Bob Barry, Sr. had his roller travel bag and was waiting for the charter bus to come carry him and the team from the Westin hotel to Paul Brown Stadium.
It was a few hours before the Sooners were to play the Cincinnati Bearcats. Hunter and I had just been visiting Sooner great Greg Pruitt at the alumni club’s pre-game rally inside the hotel when we walked out to find the university entourage standing curbside.
There was Barry, the voice that had first introduced me to Pruitt some 40 years before, when the Oklahoma wishbone was tearing up Owen Field with enormous rushing and scoring.
“Pitch to Pruitt…down the sideline, at the 40, 30, 20….10, 5, touchdown Oklahoma!” was often the call from Barry on those Saturday afternoons.
Back then, the Sooners weren’t on television every Saturday. There were no VCRs or Tivos. I lived hours away from Norman and rarely got to attend home games. It was important each week for me, at age 12, to buy three hour-long cassette tapes from Martin’s Five & Dime store so I could record every play of every game Barry and color analyst Jack Ogle, the two stalwarts of WKY TV and radio, broadcast for the Oklahoma Sooners Radio Network.
I can’t say I knew I was recording history. I just knew I was recording Barry’s rendition of each game, so I could review and analyze and learn more about Pruitt and Jack Mildren and the other Sooners that had become my football heroes.
Their runs and tackles became indelibly recorded in my mind in the form of Bob Barry’s voice.
So, when I saw Barry there in Cincinnati on September 25, 2010, it was important for me to express my appreciation for the man who played such a pivotal role in shaping me to become an Oklahoma Sooners fan. He had lately received heat for some mistakes he had made on recent game broadcasts. Some had thought he was overdue to step down. In fact, he had just recently announced his then forthcoming retirement from OU football and basketball play-by-play when I saw him in Cincinnati.
I told him that I was so very thankful for his work and service to OU fans all these many years. He thanked me for my remarks. Then I asked him, “Well, what do you think about tonight’s game? (Oklahoma vs. Cincinnati).”
“It’s going to be a tough one,” he said, followed by a smile and that signature chuckle of his. “But, I think we’re going to have fun.”
Nothing says more about Bob Barry, Sr., than those words he said to me, just another Oklahoma fan dressed in crimson that fall day in Ohio. Indeed, having fun is something he embodied throughout his 50-year tenure as a sports broadcaster. Having fun with family was why my grandson Hunter and I made that trip, and have made so many others in recent years to see our team play.
In short, Bob Barry, Sr., was a fun soul. A genuinely nice guy. And, contrary to some tired cliché, nice guys do finish first. That’s because nice guys like Barry carry with them something special and that something is infectious.
On Sunday, Hunter, Alex and I were having our post-game weekend lunch on Campus Corner when Hunter was checking his smart phone (it’s what teen-agers do).
“Oh, no,” he said abruptly, handing me his phone so I could read the Twitter news for myself that Bob Barry, Sr., had died at age 80.
Four generations of Sooner fans are saddened by this loss.
“Bob Barry, Sr. carried the best of the Sooner spirit,” Oklahoma President David Boren said on Sunday, after learning of Barry’s death.
“I never saw Bob have a bad day. He loved life. And he loved his job. Even after 50 years of broadcasting he would show up at the stadium like a kid in a candy store. His play by play style was unmistakable, but it is his gentle, kind and fun-loving spirit that I will always remember,” said Toby Rowland, who took over the OU play-by-play job this year after Barry’s retirement.
There are plenty of folks here in Norman who knew or encountered Barry over the years. Not a one has ever heard or uttered an unkind word about the character of this man. Such stories don’t exist. Instead, you hear stories, like my brief curbside visit with him, that he had this way of making you feel like you were his long-time friends or neighbors.
And, I guess given the fact that Barry had broadcast into our living rooms and on our car radios for nearly my entire lifetime, you could say we were indeed long-time friends.
Those cassette tapes of Bob and Oklahoma Football from 1971 are in a cardboard box tucked away somewhere in my closet. I think I’ll dust them off and listen to them this week.
At the 40, 30, 20, 10, 5…touchdown Bob Barry!
Thank you, Bob, for being a long-time Sooner friend. You will be missed.– Mike
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Well said MIke