20 years ago today... [Archive] - SoonerFans.com Message Boards

The Maestro

6/19/2009, 10:17 AM

...I was just a snotty-nosed 18 year old preparing to embark on my dream of attending the University of Oklahoma. I was spending the Summer living with my sister and her husband in Muskogee and working 48 hours a week at a plant there to save up some dough for college.

On this day, June 19, 1989, I was chilling out watching some exciting "The Young and the Restless" when a breaking news update interrupted the programming. The T.V. crew was live in Norman. They were live at the stadium.

Barry Switzer was resigning as head coach. The King was stepping down. He had endured enough and as we all know now David Swank was out to get him.

My jaw dropped...I had lived to be a student at OU and watch Switzer coach my beloved Sooners...and now he was leaving. It sucked. Still does. The King left OU too early, but he is still THE KING!

Hail to the King on this dark and sad day of a memory.

boomermagic

6/19/2009, 10:27 AM

Jacie

6/19/2009, 11:54 AM

I wept.

OK2U

6/19/2009, 12:24 PM

DOK:
Rock bottom came during coaching stints by former player John Blake and Howard Schnellenbirger.
"I hated to see that, especially for John, the mistakes he made," Switzer said, before adding, "I didn't feel that way for Schnellenbirger, though."

OUDoc

6/19/2009, 12:50 PM

That was the end of my junior year at OU.

BoonesFarmSooner

6/19/2009, 02:31 PM

I'm with ya Amigo!

This was about two months before I even knew Maestro and we later drowned our sorrows with some Boones in Walker 730.

My first OU game ever in Norman, Oklahoma was to watch a Gary Gibbs led team beat up on New Mexico State 73-3.

I was fortunate enough to make the OU-tx game in 1988 when BSwitz coached and Kurt Casper had the INT returned for a Touchdown.

It's a sad day for Oklahoma Football, and one of those things where I will always remember where I was on June 19th, 1989.

OklahomaTuba

6/19/2009, 03:11 PM

1430 in tulsa is replaying the press conference at 4:00.

Breadburner

6/19/2009, 03:37 PM

I was working as a concrete finisher on a residential job site.....It came on the the framers radio....Everyone stopped working and listened.....

TXBOOMER

6/19/2009, 04:01 PM

I was stationed at Parris Island, SC. A buddy of mine told me the news and I called BS on him.

Pricetag

6/19/2009, 04:01 PM

I'm glad I was still 14 and fairly clueless about football when this happened. It didn't tear me up like it would now.

All the talk about this has me fascinated, thinking what it would have been like had Barry stayed and coached at OU from there into the '90s.

MiccoMacey

6/19/2009, 04:09 PM

I was in Panama, securing bases for a later invasion.

Never knew about it until I got home in August.

hgarmorer

6/19/2009, 05:08 PM

I was throwing rocks at girls (I was 10, 4th Grade, Ridgeview)

goingoneight

6/19/2009, 05:41 PM

I was eating paste in kindergarten.

My OU fandom came from watching OU games with Dad, as far back as I could remember, even when it was painful.

Enter Bob Stoops... oh, how sweet high school was.

SoonerShark

6/19/2009, 05:55 PM

"June 19, 1989. A date that will live in infamy." You may quote me.

SoonerShark

6/19/2009, 06:01 PM

I was in Summer school in Norman. All of a sudden many media outlets were on campus. I graduated undergrad from the University of Oklahoma in December 1989. (Omigosh, I just realized that I graduated two decades ago undergrad. Somebody grab the defibrillator.)

CK Sooner

6/19/2009, 06:08 PM

I wasn't alive....

MyT Oklahoma

6/19/2009, 06:35 PM

AlbqSooner

6/19/2009, 07:23 PM

I was walking into a Judge's Chambers in St. Petersburg, FL where I had a motion to argue. The other attorney told me and I called BS. The Judge, a Bama graduate who was stationed at Vance AFB many years before told me that it was true. I don't remembr much after that.

chechemowmow

6/19/2009, 08:06 PM

My balls still itched.

MiccoMacey

6/19/2009, 09:49 PM

I didn't like David Swank 20 years ago today and I still don't like him now.

I know this won't endear me to either yourself or the rest of the board, but David Swank has always been a good guy and friend to me.

We rented a house from him when I moved to Norman...he went way out of his way to make it a better place AFTER we started renting it.

Barry Switzer said David Swank didn't fire him...if the King can live on the same street as Swank and be peaceable with him I'm not sure why any of us not associated with their relationship except through fandom can't let it go.

CK Sooner

6/19/2009, 09:51 PM

My balls still itched.

Best first post ever!

SoonerShark

6/19/2009, 10:21 PM

I didn't like David Swank 20 years ago today and I still don't like him now.

My heart went out to Coach Switzer back then though and I am so glad that he chose to remain close to OUr program over the years. No further comment.

I liked him around the law school, but he appeared to be an NCAA quisling in 1989. He should have told the NCAA to go stick its d in its a.

SoonerShark

6/19/2009, 10:26 PM

If we did all of those bad things why did Tom Osborne still like Switzer, a coach against whom Tom was only 5-12? Why would wishbone era OU attempt to buy a wide receiver, Hart Sleaze Dyke? We would not. It was BS about BSwitzer.

SbOrOiNaEnR

6/19/2009, 10:45 PM

...Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.

MyT Oklahoma

6/20/2009, 01:31 AM

I know this won't endear me to either yourself or the rest of the board, but David Swank has always been a good guy and friend to me.

We rented a house from him when I moved to Norman...he went way out of his way to make it a better place AFTER we started renting it.

Barry Switzer said David Swank didn't fire him...if the King can live on the same street as Swank and be peaceable with him I'm not sure why any of us not associated with their relationship except through fandom can't let it go.

It's still a free country and to each their own opinion. However.. Swank was hot to trot to force Switzer out and that lame decision ended up giving us 10 years of second rate football. If Switzer doesn't carry a grudge I admire him for it but the rest of us are entitled to see Swank for what he was.. a moron.

fadada1

6/21/2009, 08:40 AM

right there with ya, boonesfarm and meastro. started at OU in '89 as well. bit of a shocker having to start your college football watching career in that way. not as big of a shock to the local culture having grown up in new york. not that big of deal up here.

funny how much has changed in 20 years.

Jacie

6/21/2009, 12:33 PM

Regarding the whole Swank thing, having lived through it, it seems Oklahoma University changed, I am talking about the overall mood of everyone even remotely associated with the place, when Holloman retired and Banowsky came in. Don't get me wrong, Dollar Bill was in many ways a godsend. As a University employee at the time I was pleased to see OUr annual raises increased all because of Bill and he set things in motion that led to the campus footprint expanding to the east, west and south with the addition of a new energy center, arts center, and law center respectively. An eye sore right in the middle of the Norman campus, the old Women's Building with it's gravel parking lot was torn down (and you should have heard the howls of protest) to make space to more than double the size of the library. But in addition to the Banowsky's we got Swank in the deal. It kinda seemed like at that point OU changed from being an institute of higher learning into a business. It was all dollars and cents from that point on. If someone or something wasn't carrying their weight they or it were gone. Swank either justified or not acquired the reputation of being Banowsky's hatchet man. It was duing that time that the University president was quoted as saying that it wouldn't matter if he (Barry) were caught smoking dope so long as he produced National Championships. Interesting to ponder what affect another touchdown or two in specific games might have had on the turn of events . . .

MiccoMacey

6/22/2009, 09:39 AM

When we moved into his rental property (which was just a block away from his home), we had two dogs (which you know as Micco and Macey...hence the screen name). David came over to meet them and make sure they were going to be okay in the yard.

The fenced in property had a huge front and side property, but an extremely small back yard. My dogs are lab and retriever mixes and they liked to run a bunch. David was worried they'd be too penned in. I kept re-assuring him that these were our babies, and we walked them nearly every single day for over an hour (which we did).

Still, he tore down that fence that kept them penned in, and put up a new fence (with his own money and with his own hands) which gave us a backyard about three to four times the size of what we had.

I tried to pay him for it, and offered to help him install it. He wanted no part of either. And this was at the end of June, when it was hot as all get out.

You guys know him (primarily) through football or work-related events...I know him in his home environment...away from everyone when he can just be "David".

And I'm extremely glad I got to know him in this manner. I may not like him as a boss, I may not like him as a law professor...but I know him as a friend and that means more to me than knowing him in any other environment.

Just my .02 cents.

TexasLidig8r

6/22/2009, 09:48 AM

It's still a free country and to each their own opinion. However.. Swank was hot to trot to force Switzer out and that lame decision ended up giving us 10 years of second rate football. If Switzer doesn't carry a grudge I admire him for it but the rest of us are entitled to see Swank for what he was.. a moron.

Please explain why Swank was a moron again?

soonerfan28

6/22/2009, 10:25 AM

I was 9 years old and enjoying my summer in a little hick town called Blackburn.

tru2ou

6/22/2009, 10:28 AM

I actually covered this press conference for WWLS. Very sad day. I had to go on the air with radio stations around the country and hear the joy in their voices.

- tru

NMSooner'80

6/22/2009, 11:04 AM

Please explain why Swank was a moron again?

I remember watching him get carved up by Ted Koppel on "Nightline" back in 1988. Also, I remember in Switzer's book that he thought Swank was going to try to de-emphasize football to an extent ("too big" for the academics-only types on campus), and he couldn't do it with Barry still in charge.

Also, I remember some of the non-Oklahoma media coverage. To those clowns, Barry was everything the Texan media said and worse. Joe Paterno, who was a friend of Barry's by then, had an old quote brought out of the mothballs that he wound up apologizing to Switzer over - even before the crap that got Barry canned had surfaced. Joe-Pa even wrote a foreward to Barry's book.

Someone from an Oklahoma media outlet asked a loser from USA Today, who was practically giddy that Barry was done, if he'd ever met the man. He said he did, "at a press conference."

People also forget that the national guys always blamed Barry for the probation that he inherited in 1973, and they also lapped up the "Oklahoma cheats" stuff from the Darrell Royal-syncophants in the Texas media.

MiccoMacey

6/22/2009, 11:40 AM

Switzer's opinion is just that...it's his opinion.

Not saying he was wrong, but it's possible that as the Head Coach, anything remotely perceived as dangrous to his team could be considered "de-emphasizing" football.

Clearly, he knows the ins and outs of what was happening back then, but it's also possible he ony perceived that Swank was out to stop him.

SbOrOiNaEnR

6/22/2009, 01:10 PM

Someone from an Oklahoma media outlet asked a loser from USA Today, who was practically giddy that Barry was done, if he'd ever met the man. He said he did, "at a press conference."

they also lapped up the "Oklahoma cheats" stuff from the Darrell Royal-syncophants in the *Texas* media.

Who are those two @$$holes with Switzer? ;)

Spek to whoever correctly ID's the story/reference first.

MyT Oklahoma

6/23/2009, 12:16 AM

Some drunk Sooner fan in the Cottton Bowl before the start of the 1976 OU-Texas game.

MyT Oklahoma

6/23/2009, 12:17 AM

Please explain why Swank was a moron again?

You figure it out.. you've got a law degree.

Crucifax Autumn

6/23/2009, 01:29 AM

Who are those two @$$holes with Switzer? ;)

Spek to whoever correctly ID's the story/reference first.

Some drunk Sooner fan in the Cottton Bowl before the start of the 1976 OU-*Texas* game.

And it was Royal and Switzer with Gerald Ford in the middle coming out for the coin toss.

I think the drunk Sooner yelling was olevet.

TexasLidig8r

6/23/2009, 07:39 AM

You figure it out.. you've got a law degree.

Because he wanted to bring integrity to the athletic program while placing an emphasis on improving the academic quality of the university as a whole ???

How DARE he!!!!!

Soonersince57

6/23/2009, 10:06 AM

Hmmm. The Texas fan thinks Switzer getting fired was a good thing. Imagine.

SoonerinSouthlake

6/23/2009, 05:34 PM

[QUOTE=The Maestro;2633544]...I was just a snotty-nosed 18 year old preparing to embark on my dream of attending the University of Oklahoma. I was spending the Summer living with my sister and her husband in Muskogee and working 48 hours a week at a plant there to save up some dough for college.

On this day, June 19, 1989, I was chilling out watching some exciting "The Young and the Restless" when a breaking news update interrupted the programming. The T.V. crew was live in Norman. They were live at the stadium.

QUOTE]
Same age.....different town. I helped usher in the electric "Garry Gibbs Era"

4 years in college....One win against a traditional rival

MyT Oklahoma

6/23/2009, 11:19 PM

Hmmm. The *Texas* fan thinks Switzer getting fired was a good thing. Imagine.

Kind of like Texas fans posting on an OU thread. I guess all of the Texas threads suck so bad that they have to come over here to find any intelligent life.

soonerinkeywest

6/24/2009, 02:35 AM

I was 8 years Old, my dad just picked me up in his Al Bundy mobile ..from my aunts house in Glenpool, where I was Sunburned and drenched from the pool and it came on the radio on my short drive back to Bixby. It had already been repeated several times that day and my dad sadly said "Barrys leaving"Or something like that. I was pretty distraught for an 8 year old who didn't know a whole hell of a lot.