I can trace my OU football consciousness to 1972. Bored with a visit to a nursing home in Eufaula, I retired to the fam’s sedan and began to channel surf on AM radio, looking for a way to kill three hours, maybe find some Three Dog Night.
What I happened upon was something that, over four decades now, would cause me to obsess over a certain team and become a recluse on fall Saturday afternoons.
That day in 1972, I tuned into a McAlester station and found Bob Barry calling OU’s methodical 49-0 rout of Utah State. Bob described it in such a clinical way. The next week, under the same circumstances, I tuned to OU’s 68-3 rout of Oregon. The next week, it was 49-3 over Clemson.
Now, I was beginning to see the big deal. My dad was a big OU fan who went to all the games in the Bud Wilkinson era. I saw the Selmons when they played at Eufaula High. I watched the 1971 Game of the Century, but I barely understood the significance.
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