Final score: OU 27, CU 19. Thirty-six straight.
All Work, Then Play
Perfection was Bud Wilkinson’s trump card. He demanded it from himself and from his players. And Oklahoma’s trip to the 1959 Orange Bowl is the perfect example.
While some teams looked at a bowl trip as a reward for a successful season, allowing their players to relax and soak up the atmosphere, Wilkinson had a different view. Even though the Sooners’ hopes for a national title had faded with a 15-14 loss to Texas, he was all business.
From the moment the Sooners arrived in Miami the week before their game against Syracuse, they were working to improve and polish Wilkinson’s game plan. Long two-a-day practices left little time for any sight-seeing tours or trips to the beach.
Wilkinson was interested in only one thing—winning.
“I remember when we landed and arrived at the hotel, Coach Wilkinson got us in the lobby and told us our shoes, shorts and T-shirts were already laid out for us on our beds,” said center Bob Harris. “He said get them on and get back down here.”
When the players returned to the lobby, Wilkinson marched them out into the streets of Miami and had them run for almost two hours.
The Sooners’ regular schedule starting the next day was: up at 5:30 a.m., bus across town to the practice facility, work out for two to three hours, stop briefly for lunch and then hit it again for two more hours.
“You barely had time to find some shade and eat a couple of sandwiches,” said Harris. “And by the time we drove back to the hotel and ate dinner, we were so exhausted we didn’t have the energy to go anywhere. It was no picnic.”
Wilkinson’s rigorous schedule lasted for five days, and on Friday, with the game only 24 hours away, he only worked the team out once.
A big performance from Prentice Gautt, whose 42-yard scoring run on the game’s second play gave OU a lead it would not relinquish, and the Sooners went on to beat Syracuse 21-7. Afterward, Wilkinson rewarded his team by staying in Miami for two more days.
Eight Points Away
Oklahoma won three national championships under the tutelage of Bud Wilkinson during the 1950s. Amazingly, the Sooners could have won three more titles—in 1954, ’57 and ’58—if circumstances would have been altered just slightly.
Wilkinson’s crew, despite posting a perfect 10-0 record, finished third behind Ohio State and UCLA in ’54. Then after earning back-to-back national crowns, a 7-0 loss to Notre Dame cost OU a chance at three straight and also snapped the longest winning streak in history at 47 games.
The following season, a heartbreaking 15-14 loss to archrival Texas was the lone blemish on the Sooners’ slate. The Longhorns, who trailed 14-8 late, scored on a pass play in the closing seconds and kicked the extra point to seal the win. That was enough to end any thoughts of a national title.
“We were disappointed we didn’t win it in 1954, but maybe we weren’t as impressive as some of the other teams,” said OU quarterback Jimmy Harris. “The eastern press in Chicago and New York was so dominating. They obviously knew about Oklahoma because we had been good for a while, but it seemed we didn’t get the same attention at times.”
Brothers in Arms
When George Farmer, Charles Parker, Sylvester Norwood of Dunjee High School, and Frank Wilson Jr. of Oklahoma City Douglass, checked out practice gear on September 12, 1955, they were not looking to make any headlines. But since they were the first African-American players to try out in the 61-year history of the OU football program, their presence did not go unnoticed.
And while none of the four were successful in their bids to become the first players of their race to make the OU roster, they helped open the door for future generations of black players, such as the legendary Prentice Gautt.
Bronco's Story
The depth charts for some of Bud Wilkinson’s OU teams were filled with positions that listed as many as a dozen names from top to bottom. Plenty of good football players never saw the field during the season because they were buried behind too many guys with more talent.
Bronco McGugan was a victim of the number games. A smallish 152-pound center, he refused to quit despite taking some serious beatings during Wilkinson’s rigorous practice sessions. McGugan was so far down on the depth chart, he was not even issued a regular helmet. Instead, he wore an old leather one left over from a decade earlier.
McGugan, however, had a cult following, of sorts. His name drew attention and he eventually became known as the All-American Sub. Sooner fans formed the McGugan Marching and Chowder Society and raised money to purchase a new white helmet like his teammates wore.
His popularity grew to the point that Time Magazine did a story on McGugan.
Bud vs. Jim
It was a matchup of monumental proportion—a classic student vs. mentor showdown that had the entire Sooner nation on edge.
Bud Wilkinson’s OU squad ran roughshod over its conference rivals in 1953, and in the process set up an Orange Bowl battle with top-ranked Maryland. The Terrapins were coached by the same Jim Tatum who led the Sooners to an 8-3 mark seven seasons earlier. Tatum was also responsible, in part, for bringing Wilkinson to OU.
Three weeks before the much-anticipated game, Maryland was crowned national champion, and a week prior to that, Tatum returned to Norman to scout the Sooners.
Tatum bragged on his Terps and believed they would finish off a perfect season against his former team. But Wilkinson and company had other ideas. OU’s defense played brilliantly and the offense squeezed just enough juice out of its running game to produce the game’s only touchdown—a Larry Grigg run by way of a J. D. Roberts path-clearing block.
The Sooners earned a hard-fought 7-0 victory. And in the aftermath, Tatum confessed that Wilkinson had outcoached him.
End of the Streak
After a close call with Colorado (14-13) on October 26, 1957, Oklahoma had beaten Kansas State and Missouri to stretch college football’s longest winning streak to 47 straight games. An unranked Notre Dame team came to Norman trying to avenge a 40-0 thrashing the season before, but without much firepower to back its mission.
But as luck of the Irish would have it, a flu epidemic had been raging on campus, and several dozen of Bud Wilkinson’s players were still trying to recover when Saturday rolled around.
“There were a lot of guys who had been sick, but we never used that as an excuse,” said center Bob Harris. “We should have defeated Notre Dame that day.”
It had been four years since the Sooners had tasted defeat, but a struggling offense put the streak in jeopardy from the opening quarter. Notre Dame’s defense would not budge, and the game entered the fourth quarter still scoreless.
Wilkinson could almost see the writing on the wall.
“I was willing to settle for a scoreless tie in the third quarter,” he commented.
The Irish were in no mood for a tie. Quarterback Bob Williams directed a 20-play, 80-yard drive that culminated with a Dick Lynch scoring run with 3:50 remaining. But trailing 7-0, Oklahoma fans still believed the Sooners would find a way to win.
Williams made sure that didn’t happen. After the Sooners had marched inside the Irish 10-yard line, the Notre Dame senior intercepted a pass with under a minute to go. Almost 62,000 OU fans sat stunned as the clock expired.
“We were disappointed. That was only natural, but it wasn’t like it was the end of the world,” said running back Jakie Sandefer. “I remember Coach Wilkinson coming into the dressing room and saying, ‘I’m proud of you guys. You’ve been part of winning 47 straight games. That is something no major college team will ever do again. Just remember, the only men who never lose are the men that never play.’”
Perfect Quarterback
When Bud Wilkinson brought in Terrell, Texas, halfback Jimmy Harris in 1953, he spent all of a week running plays with the backs. OU’s coach had other ideas for Harris, and he began executing those plans by moving the speedy freshman to quarterback.
Harris w
as sixth on the depth chart when he made the switch.
“Coach Wilkinson said he might try me at quarterback before I signed. And I didn’t really care—I just wanted to play at Oklahoma,” said Harris.
Wilkinson was impressed with Harris’ leadership qualities and he noticed the young man had extremely quick hands and good instincts. He was already a fearless defensive halfback, and he was athletic enough to make the transition to QB look easy.
Deep inside, Wilkinson believed Harris might just be the future of his program.
When Harris took over the job during his sophomore season in 1954, it didn’t take him long to prove his coach right. Oklahoma finished 10-0 with Harris at the helm that fall and followed that up with back-to-back national championship seasons.
“I was fortunate to play at OU at a time when the surrounding talent was just so deep,“said Harris, who was 25-0 as the Sooners’ starting quarterback. “We had the best coach and the best players in the country. That made my job a lot easier.
“At the time, I didn’t think anything of the winning streak. Ifelt like I was supposed to win them all.”
A Brush with Greatness
After playing the entire 1947 season with two bad elbows and a banged-up shoulder, Merle Dinkins finally agreed to a medical examination. Doctors determined both of his elbows needed reconstructive surgery, and they opted to operate on both at the same time.
Recovering in his hospital bed afterward, Dinkins was helpless to do anything that required using his arms. So when teammate Stan West dropped by for a visit, Dinkins decided to make the most of the situation and asked West if he would brush his teeth.
West thought for a moment and answered, “I’ll do it, Merle, but that’s as far as this friendship goes.”
Team Unity
Although there were players who did not like the fact Bud Wilkinson brought in an African-American running back to play for Oklahoma in 1956, Prentice Gautt said he was greeted with encouragement and consideration from many of his new teammates and coaches. But that did not mean there would not be plenty of other hurdles to overcome, as many parts of the country resisted integration at any level of society.
While Gautt often was not allowed to stay in the same hotel as his teammates or eat at the same restaurants, a certain display of unity one evening provided more than a little hope.
OU’s freshman team had just played Tulsa and then stopped at a local eatery on the way back to Norman. But upon seeing Gautt, the manager told him they did not serve Negroes and asked him to go to the basement to eat his meal.
“I told him I had played with the guys, and if I couldn’t eat with them, I wouldn’t eat at all,” said Gautt, who retreated to the team bus in tears.
After watching the event unfold, Gautt’s teammates began a mass exodus to the parking lot as a show of support.
“Port [Robertson] had already gone out to console Prentice, but we weren’t going to sit there and eat without him,” said teammate Brewster Hobby. “Getting up and leaving was the right thing to do. Prentice was a part of our team, and what they did wasn’t right.”
The show of support boosted Gautt’s spirits and helped further bond him with his teammates.
Platoon System
Bud Wilkinson believed since most of his players went both ways, meaning they were on the field for long periods of time during games, that a platoon system would help keep his squad fresh for the fourth quarter. Wilkinson always said that’s when games were won or lost.
So the OU coach had a first unit and a second unit that shared playing time every game.
Doc Hearon, a member of the second unit, wanted to be a starter, and he went to assistant coach Gomer Jones to voice his opinion one day.
“Coach, I ought to be on first string,” he said, to which Jones replied, “Doc, we don’t have a first string. We’ve got two teams and it’s all equal.”
Hearon looked at Jones for a moment and said, “If that’s the case, then I’d like to be on that other team.”
Roomies
The top-ranked Sooners opened up the 1957 season on the road at No. 8 Pittsburgh. It was the first varsity season for OU’s first African-American player, Prentice Gautt, who had earned the number-two spot on the depth chart at running back behind Jakie Sandefer.
On road trips, the top two players on the depth chart at each position shared a room. But when the list was handed out in the hotel lobby upon the team’s arrival, Sandefer was listed with third-teamer Bobby Boyd.
“I went to Coach Wilkinson and told him I had no problems rooming with Prentice, but he said that had nothing to do with it. He explained that Prentice had fumbled a couple of times in the last practice and that’s why he had been moved to third team,” explained Sandefer.
The next week, Wilkinson called Sandefer in for a meeting and asked if he would mind rooming with Gautt on the remainder of the team’s road trips. Sandefer agreed.
Even after Gautt was moved to fullback the following season, the two men remained roommates on the road.
“We did that for two seasons and became good friends,” said Sandefer. “Prentice was a prince of a guy. Was he different? Yeah, he was different—mostly because he was a better student and a better person than most of the guys on the team. He was special.”
Tough Love
No person in the University of Oklahoma athletics department was more respected or feared than Port Robertson. He served as head wrestling coach, conditioning coach and academic advisor during a career that spanned 40 years from 1947-86.
Besides producing consistent winners on the mat—his teams won three national titles during a 14-year period— Robertson ruled with an iron fist when it came to academia.
Miss a class, answer to Port. Skip study hall, answer to Port.
Robertson was responsible for helping more than a few student athletes find their way to graduation during his time at OU. One of the football players who benefited from Robertson’s tough love methods was Jerry Pettibone.
Pettibone was sleep walking through his freshman season at OU, buried on the depth chart and uninspired by school. He was teetering on the brink of becoming an academic casualty when Robertson stepped in with a phone call to Pettibone’s father.
By the time their conversation ended, the younger Pettibone was an unknowing member of Robertson’s straight and narrow “peahead” club.
“Port calls me into his office one day and just starts reading me the riot act about my school work,” said Pettibone. “He tells me what I’m going to do to improve and flourish at OU and every time he made a point he’d jab his finger into my sternum. That got my attention in a hurry.”
But Pettibone was going to have nothing to do with Robertson’s hard-core rules. He immediately phoned his father and began describing how Robertson yelled at him and threatened him and even got physical with him. Pettibone told his father he was going to find a better school and transfer.
When the younger Pettibone was finished describing his ordeal, father Pettibone told him to get used to Robertson’s ways and forget about transferring.
“Basically, he said it was time to step up and be responsible for my actions,” added Pettibone, who went on to letter in football and graduate in four years. “After a while, I understood what Port was doing, and I came to appreciate him like a lot of other athletes over the years.”
Pettibone later returned to serve as an assistant football coach at OU. Many days he worked side by side with Robertson.
Almost First Team
There were many good football players during the Bud Wilkinson era who never quite broke into the lineup or found the spotlight. Wray Littlejohn was one of those men.
“No one tried harder than Wray Littlejohn. He worked so hard. But he just wasn’t quite at the same level as some of the guys in front of him,” said Norman McNabb, who served as an assistant coach to Wilkinson. “I’m sure it was frustrating for him at times.”
Littlejohn was known to say, many times, �
�I’d be first team Monday through Thursday and then they’d put a damn Burris brother in front of me.”
Between 1946 and 1956, four Burris brothers—Buddy, Kurt, Bob and Lynn—played for the Sooners.
Back-to-Back Titles
Oklahoma had experienced the national stage in 1950 when it earned its first national championship in football. But celebration had been tempered thanks to a 13-7 loss to Kentucky in the Sugar Bowl weeks later.
There was no second-guessing and very few doubters in 1955 and 1956. Both of those OU teams were incredible. Bud Wilkinson had built a talented machine that oozed confidence and took no prisoners.
After failing to win the national title despite a 10-0 mark in 1954, the Sooners were not about to settle for anything less than ultimate perfection during the two ensuing seasons.
Led by marquee players like Tommy McDonald, Ed Gray, Jerry Tubbs and Clendon Thomas, the Sooners were unstoppable. They posted 11 shutouts in those two seasons and topped the 40-point mark offensively 13 times.
OU dominated the college football world like few teams had ever done.
Wahoo McDaniel
“Ornery. He had more fun off the field and on it.”
That’s how many of Ed “Wahoo” McDaniel’s Oklahoma teammates described him during his stint as a linebacker for the Sooners from 1957-59. An imposing 250 pounds, McDaniel possessed many talents on the football field and displayed a zest for life away from the game.
McDaniel made the transition from schoolboy star to collegiate standout for coach Bud Wilkinson’s OU program, and he still owns the record for the longest punt in school history—a 91-yarder against Iowa State in 1958. On top of that, his 86-yard touchdown reception from Bobby Boyd still ranks as the fifth longest pass play.
Off the field, McDaniel once ran 36 miles from Norman to Chickasha as part of a $50 bet between members of the football team and campus fraternity. Running against a makeshift relay team that included two members of OU’s track team, McDaniel led the first 31 miles before running out of gas and stopping short of his final destination.
Tales from the Oklahoma Sooner Sideline Page 5
