Flagstaffsooner
12/17/2006, 10:54 PM
The Collected Wisdom of Merv Johnson
Interviewed by Blake Jackson
The Oklahoman
OU Director of Football Operations, 70
Merv Johnson came this close to being a lifelong veterinarian. Had it not been for a phone call from Frank Broyles many years ago, Oklahomans never would have known Johnson’s name nor heard tales of his integrity. Watched him pace the Sooner sideline during Barry Switzer’s glory years nor listened to his college football insight during Bob Stoops’ return to the top. Now director of football operations and Oklahoma’s top liason to high school recruits all over the nation, Johnson shares his collected wisdom.
I don’t know who can say that they have integrity, truly. You can fool people a lot. Not too long ago, you didn’t put things on paper. A good man’s word was all anyone needed.
I was born right at the end of the Depression, so obviously times were pretty hard from a financial point of view. The Depression had pretty much devastated everybody, so we didn’t have a whole lot of frills. Grew up on a farm 10 miles outside of a town of 1,000 people. Went to a one-room country school. We didn’t have TV. Didn’t have electricity ‘til I was six or seven years old.
Milking the cows was my job. Every morning, from grade school all the way through high school and any time I came home from college. We only had two or three, but that was my job in the family. (My parents) recycled me.
My parents had gone to high school for two years and they didn’t follow sports or anything. So when I ended up going out for football, I dressed out for the first game I ever saw and played in the second. That’s kind of a late start compared to what guys get in this day and time.
Everybody says college is the greatest time of your life, and it was for me, too. But it was certainly a time where my horizons were broadened maybe more than most people’s had to be, because I really kind of had a slow start — socially and otherwise.
The one thing I learned from my parents is that times had been so tough on them growing up that they recognized you didn’t want to waste or squander or tie into a lot of frills. It was tough for them to make ends meet and they didn’t have anything to fall back on. That’s the scary thing about farming. The weather could wipe you out in one year, if you were living hand-to-mouth. My father didn’t want to be in debt. He didn’t want to owe anybody. A lot of the values that a lot of us admire today. I’ve been able to carry that feeling through. I just don’t know if I’ve been able to live it like he probably believed that I should.
I think it’s tougher for today’s college athletes to be really involved in things outside of football. Carl Pendleton has done a very good job of it, but I think you have to make your commitment in that direction and recognize that if anything’s going to suffer or get short-changed, it’s going to be your social time. A lot of people aren’t willing to give that up.
I never really thought about getting into coaching. During my senior year I decided that if I could get into a couple of chemistry courses, I could go into veterinary medicine. But Frank Broyles contacted me in the spring and asked if I wanted into coaching. I thought, ‘Well, I’m young and footloose and fancyfree. So, you bet.’
Barry Switzer was a junior when I went to Arkansas as a graduate coach. I was an RA in his dorm, so I got to know him really well. He was a pretty good student, but he had a good time, too; let’s put it that way. We had a lot of guys like that. They were all kind of ornery.
You just don’t realize how seldom national championships come along. You just don’t realize how many schools there are that will never win a national championship — there’s just no way. And I’ve been fortunate enough to work at three of them.
It’s like the saying, ‘One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch.’ One guy can misbehave or do something stupid and a program is judged by it. It really shouldn’t be that way. I don’t think we’ll ever get college athletics to where it’s perfect. There’s always a risk of some knucklehead doing something really stupid and embarrassing himself and a university. No matter how much compliance you have. No matter how conscientiously your coaches work at it, you simply can’t go everywhere he goes.
When coach Switzer stepped down, he recommended Gary Gibbs and myself and they picked coach Gibbs. That was a great choice, but it was a blow for me to be passed over where I’d been coaching for 10 years. It pretty well cooked my goose as far as head coaching in my career.
I’d probably be a better coach today than I’ve ever been in my life, but that’s not the way it works. You reach an age where you don’t have that much appeal to another staff. They’d rather hire a younger guy that could spend more time with them. I think most people feel a younger guy could appeal to recruits better. But I know he couldn’t appeal better to their parents.
You don’t have very many options as you grow older. To be at a program like this is a pretty good option.
To see things come back like they have since coach Stoops has been here, I would never have dreamed it could happen that quickly. I knew it could happen because the program’s got too much tradition and too much support to stay down long. But to have it come back as fast as it did, it has just blown me away. I feel very fortunate to have a chance to stick around and be a part of it.
Bob Barry Sr. is one of the grandest guys I’ve ever known. To think somebody could do a very strenuous job and have possessed such an enthusiasm for it after 45 years is just absolutely amazing. He’s so positive and upbeat and loves his work. It’s never become a punch-the-clock-type thing for him. I really respect that.
There are two qualities I admire greatly about Bob. He handles criticism with a great attitude. And he’s got what we all need: The ability to laugh at yourself. Too many of us make excuses and get all bent out of shape. Bob’s not like that. He can live with it. Those are lessons I try to share when I’m coaching players.
Bob’s spotter board is just meticulous. He’s got everything from shoe size to blood type on the opposition. During our first year in 1999, Iowa State had this lineman from Florida. Bob says, ‘John Jones, a 6-foot-3, 285-pound junior from Tampon Springs, Florida.’ So we get off air and I say, ‘Bob, I gotta call you on this. I think it’s Tarpon Springs.’ He tells that story and laughs about it. A lot of people couldn’t do that.
People use the NCAA basketball tournament as the model. But half the time, the best team in the country doesn’t win it. It’s the team that got hot at the right time or made a three at the buzzer. It’s not necessarily the best team. Nobody’s proven anything. I think it’s ridiculous that a 6-6 team gets into a bowl. Now, I’m happy for anybody that’s in there. But they have too many bowls right now. (Some teams) have just bought their way into a bowl game this year with those easy games early in the season. I don’t think that’s what your fans want and I don’t think that’s what your players want. They want to play in a game they will remember.
Interviewed by Blake Jackson
The Oklahoman
OU Director of Football Operations, 70
Merv Johnson came this close to being a lifelong veterinarian. Had it not been for a phone call from Frank Broyles many years ago, Oklahomans never would have known Johnson’s name nor heard tales of his integrity. Watched him pace the Sooner sideline during Barry Switzer’s glory years nor listened to his college football insight during Bob Stoops’ return to the top. Now director of football operations and Oklahoma’s top liason to high school recruits all over the nation, Johnson shares his collected wisdom.
I don’t know who can say that they have integrity, truly. You can fool people a lot. Not too long ago, you didn’t put things on paper. A good man’s word was all anyone needed.
I was born right at the end of the Depression, so obviously times were pretty hard from a financial point of view. The Depression had pretty much devastated everybody, so we didn’t have a whole lot of frills. Grew up on a farm 10 miles outside of a town of 1,000 people. Went to a one-room country school. We didn’t have TV. Didn’t have electricity ‘til I was six or seven years old.
Milking the cows was my job. Every morning, from grade school all the way through high school and any time I came home from college. We only had two or three, but that was my job in the family. (My parents) recycled me.
My parents had gone to high school for two years and they didn’t follow sports or anything. So when I ended up going out for football, I dressed out for the first game I ever saw and played in the second. That’s kind of a late start compared to what guys get in this day and time.
Everybody says college is the greatest time of your life, and it was for me, too. But it was certainly a time where my horizons were broadened maybe more than most people’s had to be, because I really kind of had a slow start — socially and otherwise.
The one thing I learned from my parents is that times had been so tough on them growing up that they recognized you didn’t want to waste or squander or tie into a lot of frills. It was tough for them to make ends meet and they didn’t have anything to fall back on. That’s the scary thing about farming. The weather could wipe you out in one year, if you were living hand-to-mouth. My father didn’t want to be in debt. He didn’t want to owe anybody. A lot of the values that a lot of us admire today. I’ve been able to carry that feeling through. I just don’t know if I’ve been able to live it like he probably believed that I should.
I think it’s tougher for today’s college athletes to be really involved in things outside of football. Carl Pendleton has done a very good job of it, but I think you have to make your commitment in that direction and recognize that if anything’s going to suffer or get short-changed, it’s going to be your social time. A lot of people aren’t willing to give that up.
I never really thought about getting into coaching. During my senior year I decided that if I could get into a couple of chemistry courses, I could go into veterinary medicine. But Frank Broyles contacted me in the spring and asked if I wanted into coaching. I thought, ‘Well, I’m young and footloose and fancyfree. So, you bet.’
Barry Switzer was a junior when I went to Arkansas as a graduate coach. I was an RA in his dorm, so I got to know him really well. He was a pretty good student, but he had a good time, too; let’s put it that way. We had a lot of guys like that. They were all kind of ornery.
You just don’t realize how seldom national championships come along. You just don’t realize how many schools there are that will never win a national championship — there’s just no way. And I’ve been fortunate enough to work at three of them.
It’s like the saying, ‘One bad apple can ruin the whole bunch.’ One guy can misbehave or do something stupid and a program is judged by it. It really shouldn’t be that way. I don’t think we’ll ever get college athletics to where it’s perfect. There’s always a risk of some knucklehead doing something really stupid and embarrassing himself and a university. No matter how much compliance you have. No matter how conscientiously your coaches work at it, you simply can’t go everywhere he goes.
When coach Switzer stepped down, he recommended Gary Gibbs and myself and they picked coach Gibbs. That was a great choice, but it was a blow for me to be passed over where I’d been coaching for 10 years. It pretty well cooked my goose as far as head coaching in my career.
I’d probably be a better coach today than I’ve ever been in my life, but that’s not the way it works. You reach an age where you don’t have that much appeal to another staff. They’d rather hire a younger guy that could spend more time with them. I think most people feel a younger guy could appeal to recruits better. But I know he couldn’t appeal better to their parents.
You don’t have very many options as you grow older. To be at a program like this is a pretty good option.
To see things come back like they have since coach Stoops has been here, I would never have dreamed it could happen that quickly. I knew it could happen because the program’s got too much tradition and too much support to stay down long. But to have it come back as fast as it did, it has just blown me away. I feel very fortunate to have a chance to stick around and be a part of it.
Bob Barry Sr. is one of the grandest guys I’ve ever known. To think somebody could do a very strenuous job and have possessed such an enthusiasm for it after 45 years is just absolutely amazing. He’s so positive and upbeat and loves his work. It’s never become a punch-the-clock-type thing for him. I really respect that.
There are two qualities I admire greatly about Bob. He handles criticism with a great attitude. And he’s got what we all need: The ability to laugh at yourself. Too many of us make excuses and get all bent out of shape. Bob’s not like that. He can live with it. Those are lessons I try to share when I’m coaching players.
Bob’s spotter board is just meticulous. He’s got everything from shoe size to blood type on the opposition. During our first year in 1999, Iowa State had this lineman from Florida. Bob says, ‘John Jones, a 6-foot-3, 285-pound junior from Tampon Springs, Florida.’ So we get off air and I say, ‘Bob, I gotta call you on this. I think it’s Tarpon Springs.’ He tells that story and laughs about it. A lot of people couldn’t do that.
People use the NCAA basketball tournament as the model. But half the time, the best team in the country doesn’t win it. It’s the team that got hot at the right time or made a three at the buzzer. It’s not necessarily the best team. Nobody’s proven anything. I think it’s ridiculous that a 6-6 team gets into a bowl. Now, I’m happy for anybody that’s in there. But they have too many bowls right now. (Some teams) have just bought their way into a bowl game this year with those easy games early in the season. I don’t think that’s what your fans want and I don’t think that’s what your players want. They want to play in a game they will remember.