commotion created by the pick-up truck.
there are barbecue smokers so massive they require their own trailer hitches (you k now who you are). are we smoking entire sides of beef or what? those quantities may be in order i f the crowds around many tents are indicative of how many are eating there. appetites are hearty and voracious. and they all agree, everything tastes better when cooked over an open flame especially 600 pounds of cow. your proximity to the grill is in direct proportion to the month. november, real close. september, not so much. if you can think of it, it’s fair game to be grilled, fried, skewered or sautéed. the table fare is only half the issue. the other is the decor. if you are not a frequent tailgater, you may be asking, “yOu deCOR ate yOuR designated aRea?”
o f course! many spaces have an ensemble that would make a furniture store salivate. there are couches, tables, chairs, lamps, rugs and home furnishings of all shapes, sizes and well, just the one color. someone call Southern Living most of the spreads are picture perfect. then again, others look like something i’d throw out there. but even then, relaxing on the couch-away-from-home is not enough. there has to be pre-game entertainment, too. some tailgaters
bring as sundry lawn games, checkers and various outdoor diversions. o thers resort to good old fashioned people watching. though, between you and me, here’s a word to the wise. while you may not feel like you are exhibiting behavior worthy of watching, you just might be game-day amusement for the group around the corner.
l astly, the technology is astounding. Just because fans are in the parking lot does not mean they have to miss their second-favorite team (or team they love to hate) play. there are televisions of all shapes, sizes and price points. no screen is too big for tailgating.
and i f they’re going to the trouble of toting the television, they t ypically go all-in and bust out the portable satellite dishes. in fact, there are enough signals being emitted and received, i’m sometimes fearful of interfering with aircraft transmission at nearby s tillwater airport.
don’t believe me? get to the game early and make a pass through the area. get some tailgate grub. find a screen and have a seat. put your feet up. many tailgates have enough monitors and satellites to make nasa orange with envy. g o p o kes!
k y le w r Ay associate vice presiDent enrollment management & marketing
