Posted by Dr Fro 10:45 AM
From the undisputed objective observer of OU football, Hornfans.com:

This is Sooner Football


“A black limousine crawled along the dirt road in front of the Burris farmhouse and stopped at the end of the furrows...stepping gracefully from the sleek automobile was Jewel Ditmars, the richest woman in several counties...Jewel and her family were among the wealthiest in the state. When she wasn't counting her money, she was following her favorite football team--the Oklahoma Sooners…‘Buddy, come here,’ Jewel said. ‘I want you to meet my new friend...the new coach of the Oklahoma Sooners...This is Jim Tatum, the man who's gonna lead us to the national championship. Jim wants you in Norman. I think he has a few goodies you might be interested in.’ Buddy was invited to the Oklahoma campus for a recruiting visit. At the time the National Collegiate Athletic Association was in the process of assembling its first investigative staff, and the hounds had yet to sniff out the trail. Tatum peered across the desk at Buddy and said ‘OK, King Kong, how much you need up front?’

’Jeez, Coach, how 'bout a thousand now and some more later?’

’You got it.’ " -- Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“Recruits who visited the campus were led into [OU football coach Jim] Tatum’s office, where the coach was normally found sitting in his underwear, smoking a cigar. As the player took a seat across the desk, Tatum would open a deep desk drawer and say, ‘feast your eyeballs on this, big fella.’ Mountains of large bills caused eyes to pop. The slush fund, which amounted to $125,000, had been raised during the war years….During the season, players would receive twenty-five bucks for touchdowns, fifteen bucks for interceptions, and ten for fumble recoveries.” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“During our session I asked [OU head coach Jim Tatum] if he had given presents to the members of the football squad during [the Gator Bowl]. He admitted he had…Knowledge of this violation placed me in a most uncomfortable quandary. From a strictly ethical point of view, I realized that I should report the violation to the conference and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, but, on the other hand…it would mean also the ruin of the university’s football program for the next few years. I finally decided to tell the regents of the university and let them decide what should be done…My suggestion apparently was not considered by the board; the unrecorded decision was to ‘keep quiet’ about what had happened…” -- former OU president George Cross, Presidents Can’t Punt

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“From the records available to us it appeared that the basis for payment to the members of the football squad has been $15.00 a month plus room and board for single men and $75.00 a month for married men. But there were no records of work performed by athletes, and it seemed clear that the year’s operation had been in violation of the regulations of the conference – in violation also of the 1946 NCAA code.” – former OU president George Cross, Presidents Can’t Punt

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“No one was more tightly tethered to Oklahoma football than Big Boy [OU booster E.G. Johnson]…when OU tackle Dub Wheeler’s concentration was drifting, Big Boy paid off Dub’s debts…Three years later, at the height of the recruiting battle for ‘Indian’ Jack Jacobs, Big Boy stashed the quarterback/punter at his lake house in Arkansas…Some OU players were regularly treated to ‘loans’ from Big Boy, who also picked up the tab for expensive suits at McCall’s Men Store.” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“One major factor caused Bud [Wilkinson] to gravitate to Big Boy [OU booster E.G. Johnson] like a bug to a light. On the night he signed on, Johnson had promised to launch a fund-raising club to assist the football program in its quest for more national championships. He promised money galore from the big guns. The Sooners would have cash to spend on the best players…” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“[OU president] Cross was unaware at the moment that [OU assistant] Coach Gomer Jones had a vast amount of cash locked away in his desk drawer for the purpose of paying for players’ tickets. Jones paid ten times face value. He also paid ‘advances’ on ticket money if a certain star player was strapped for cash.” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“It seemed to me that a winning team had done a great deal for the state of Oklahoma, but not nearly as much for the university.” – former OU president George Cross, Presidents Can’t Punt

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“Oklahoma and the Touchdown Club—How Does a Third-rate College Football Team Suddenly Become One of the Best in the Country?” –headline from True Magazine, 1950

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“As [OU president] Cross dug deeper, he learned that funny money was everywhere. There was no system of checks and balances inside the athletic department. When university administrators tried to track expenditures, they were often led down blind alleys or treated as if they had no business sticking their noses into football matters.” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“Besides the largess from the [OU] Touchdown Club, which was distributed through official university channels, athletes pick up extra money by holding campus job sinecures. The job titles include janitorial services and grounds maintenance, but even the university president doesn’t pretend they work at them...” – The New York Times, commenting on the OU athletic program, March 1951

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“…Quintin Little, a member of the Oklahoma board of regents and a man who had opened his heart and his wallet to Sooner football. [Oilman Roy] Guffey was [OU player] Jimmy Harris’s sugar daddy and, along with paying a huge premium for game tickets, had bankrolled a trip to James K. Wilson, an expensive men’s store in Dallas, after Jimmy signed with the Sooners in the spring of ’53.” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“…football fans, and some sports writers, are inclined to regard the sport as belonging more to the public than to the university and to consider football more important than anything else that goes on in the institution. An increasing number of Oklahomans thought of the university primarily in terms of the ‘Big Red’ ”. – former OU president George Cross, Presidents Can’t Punt

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“By the mid-1950s, the NCAA enforcement division had quite a large file on this illegal activity at OU. [OU president] Cross made two trips to Kansas City, hoping to dissuade executive director Walter Byers. But Byers was having nothing to do with it, citing boxes of letters accusing Oklahoma of operating a slush fund.” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“As the rumors swirled about dirty laundry, [OU president] Cross called [OU coach] Wilkinson into his office and asked if money was changing hands. Wilkinson admitted that some players had been paid, that the ticket business was healthy. But he pointed out that Oklahoma was an equal opportunity employer—linemen as well as backs and end were reaping the benefits.” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“…[OU president] Cross picked up the trail of Arthur Wood, an Oklahoma City accountant who was overseeing a stash of money earmarked for the football program. Wood freely admitted to Cross that he had disbursed funds for years to Bill Jennings, OU’s chief recruiter. The demand for money became so great, Wood said, that more had to be raised by the Touchdown Club. NCAA enforcers interviewed Wood, but he refused to open his books. When [NCAA executive director] Byers persisted, Wood moved himself to Reno, Nevada, in the mid-1950s, taking the financial records with him.” – Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“The NCAA wanted to know who was responsible for the development of athletic policies at OU and who had the responsibility of making sure that approved policies were followed. Especially pointed was a question about whether a fund or funds were available for use by the Department of Athletics that were not administered by the university...Wilkinson and I had several conferences during the course of the investigation and the preparation of the report. He was undisturbed by the inquiry and assured me that his coaching staff had been following the policies of the Big Seven Conference and the NCAA ‘to the letter.’ There was nothing to fear, he said, from any detailed investigation the association might make. Bud proved to be a poor prophet. Soon we would learn that we had much to fear.” – former OU president George Cross, Presidents Can’t Punt

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"The alternates were in the [1955 OU-Texas] game in the third quarter and moving the ball with ease, when [OU quarterback Jay] O'Neal pitched to fullback Dennit Morris, who slid out-of-bounds at the Texas nine in a tangle of arms and legs. The side judge marked the spot by dropping his cap on the yard marker. Then he dived into the pile of bodies to retrieve the football. Along came a female Sooner cheerleader, strutting along the boundary line. She spotted the cap, stopped, looked both ways, and kicked it all the way down to the four-yard line. Returning to the field, the official marked the ball precisely where his hat now lay. The Sooners, however, were held on downs and didn't score, a sign, perhaps, that God had disapproved of the ruse. Even [head coach Bud] Wilkinson would laugh on Monday when, during the team meeting, he ran the film projector back and forth, replaying the cheerleader's devilish deed."--Jim Dent, The Undefeated

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“…football enthusiasts no longer had the game in proper perspective. They were placing disproportionate emphasis on the importance of not just winning but winning by overwhelming margins. I began to think it might be wholesome if OU lost a game or two.” – former OU president George Cross, Presidents Can’t Punt

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“OU in the early years "outbought" UT for Texas high school stars. Only later did the Sooners suffer NCAA major probations for cheating, because NCAA rules prior to 1953 wouldn't frighten a girl scout.” – Robert Heard, writing for ESPN.com, 2001

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“One OU spy began his work at least as far back as 1972, but Texas did not learn his identity until four years later. During the construction of the upper deck at Texas’ Memorial Stadium, the spy donned a hard had and watched ‘closed-door’ Longhorn practices from that deck before the Oklahoma game…Royal had not used a quick kick for four years, but he put it in for [the OU-UT] game. The spy saw that, and that one piece of information turned the game around. The Longhorns faced third and 16 from the own 25, trailing, 3-0, late in the third quarter, when they had the wind. Royal called for the quick kick…The Oklahoma players knew immediately. Before Texas broke its huddle, the Sooners yelled, ‘Quick kick!” …Oklahoma tackle Derland Moore, anticipating the snap and not worried at all about a run or even a pass, shot past Texas offensive tackle Jerry Sisemore and blocked the kick. The ball bounced into the end zone, where Oklahoma’s Lucious Selmon fell on it for a touchdown. The Sooners went on to win, 27-0, even though their offense scored only one touchdown.” – Robert Heard, Oklahoma vs Texas.

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“That’s not the way Switzer operates. It’s a rumor in the past, saying someone was watching Texas practice. If he did, he did a poor job. I died laughing when I heard it. Did they catch [the spy] in Austin this week? Last year? The year before? I know why [they haven’t caught the spy], ‘cause he didn’t do it.” – OU assistant Larry Lacewell, 1976

“Yeah, [UT coach Darrell Royal] was pretty right [about the spying charge]…I’m not always proud of one or two things. This is one of them.” – former OU assistant Larry Lacewell, 1979

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“[One result] of Oklahoma’s football fever is a college football program grossly out of control, a team and a head coach running away with a university. It is football madness, with a vengeance…Oklahoma is the quintessential example of an academic institution warped by an athletic team.” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“…it’s all out of control. Seventy thousand people driving 900 miles to see a football game, rooting for us the year around, basing their whole identity on a game. It was never meant to be like that.” – Barry Switzer to the Houston Chronicle, 1979

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“[Before] the Nebraska-Oklahoma rematch in the 1979 Orange Bowl, an unnamed individual handed Nebraska coaches a note pad belonging to an Oklahoma coach. Nebraska had put in a special set of plays for the game in secret workouts. The note pad containing diagrams of those plays, including the blocking assignment for each player. Lance Van Zandt, Nebraska defensive coordinator, said, ‘It had our terminology and other information in it they shouldn’t have known about. The plays, diagrammed in detail, had never been used in a game.’ Head coach Tom Osborne said, ‘What concerned me was the fact that we had never even used that formation this season – and never with motion. Yet that note pad not only showed the play – with motion – but how they intended to defense it. They couldn’t have learned that from looking at the films of our past games.’ “ -- Robert Heard, Oklahoma vs Texas

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“We look at this game as though it were the national championship.” – Barry Switzer on the 1979 OU-UT game, in the Daily Oklahoman

“We now face the task of bouncing back to try and win the Big Eight. That is more important than beating Texas.” – Barry Switzer to OU season ticket holders, two days after losing the 1979 OU-UT game.

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“We’re a young state, striving for excellence, and football has been the one place where we have achieved excellence…It’s unprecedented [for] a home daily newspaper [to] assume such a petty adversary role.” Charles Engleman, OU regent and publisher of the Clinton News, commenting on the Daily Oklahoman’s coverage of the mid-seventies OU athletes’ ticket scalping scandal

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“OU players could buy four tickets to each game and eight to the especially lucrative Texas game. The school sold all of the tickets to the players in advance of the season. Coaches would sell the tickets for them, and the OU-Texas tickets occasionally brought as much as $300 each. The players made $1,500 to $2,000 a year from these sales.” – Robert Heard, Oklahoma vs Texas

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“Switzer is not the problem at Oklahoma. He is like the point man in a lynch mob. The mob marches whether he or another leads it. He merely is one of the better lynch mob leaders. He knows how to encourage the mob to continue to be and do what makes it a mob…When Switzer leaves, another Switzer will take his place. If the new coach is not a Switzer, the mob will shove him aside and get someone who is.” – Robert Heard, Oklahoma vs Texas, 1980

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“After Bud Wilkinson's great career at OU, 1947-63, Okie fans, sensitive about the "outlaw" tag, argued the Sooners started winning the recruiting wars because of "tradition." There is truth to that. But it is a tradition built on cheating.” – Robert Heard, writing for ESPN.com, 2001

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“The '76 game dripped with drama. OU under Chuck Fairbanks and Barry Switzer had beaten Texas five straight after copying, at Switzer's suggestion to Fairbanks, the new (196 wishbone formation that Royal used in his last victory over OU, 41-9, in 1970. Worse, Royal accused Switzer of spying on UT practices and offered $10,000 each to Switzer, defensive coordinator Larry Lacewell and the spy he named, Lonnie Williams, if they would take polygraph tests. Turned down and also ridiculed by Switzer, Royal, in an AP interview with me, called the OU coaches "sorry bastards," a phrase Okie fans chanted outside Royal's hotel room the night before the game. Lacewell later admitted the Sooners benefited from spying, and, later still, Switzer confessed it, too.” – Robert Heard, writing for ESPN.com, 2001

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“The most serious of 14 [NCAA] recruiting violations involved the doctoring of the high school transcripts of quarterback Kerry Jackson and linebacker-defensive end Mike Phillips of Galveston…Oklahoma had to forfeit the eight games in 1972 that Jackson had playerd in, including the one it lost – to Colorado – on the field…The Oklahoma football brochures continue to note forfeits in 1972, but only three of them – to Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma State.” – Robert Heard, Oklahoma vs Texas, 1980

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“The question [REDACTED] that I’d like you to just think about for a second is, the timesheets for the summer indicated that you worked about [REDACTED] hours uhm, for the complete summer. And at a pay rate of about $10 an hour, that would get you to about [REDACTED] but for the summer, Big Red has indicated you earned [REDACTED] for that summer, so there’s a discrepancy of $2,500 and we’re just trying to get a sense of how that could be…” – OU Associate Athletic Director Keith Gill, interviewing “unidentified player 2”, August 3, 2006

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“How would you feel if you confronted the president of a major university, asked him about the recent crimes committed by his football team, and the man dismissed the actions by calling them ‘isolated incidents’? That’s what I asked Oklahoma’s interim president David Swank, the former dean of the OU Law School, and that’s how he responded. For a second I thought, jeez, maybe the guy is right, maybe I’m overreacting. Then I remembered I was asking this bespectacled professor of jurisprudence about three alleged rapes, a drug bust, and a shooting; and I recalled that Jerry Parks’s bullet had missed his teammate’s heart by three inches, and that Parks had then pointed the gun at his own head and allegedly pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired. So, except for the intervention of blind luck, there would have been a murder and a suicide to go along with the other felonies. And it all happened in just twenty-five days. Isolated incidents? Dean of the law school? The Twilight Zone?” – Rick Telander, The Hundred Yard Lie, 1990. Swank regarded the penalties as too harsh. Swank later took a leading role with the NCAA, as chair of its Committee on Infractions for most of the 1990s, and pushed for key reforms in enforcement structure.

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“The special treatment afforded some Sooner athletes coupled with the revered status of the football team, has pushed some faculty members to the breaking point. ‘When we go to professional meetings, we get kidded about the latest cheating in the athletic department,’ says Alan Nicewander, chairman of the psychology department. ‘I really resent it. The stain spreads. I don’t think the acting president has accepted that. I think he’s blinded by his devotion to athletics.’ ” – Jerry Kirschenbaum, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“The evidence suggests that the Sooner football program is an ethical wasteland. Oklahoma churns out good football teams, but can it churn out good people too?” – Rick Telander and Robert Sullivan, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“The NCAA had determined that [OU booster William] Lambert had given linebacker Kurt Kaspar the free use of a car and had paid him $6,400 for summer work that was never performed. Lambert, an oil man in Lindsay, Okla., told The Daily Oklahoman that he had employed an estimated 100 to 150 Sooner players and assistant coaches during a period of 15 years in the 1970s and ‘80s. This abundance of goodwill toward Oklahoma football came after Lambert’s release from federal prison, where he served a four-year sentence for possession of $300,000 in stolen stock certificates. ” – Jerry Kirschenbaum, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“The special treatment afforded some Sooner athletes coupled with the revered status of the football team, has pushed some faculty members to the breaking point. ‘When we go to professional meetings, we get kidded about the latest cheating in the athletic department,’ says Alan Nicewander, chairman of the psychology department. ‘I really resent it. The stain spreads. I don’t think the acting president has accepted that. I think he’s blinded by his devotion to athletics.’ ” – Rick Telander and Robert Sullivan, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“Oklahoma: A Sordid Story – How Barry Switzer’s Sooners Terrorized Their Campus” – Sports Illustrated cover copy, February 27, 1989

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“Indeed, the year before Switzer had bragged to me about how many Oklahoma football players were getting their degrees and making the dean’s list and how all-American tight end Keith Jackson had graduated in less than four years. Jackson, of course, later admitted to taking improper gifts and money from alumni while at OU, but justified it by saying, ‘Football is a business and that includes college football. When you shut down Oklahoma, you’re hurting the business all around the nation.’ ” – Rick Telander, The Hundred Yard Lie, 1990

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“Oklahoma’s concern wasn’t that the players had done wrong, but that they had raised a ruckus off the field, they had dared to make noise when they weren’t supposed to. This thing wasn’t about reform, it was about embarrassment.” – Rick Telander commenting on the late-eighties OU football program, The Hundred Yard Lie, 1990

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“Think about what the pursuit of football victories has done for the University of Oklahoma. On a national level, it has made the school a laughingstock, a caricature of a greedy, low-minded hick institution that can find satisfaction only in beating somebody at a violent game, sort of like a hillbilly who just loves wrasslin’ fellers till they cry ‘Uncle!’ ” – Rick Telander, The Hundred Yard Lie, 1990

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“I asked [former OU president Frank Horton] if he wasn’t disgusted by all the problems that have occurred with the Oklahoma football program in recent times. To my surprise, he said that he didn’t think that what was happening with any big-time football programs anywhere in the country was that unusual or reprehensible. ‘ Was it sports that created these problems?’ he asked. ‘There are issues in society that sports are not exempt from. But when it’s associated with athletics, then it becomes a major issue. But it is just PART of society.’

What about the Zarek Peters shooting? What about the quarterback selling cocaine? What about handguns and ammunition in a university athletic dorm? Are those things normal?

‘I don’t know that there aren’t rounds of ammunition in any dorm in America, generally,’ he replied.

To say he wasn’t giving the responses I had expected would be an understatement.” – Rick Telander, The Hundred Yard Lie, 1990

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“The state is infatuated with football, and Oklahomans spare nothing for their team. They want glory and will pay any price…They brook no criticism and treat anyone who questions the OU football program as a traitor. Most of all, the folks of Oklahoma revel in the success of the Sooners.” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“What I saw at Oklahoma was a…disturbing, often frightening glimpse of what it takes to be number one in the nation.” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“The other result of Oklahoma’s football fever is a college football program grossly out of control, a team and a head coach running away with a university. It is football madness, with a vengeance.” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“It’s nice to have a football team. But this is, after all, supposed to be a university. Our priorities are skewed. Football fever here has gotten to the point of obscenity.” – OU assistant political science professor Jean McDonald, 1978

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“[In 1976] the NCAA conducted still another investigation, this time looking into ticket scalping by OU players. No public action was taken but OU was told to stop letting players sell their season tickets at huge premiums to OU rooters. Even so, it is hard to spend any time at OU without hearing stories about continued scalping and huge profits raking in by coaches selling off large blocks of OU-Texas tickets. Priced at $10, those seats sell for as much at $300 on the black market. The revenue is supposedly plowed into illicit payments to players for such items as cars and clothes.” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“Oklahoma has not been content with just recruiting violations. Several years ago, OU was caught spying on the opposition. Though technically not a violation of NCAA rules, the spying was unethical as hell. And comically clumsy. Before an OU game against California, four Sooner rooters drove down to Dallas to sneak in on a Cal practice at Texas Stadium. Questioned at the gate, they claimed to be interior decorators working on the Lincoln-Mercury Dealers’ Association box in the stadium. I met two of the spies when I was in Oklahoma, and less likely interior decorators it’s hard to imagine. They’re both heavy, rough-looking jocks. Officials let them in, but one stupidly signed his name in the security log. When rumors started spreading, newspapermen had no trouble unraveling the case.” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“Unfavorable publicity is not something Oklahoma rooters tolerate. After Oklahoma City Times reporter Frank Boggs broke the ticket story, he was subjected to the kind of harassment most Americans thought went out with the witchhunts. Dozens of death threats were phoned in to him and his family. Fellow reporter Jack Taylor got home one day to find police guarding his house. His editors told him that the Times had received thirty threats against Taylor and Boggs that day.

Barry Switzer diplomatically says he doesn’t condone the hysteria, but he sums up the local feeling about Sooners football and its excesses when he says, ‘If you’re a reporter, be neutral or be for us, but don’t be against us. I don’t know why anyone would want to be against us.’ ” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“Switzer is married, with three children, but that seems hardly to have cramped his style. His reputation as a ladies’ man has fueled all kinds of rumors around Oklahoma, particularly during the last year. Last spring a member of the team’s staff told friends he discovered Switzer was having an affair with his wife. The man said Switzer had paid him $25,000 hush money. Switzer vehemently denies the story saying, ‘It’s all a fabrication.’ Switzer’s accuser now refuses to discuss the matter, saying, ‘I just don’t want to hurt anyone.’ Nevertheless, the story has persisted and flourished in the hothouse atmosphere of Oklahoma. You can’t set foot in the state these days without hearing someone talk about ‘Peyton Place at OU.’ Switzer isn’t the only target. Another story holds that a member of the august board of regents is involved with an assistant coach’s wife. ” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“[OU president William] Banowsky, a realist, accepts his fate. ‘Given the intense devotion of the fans and the expectations of the board of regents,’ he says frankly, ‘it’s much easier to be president while we’re 8 and 0. If it were the other way around, both Barry [Switzer] and I would be looking for other jobs.’ ” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“No one in Oklahoma is going to stop Barry Switzer. President Banowsky is cowed, the faculty is powerless, and the board of regents loves to have the number-one football team in the nation. The notion of a balance between academics and athletics has been completely abandoned, and these professional football bureaucrats do what they please to enhance their reputations.” – Philip Taubman, Esquire, 1978

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“College coach Barry Switzer is king in Oklahoma. Here’s a disturbing glimpse at how he has kept his team number one.” Esquire magazine headline, 1978

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“[OU Coach Barry Switzer] frequently violated NCAA regulation by giving his own money to needy players. He also was aware of boosters violating the rules through their financial aid to players, and was responsible for this abuse by allowing the booster network to exist; but Switzer was never a person to worry much about rules.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“Barry Switzer did not love us; more often than not he only tolerated us. He got his position and respect in Oklahoma because of his winning record on the football field. He needed his players, and as long as our behavior did not force his hand, everything was cool.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“[Jackie] Cooper owned several automobile dealerships in the Oklahoma City-Norman area…Cooper joined me in the men’s room and asked me if I had a car. When I said I didn’t he said, ‘Well, why don’t you get my phone number from Keith [Jackson] and give me a call? You come on down to the lot and pick something out. And don’t worry, we’ll work something out.’ ” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“Brian [Bosworth] wasn’t the only OU player to use steroids. I knew first-hand of five players and was told by others that there were about a dozen.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“I had always thought, growing up, that college was special; yet here I was and everyone was cheating. Whether they were NCAA rules, OU rules, or society’s rules, my coaches and instructors were demonstrating to me that they didn’t apply to good football players.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“My family and I got thousands of dollars from OU boosters in exchange for my spending time with them talking about football. I was their toy to show off to their friends and I cost them no more than other gadgets that are signs of success. I had yet to play in one football game for the University of Oklahoma, but there were at least ten wealthy Sooner businessmen who were prepared to help me at any time. If I sound ungrateful it’s only because I’ve learned how phony they are. You learn that once you’re no longer on the football team, you’re no longer someone they need to know.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“Another OU booster in Norman owned a car dealership, and I chose a white Buick Regal that cost about seventy-five hundred dollars. The deal was for me to put down two thousand, and have a loan taken out by a friend, in this case a former teacher at Lawton High School, for the balance. I was able to get the two thousand from a few boosters and return the same day to pick up the car. The car wasn’t in my name, but I owned it, and I didn’t give a damn…” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“Frank Vale owned a large furniture store. Whatever we needed to furnish the apartment—couches, tables, chairs, waterbed—Frank gave to us. All he wanted in return was to hang out with us and have us sing the pictures he had hanging in the windows of his store. I have no doubt about Frank’s sincere desire to help us out, but it remains a mystery why he and other wealthy businessmen went out of their way to please teenagers with whom they had little in common. It was more than supporting your neighborhood football team, when you consider that they were endangering the team by violating NCAA regulations. Even after OU was put on suspension by the NCAA in December 1988, Frank continued to wire Jamelle [Holieway] and me money from Tulsa. Of course, players like Jamelle and myself were too greedy to worry about NCAA regulations, except to make sure we didn’t get caught breaking them.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“We rarely paid for anything. Beer and booze were supplied to us by Switzer. All we had to do was go to his house and he would load up the trunk of our car…We even stopped paying rent to the landlord. All we did was go to Frank Vale or some other booster and they would make up the two hundred fifty we owed each month. We found none of this strange and, in fact, only expected things to get better. I think Jamelle’s [Holieway] greatest goal in life was to one day be an OU booster.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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Ted Koppel: “Before the break Rick Telander asked president David Swank of the University of Oklahoma what kind of a record Barry Switzer could bring back and, I guess the thrust of it was, still hold on to his job—was that it, Rick”

Rick Telander: “Yes.”

Ted Koppel: “What do you think, Mr. Swank?”

David Swank: “Again, I don’t see that an excellent athletic program is inconsistent with having a high-quality academic program. I don’t know that I can give a won-loss record, but I CAN tell you that we will place emphasis first on academics at the University of Oklahoma…We’re not going to tolerate people, as you say, being thrown in the slammer. I can’t tell you what record should exist.”

Ted Koppel: “You COULD tell me that it doesn’t matter to you. That what matters, what is important to you, is what kind of an education those youngsters get, that if [Switzer] comes in with a losing record, but creates good student-athletes, you’ll be happy with him. You could say that.”

David Swank: “Well, again, I want a top-quality athletic program…”

--exchange on ABC News program Nightline, March 1989

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“I had to marvel at Swank’s refusal to say he’d accept a losing record. I figured Oklahoma fans wouldn’t be thrilled by a lousy record; after all, they’d almost ridden Switzer out of town when his teams went 7-4, 8-4, and 8-4 from 1981 to 1983. But the college president? It was plain that he was afraid that if he publicly lowered the expectations placed on Sooner football teams, the board of regents would string him up like a bad coyote.” – Rick Telander, The Hundred Yard Lie, 1990

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“The Sooners’ winning tradition on the field has been overshadowed by an ugly atmosphere of lawlessness.” –Rick Telander and Robert Sullivan, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“Even former Sooners are beginning to turn against Switzer. On Monday, Jim Owens, co-captain of the 1949 team, said that that squad would be canceling its 40th reunion in April to express disgust and embarrassment over the recent events in Norman.” –Rick Telander and Robert Sullivan, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“In September, [former OU player Brian] Bosworth, who’s now with the Seattle Seahawks, released his autobiography, ‘The Boz’ (written with SI’s Rick Reilly). It describes wanton drug use, off-the-field violence, gunplay in the dorm and other manifestations of berserk behavior by football players during his years as a Sooner. In Norman, Bosworth was derided as a vengeful muckraker—from Texas, no less. The book, said defenders of the Sooners, was full of exaggerations, if not outright lies. Three months later the NCAA released its findings, which contained, in less lively prose, some of the same things Bosworth had recounted.” –Rick Telander and Robert Sullivan, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“We want to fight because I feel this will happen again and again and again. [My daughter] thought she was safe because of who they were and where they were at…She know they were OU players, and she thought she would be safe with them.” – Interview aired by KTVY-TV in 1989 with the mother of an young woman allegedly raped by OU athletes at Bud Wilkinson Hall. The woman’s identity was concealed.

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“After receiving a tip during the weekend of Feb 11 – 12, Switzer told [OU player Charles] Thompson on Monday that he was under investigation. However, the FBI, which reportedly photographed its alleged undercover transaction with Thompson, was hoping to break a much bigger case. It wasn’t ready to arrest Thompson, but Switzer’s warning forced the bureau’s hand and brought an important operation to a premature end…” –Rick Telander and Robert Sullivan, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“Four days before Oklahoma faced Clemson in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 2 in Orlando, Fla., Sooner assistant Scott Hill, who had earlier been reprimanded by the NCAA for recruiting improprieties and who may not recruit off-campus in 1990, engaged in what [then OU athletic director Donnie] Duncan calls ‘horseplay’ at the posh Lake Nona Golf Club. Hill ran up a $475 bar tab with other Oklahoma coaches and was involved in roughhousing that resulted in a shattered cherrywood chair and a damaged table. Hill later slammed bowl official Tony Martin into a car, bruising his cheek and chest…Not to be outdone by their coaches, a number of players trashed their rooms at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando. Switzer’s response was to upbraid the local press for reporting on the hotel incident.” –Rick Telander and Robert Sullivan, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“Some observers have been wondering how bad things have to get before the NCAA steps in and shuts down the Sooners’ football program, but in fact, the NCAA is concerned only with breaches of its recruiting and academic rules, not with honest-to-goodness crime. ‘With criminal proceedings we let people with subpoena powers, people who can put people in jail, do their work,’ says NCAA enforcement director David Berst. Thus the Oklahoma football program has been fortunate that its alleged transgressions since with place on NCAA probation have been criminal; one more free pizza to a recruit, and the program could have been sent to the NCAA gallows.” …” –Rick Telander and Robert Sullivan, Sports Illustrated, 1989

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“It all makes me sick…I remember how all of it started here. It was 1945 and the war had ended, and here in Oklahoma we were still feeling very depressed from those tough days that Steinbeck wrote about in ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’ At a board of regents meeting, it was suggested to me that I try to get a good football team. It would give Oklahomans a reason to have pride in the state. And it did, but I don’t think it was very good for the university.” –former OU president George Cross, 1989

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“I’ve never seen a zoo run like [Oklahoma].” – OU associate professor of geology Michael Engel, 1987

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“When I returned from court a few days later I asked Switzer about the community work. Again, he told me not to worry about it and that Shirley Vaughn would take care of it. Shirley officially was a recruitment assistant, but she was Barry Switzer’s right-hand woman. She handled things like airline tickets, game tickets, spending money. (In December 1988, she was cited by the NCAA and fired by OU for recruitment violations.) Switzer told me that Shirley would be able to have the community service hours written off for me. When I reported to Shirley and asked her where I should go to begin the work, she told me that it was all being taken care of. That was one of the many times during my first semester that I went to her about it, and each time her answer was the same: It was being taken care of.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“The people in Oklahoma knew of his business dealings. They knew of his marital problems and his other women, including the wife of an assistant coach. They knew that and more, but were never much concerned about any of it.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“[Switzer] drank hard, loved to run around with women, and his players followed his example. He could outparty any of us. He enjoyed good wine and Scotch. When we drank with him, he put us under the table. At first, I looked up to him for it; later, his behavior puzzled me. It seems weird that a man more than twice my age was carrying on as he was, going out with women younger than my girlfriends.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“Like Keith Jackson, [Brian Bosworth] advised me about the advantages of being a Sooner, especially when dealing with alumni and boosters. He told me to remember that although there was a great deal I could get from them, they were not my friends.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“Keith [Jackson] taught me all I needed to know about ‘freaking’ – dealing with boosters and alumni when you attain a certain level of popularity and stature and when they want to court you…Freaking with boosters and alumni meant they showered you with gifts and money, and sometimes drugs…Keith’s attitude was that when you are offered gifts from the boosters always show some appreciation and never abuse their generosity…He didn’t always have his hand out because he believed that he would be able to return to the boosters after his career was over and, should he need it, they would help him. I watched Keith do favors for boosters and receive nothing in return.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“There were other instructors who were boosters and showed favoritism to the athletes in their classes. Although I didn’t expect to have any difficulty in my Business Communication course, the instructor volunteered that because I was busy with football practice I would only have to complete eight of sixteen assignments.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“[Jamelle Holieway] enjoyed partying and was a heavy drinker. When I started hanging around with him that spring he was into cocaine.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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“For the next two weeks everyone on the football team who knew about what had happened in Jamelle’s [Holieway] room waited for the police to raid Bud Hall. Nothing happened. The girl’s father was a big booster who was friends with Switzer. When he learned about what had happened to his daughter he was furious and threatened to press charges against the whole football team. Switzer asked him to wait before pressing charges and that he would straighten out the mess. Time went by and nothing happened. There were rumors about the booster being bought off, nobody knows for certain what happened, but the matter died.” – former OU quarterback Charles Thompson

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Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops dismissed starting defensive tackle Dusty Dvoracek from the team Friday while police investigated an incident that ended with one of Dvoracek's high school teammates in the hospital. Earlier in the day, the Sooners had suspended Dvoracek indefinitely, but Stoops announced in a statement late Friday night that Dvoracek, an All-Big 12 selection and third team All-American last season, had been dismissed…Norman police said Friday they had contacted the family of Matt Wilde, one of Dvoracek's teammates at Lake Dallas (Texas) High School. Wilde suffered a head injury either late Saturday or early Sunday. His condition was upgraded from fair to good, Paula Price, a spokeswoman for Norman Regional Hospital said Friday.” –Associated Press, September 17, 2004

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“The NCAA on Tuesday notified Oklahoma that it had granted a medical hardship waiver to allow defensive tackle Dusty Dvoracek to play a fifth season with the Sooners. Dvoracek, a third-team All-American last season, was kicked off the team in September after he was involved in a fight at a Norman bar in which one of his high-school friends was injured. Oklahoma last week applied for a medical hardship on Dvoracek's behalf, but it was denied by the Big 12 Conference. Upon appeal, the NCAA's reinstatement staff granted the waiver Monday. .” –Associated Press, December 14, 2004

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Coach Bob Stoops said right guard J.D. Quinn, a 19-year-old arrested for driving under the influence early Nov. 1, will play against Texas A&M. Stoops said any punishment will be dealt with internally. "We'll deal with it as we have so many others," Stoops said.” – Dallas Morning News, Nov. 9, 2005

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“Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge of being a minor in possession of alcohol…Oklahoma spokesman Kenny Mossman said any discipline would be handled internally and coach Bob Stoops would not have any comment.” – Associated Press, May 31, 2006

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“[OU’s] compliance department has come under scrutiny in the wake of the revelation that [Sooner players] Bomar and Quinn were paid for hours they did not work at a Norman car dealership. Tack on the NCAA probation recently imposed on the men's basketball program -- and the finding of a "failure in monitoring" recruiting phone calls by the compliance department -- and some have suggested OU's compliance efforts have been lacking and are in need of an overhaul.” – George Schrader, The Oklahoman, Aug 27, 2006

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" ‘I'm not really supposed to discuss it,’ [OU freshman recruit Craig] Roark said Thursday. ‘Coach Stoops doesn't want me to discuss why I'm leaving. I don't want to say anything bad about the University of Oklahoma.’ ” – USAToday, April 27, 2006

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“Notable OU player dismissals during the Bob Stoops era
April 2, 2002: Sophomore quarterback Hunter Wall is dismissed hours after Wall was arrested for burglary and possession of marijuana.

May 4, 2002: Walk-on defensive end Claude Clayborne, a sophomore from Spiro, is dismissed following an arrest. Clayborne is charged with attempted robbery with an imitation firearm, with threatening violent action and with unlawfully carrying a weapon.

Sept. 17, 2004: Defensive tackle Dusty Dvoracek is dismissed amid mounting allegations of violent behavior. OU head football coach Bob Stoops announced the decision in a statement released by the school.

Dvoracek is re-instated the following season.

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