This season marks my ...... [Archive] - SoonerFans.com Message Boards

nBoSTP

8/8/2009, 05:27 AM

25th as a sooner fan. It all began out of hatred of Nebraska actually. Living in Pennsylvania as an 8 year old in 1982 Penn St. was the national champions and since my dad was a Penn St. fan I was.. So the 1983 kickoff classic between Nebraska and Penn St. turned into a 44-6 Nebraska blowout. This cemented my hatred for Nebraska. Then came Novemeber 26, 1983 when the national game on CBS that week was Oklahoma vs. Nebraska. I remember it being a back and forth game with one play that hooked me as a fan forever. Spencer Tillman leaping into the endzone from the 5 yard line over a couple of Nebraska players while racing them into the corner of the pylon. Even though Oklahoma lost that day I knew I had a new favorite team. I still live in Pennsylvania today and I have had the same question my whole life, Why are you an Oklahoma fan? I always point back to this game and say what choice did I have really? Anyway I would love to cap this season off with seeing my 3rd national title as a fan. I would also like to hear other stories of how people became sooner fans.

Todd

budbarrybob

8/8/2009, 06:15 AM

I actually started out as an Okie State fan. I lived in northern Ok and All my family were OU fans. Aunts, Uncles, cousins and especially my older punk a$$ brother. So naturally to get my digs in his side, I cheered the pokes. When I graduated from HS and 1 yr at a Juco, I decided that my best educational opportunity resided with OU. That was 1985. Something good happened at OU that year ;) . Anyway, I have been a Soonerfan since.

Flagstaffsooner

8/8/2009, 07:13 AM

Noobs;)
Ive been a fan since Bud.

cheezyq

8/8/2009, 10:29 AM

...I would also like to hear other stories of how people became sooner fans.

Todd

I was born.

IronHorseSooner

8/8/2009, 10:53 AM

Met Steve Owens when I was 5. My first grade teacher was his sister-in-law. From then on, my Dad and I made Saturdays and OU games a tradition. I have watched them from all corners of this country, and while deployed both times in Iraq. Just listen to this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqkjxGKad_w&feature=related

oudivesherpa

8/8/2009, 11:15 AM

It was 1956, I was 12 and it was my first college football game. My Dad and brother were both Notre Dame Alumni (my dad class of '28 and my brother class of '53). OU was playing in South Bend, we had to drive 4 hours just to get to the game. OU was just kicking the snot out of the "great" Notre Dame, 40 to zip but the Notre Dame fans kept cheering for their team. I felt they were just plain stupid. I became an OU fan that day.

OU MBA 1969.

Seamus

8/8/2009, 11:18 AM

I was born.

^^^ This.

DMAFB_Sooner08

8/8/2009, 11:19 AM

"sooner born and sooner bred...when I die I'll be sooner dead"

MamaMia

8/8/2009, 11:25 AM

My father was a longhorn. He was raised in Texas, as were several branches of that side of my family. Many of my family members attended various universities in the state of Texas and live in Texas, therefore I have family who cheer for Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and the horns. The Texas A&M family members are really nice. The older horn fans are nice and good sports but the younger ones are not. I'm not very fond of any of the Texas Tech Ref Raider fans in my family. They are very mean spirited. I'm grateful that we don't have very many of them.

My father was an air traffic controlman in the U.S. Air Force and when he left the Air Force, he went to work for the Federal Aviation Administration and soon became the director of the Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City. I was only 4 years old when we moved there the first time. We would get transferred out of the state of Oklahoma from time to time, but we would always return. All my friends were from Oklahoma City. I considered myself an Oklahoman since thats all I knew.

I graduated from OU. I got butterflies the day I walked up the stairs to my first class.

The first game I attended was as a Girl Scout Brownie. Our assistant troop leader was Bud Wilkinson's secretary. Twenty 8 and 9 year old little girls sat right behind the bench that day. We were all dressed in our little brownie dresses with our gloves and beanies. The players were all kidders. They were winking and flirting with us. I remember thinking what dirty old men they were. I have loved them ever since. :D

BosworthXXXL

8/8/2009, 11:26 AM

Brian Bosworth

#44 THE BOZ

(wanted to note that the Boz was there and gone before I even turned 10, so I never liked anybody but OU, but HE was the reason I started)

...in a sense...born...I was quite young LOL

meoveryouxinfinity

8/8/2009, 11:36 AM

I was born into a family of orange. Not only OSU fans, OSU athletes. Not only athletes, but quarterbacks.

They all loved OU though, except that one week of the year. My uncle, ex-OSU starting qb, now lives in Phoenix. He attended both Fiasco bowls, decked in crimson.

We always rooted on both teams though. I went to both games during the fall. Never have and never will attend a Bedlam with my family though. I have a much stronger tie to OU, considering I attended there and, as a child, always wanted to be a winner.

Oh how times have changed with OSU fans. The hatred gets stronger each year.

walkoffsooner

8/8/2009, 11:54 AM

Born

BoulderSooner79

8/8/2009, 04:42 PM

Born in OKC and went to HS there. First year watching the sooners was '71. Freshman at OU in '74 and got to watch 3 of Barry's best squads in person -- '74, '75, '78. Pretty much crimson after that.

Williesan

8/8/2009, 04:57 PM

I was born.

^^^What he said.

I was born on a gameday Saturday into a family full of Sooners... literally full - my grandmother presented me with a momento presented to her by George Lynn Cross for having the most family members at OU at one time the day I graduated in 1998. I think all 4 of my mom's brothers (+1 wife of said brothers), my mom and dad were there at one time in 1972.

I even had the courtesy to show up before game time on 11/2. ;)

Williesan

stoopified

8/8/2009, 05:36 PM

My allegiance dates to 1969 which marks 40th anniversary and now entering season 41.This will be my 22nd season as season ticket holder.

A-M

8/8/2009, 05:44 PM

"sooner born and sooner bred...when I die I'll be sooner dead"

...me too!

yermom

8/8/2009, 06:11 PM

i didn't really know anything about college football until 1987 when i started the 6th grade at Wilson Middle School in Tulsa

i remember them coming to town and demolishing TU which was just blocks away from where we played football in gym class

my shop teacher was a Husker and was talking trash about how they wouldn't be undefeated after going to Lincoln

that year i learned to hate Miami, then Nebraska the following years...

i didn't really learn to hate Texas until i got to campus in '94 :D

swardboy

8/8/2009, 06:29 PM

Bud's last years I moved to Sapulpa at eight yrs of age...saw a Life magazine article about Wilkinson and his crazy Joe Don Looney...hooked ever since.

Dan Thompson

8/8/2009, 06:43 PM

Tom Catlin came to our church in Ponca City and he talked to about 6 of us, later that year I watched Ed Crowder fake the pants of KU or KS and the Ref's with his ball handling. We rode the train down from OKC and walked across the open space between the tracks and the stadium.

That was back in 52 or 53 and I have been proud of OU ever since.

SoonerBacker

8/8/2009, 07:03 PM

bluedogok

8/8/2009, 08:00 PM

Born into it as well, my father has always been a Sooner fan. He wanted to go to OU but couldn't afford to go to college in the late 50's (ended up in the Army instead) but he and my mother made sure that my sister and I had the opportunity to go to school at OU, so we lived his dream as well as ours.

stoopified

8/8/2009, 08:34 PM

I guess I should share the fact that Steve Owens and my mother share credit for me being a Sooner.I became a Sooner fan watching the 1969 game against oSu.Steve skewed my thinking of how football was played that day.He carried the ball 55 times for 261 yards and 4TDs in the 28-27 Sooner victory.I thought the whole idea was just keep giving the ball to your best player.

y mother (who oddly enough was aTexan by birth) started buying me books on Sooner football at around the same time.By the time I read these books and learned the GREAT TRADITION and history of OU I was hooked.

soonerinkeywest

8/8/2009, 09:29 PM

November 1987, The week leading up to the OU-nebraska game.Hooked every since"Hello..goodbye Nebraska"

Sooner24

8/8/2009, 11:36 PM

I was born into a family that was 110% Crimson & Cream. My Dad was in the Air Force and stationed in Texas when my older brother was born. Dad sent my mom back to Oklahoma when it got close to time for him to arrive because he "was NOT going to have any Texans in the family!"

Dad got season tickets for all of us at the start of the 1975 season. I haven't missed a home game since I started.

We started getting season tickets in 1972 and I have not missed a home game since.

Reading just the first page of this thread some of you are way older than i thought. :O

tigepilot

8/9/2009, 12:18 AM

I was born in Dallas to a family of Okies that soon moved back to OK (45 minutes from Norman) where I was raised so I consider myself "born and raised" because it's all I ever knew. Played football from little league through High School and loved to study football, particularly offense. Loved the wishbone option offense of the Switzer era. Later attended and graduated OU during the Gibbs/Snellenburger/Blake years and missed VERY few home games (always due to work).

Didn't really attend any away games until I started flying for a career. It was then I learned to hate OSU through a few trips that had me taking OSU fans to away games where I learned "OSU fan" was nothing more than "OU hater"... literally. Always knew I was supposed to hate Texas but didn't truely hate Texas until I moved here for work. I'm ALWAYS amazed at how arrogant they are despite their lack of accomplishment in relation to resources.

Now really trying to get my British wife hooked but I'm now nearly ten years in with no luck... maybe Tom Wort will help. :) Both my boys were brought home from the hospital in onesies that resembled OU football jerseys, the last of which cost me the ability to see the 2003 OU-Missouri game (not complaining) which I had tickets to.

My youngest is starting to show an interest in football and is signed up for little league flag football (5 years old now but will turn 6 soon). I intend to take the kids to an OU game this season to help ingrain the idea of OU football tradition... probably the OU-OSU game. No orange is aloud in this house. :)

bluedogok

8/9/2009, 09:58 AM

No orange is aloud in this house. :)
My wife is a Tech grad, so we have a rule of no orange, either burnt or safety in our house.

ouduckhunter

8/9/2009, 03:48 PM

Sooner born, Sooner bred, and Sooner educated!

Grew up with the Sooners listening to them on the radio and watching them on tv with my family since I was a a little kid. I'm from the same town as Steve Owens, and I was in grade school when he won the Heisman. There was a huge parade for him, and then he toured all the schools with his Heisman. We all got to see the Heisman up close and personal.

Now we get ESPN Gameplan, and all the cable sports packages so that we don't miss any OU games out here in Pac 10 country. We listen to the games on tv until we get sick of the announcers. We mute the tv, and then we listen to the OU announcers on Sirius radio. We love having those Okie accents in our living room!

When the Sooners play on the west coast we're at the game.

ouwasp

8/10/2009, 12:21 AM

Been a Sooner fan since about '75... winning MNCs has a way of drawing fans..my Dad in an osu grad but has always been a Sooner fan. He took me to the WV game in '78...since then we have made at least one game every season, with only a few exceptions. The last game we went to together was the 2007 Mizzou game (loudest I've ever heard Owen Field, but I wasn't at 2000 Neb or '08 TT).

I don't know that my Dad and I will make another game. Now he's 78 with a bad heart. But I have a 16 yr old son to take... and a wife and daughter for that matter...:)

I do have some grad credit from OU. But I doubt my kids will go there; too expen$ive.... but we'll always be Sooner fans!

WA. Sooner

8/10/2009, 12:29 AM

born a SOONER fan in 1964. Growing up in Tulsa, we played sand lot football and I always wanted to be Steve Davis or Thomas Lott

MrJimBeam

8/10/2009, 05:41 AM

FOREvAR!!!1!

Soonersince57

8/10/2009, 09:58 AM

My father was a longhorn. He was raised in Texas, as were several branches of that side of my family. Many of my family members attended various universities in the state of Texas and live in Texas, therefore I have family who cheer for Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and the horns. The Texas A&M family members are really nice. The older horn fans are nice and good sports but the younger ones are not. I'm not very fond of any of the Texas Tech Ref Raider fans in my family. They are very mean spirited. I'm grateful that we don't have very many of them.

There are several distant cousin horn fans in my family. Most in Austin. Some of the younger ones brought their friends to a family reunion (2006). Rudest sacks of s^&* I've ever been around. They and their older parents were head-to-toe orange and talked about Vince the whole time. This was amongst many, many relatives, some of whom were OU fans, some A&m fans and so on. When I got home I photo shopped all of their horn t-shirts and turned them upside down, sent them all on the family distribution list. Haven't heard from them since.

Anyway, I went to my first game in 1962 when I was 5. I've been to most of the home games since 1975.

1890MilesToNorman

8/10/2009, 10:11 AM

A-M

8/10/2009, 02:06 PM

Sooner04

8/10/2009, 03:00 PM

Then came Novemeber 26, 1983 when the national game on CBS that week was Oklahoma vs. Nebraska. I remember it being a back and forth game with one play that hooked me as a fan forever. Spencer Tillman leaping into the endzone from the 5 yard line over a couple of Nebraska players while racing them into the corner of the pylon. Even though Oklahoma lost that day I knew I had a new favorite team. I still live in Pennsylvania today and I have had the same question my whole life, Why are you an Oklahoma fan? I always point back to this game and say what choice did I have really? Anyway I would love to cap this season off with seeing my 3rd national title as a fan. I would also like to hear other stories of how people became sooner fans.
Here you go, Todd. Fitting that this is post #34 in the thread.

MHr60rAWs3s

Damn! How about the block by Derrick Shepard to help seal the perimeter?!

kbsooner21

8/10/2009, 03:46 PM

I was born into it as both mom and dad were huge fans. That was in the summer of 1982. First real memory was watching Mike Gaddis run roughshed over the Pokes in 89'. I remember being devastated as he tore up his knee against Texas that same year. Even the down years of Gibbs, Schnelly, and Blake had no effect on me as a youngster. I graduated from high school in 2000 and made it to every game that year except Kansas State, and both Big 12 and BCS Title games. One of the best years of my life I must say. So I've only really seen 1 national championship. Know the history and tradition quite well, just ready to see my 2nd and Oklahoma's 8th national championship again real soon!

1890MilesToNorman

8/10/2009, 03:49 PM

This I want to see!;)

Well to be honest she may have just said "Oh You little mother ****er what have you done now?" but I was too young to know the difference. :D

A-M

8/10/2009, 06:36 PM

I didn't understand how great OU was until i was 2 so I guess I've been a fan fer 47 years. Or the day Mom changed my diaper only to notice I had pooped the perfect OU emblem and knew it was a masterpiece.

O.K. you guys, get your mind out of the gutter! This is what I was talking about. I thought that if his Mom kept it, it would be worth some money to some people on this board. That's all, nothing more, nothing less. Besides, I don't use those words on this board or otherwise to be exact.

PoncaSooner

8/10/2009, 08:20 PM

I first became a fan in 1974. I was in the Marine Corps and stationed in Japan. Some friends and I would listen to games on short wave radio in the middle of the night Japan time. I was so proud and felt a little closer to home just listening. Ive been a fan every since. My son graudated from OU taught school for three years and is now back to school at OU for his masters.

goingoneight

8/10/2009, 09:58 PM

It's my 25th, too. I'll be 25 in October.

Sooner born, Sooner bred beetches! :D

Let's just say my childhood sucked. :(

SouthFortySooner

8/11/2009, 11:56 AM

...my dad went out and bought our first color TV to watch the OU/Tex game.
1964.

MyT Oklahoma

8/12/2009, 12:24 AM

Count me in since the Run of '71. I was a senior in high school and was coming back from a cross country meet when we heard the score of the OU/KSU game (75-28). I loved the way Jack Mildren ran the Wishbone and the class act that he was on and off the field. Watching the Game of the Century at Aunt Loretta's was a heartbreaking experience but I was still so proud of our Sooners that day.

I had to listen on AM radio most of the 70's ("This is the voice of the Sooner Football Network.") unless they played on TV and was so glad when Georgia and OU successfully sued the NCAA for their television rights.

I finally got to the Snake Pit for the very first time in 1978 and have been back many times since. I've been to some OU-Texas games and have done Commerce Street of course, and I still get the thrill every new football season after all of these years.

I have tried to pass on my love for Sooner football to my only child and the Sooners are 7 and 0 in games that we've attended together. Yeah, I know, we need to go to a bowl game this year.

hgarmorer

8/12/2009, 03:40 AM

I remember around 88 or so when Jamelle Holieway came to our elementary school (I was in 4th grade) on crutches and talked to us about the DARE program. He signed some autographs and things like that. I had been a Sooner long before that, but he was the first OU football player I had met in real life.