The recent arrest, plea agreement to a lesser charge, and general completion of initiation requirements to the OU football program by Justin Chaisson reminded me that’s it’s time to be reminded of just how phenomenal the OU program – its players, coaches, administrators, and fans are at glamorizing lawlessness and general corruption. Of course, it isn’t just the glamorizing of miserable and shitty behavior, but it’s the general insouciance with which their entire world deals with the transgressions. Most participants with the OU program are, at worst, gleeful revelers in the system and, at best, merely apologists to the rest of us for everything the OU program appears to stand for. I decided to pay homage to the college football equivalent of a Cambodian Whorehouse & Daycare Center in the form of an all-time greatest team, of sorts. It is the 20th anniversary of the Greatest SI Cover of All-Time, after all.
Hi!
As amazing as it seems, I honestly couldn’t come up with a full starting lineup at a few positions for this squad. I am a relatively young guy, so it’s likely simply a product of me only following CFB religiously for the past 20 years. Oh, and I have a life, so there was only so much thinking I was going to do on the matter. If you have some others to add, and there is no doubt in my mind that a 3-deep can be formed, please help me out.
Anyway, I apologize for the length in advance, but there was too much good stuff to work with and I lack self-control.
Let’s start on offense, because getting offensive is what this OU team does best.
QB
1st Team
Charles Thompson – Ok, look, this was obligatory, but does it ever get old? Barry Switzer found this sped breakdancing at a car dealership, probably Big Red Sports. After brushes with the law for drugs before joining the OU team, observers of the program had no doubt that this guy would fit right in. Few, if anyone, knew what level of stardom this guy would achieve, however. Arrested for dealing cocaine to an undercover FBI agent while the starting QB of the Sooner team, Thompson went on to immortalize himself and the OU program in the aforementioned cover of SI. He went on to be arrested multiple other times down the road, included once for PI in the middle of an Oklahoma hotel lobby. Recent times have him calling high school football games in the great state of Oklahoma. Having this guy near influential young athletes somehow makes sense in the Okie mindset. Funny sidenote, depending upon perspective, to Thompson is that Switzer was tipped off to the ongoing FBI investigation for which Thompson was actually going to be a pawn. Being the good ol’guy that Barry is, he went ahead and tipped Thompson off and blew the larger investigation that would have kept more drugs and dealers off the street. Switzer went, as usual, unpunished. One more funny sidenote – Thompson later repaid Switzer’s goodwill by helping a friend break into Barry Switzer’s house, where they stole 25 championship rings and were later busted trying to sell them.
2nd Team
Brent Rawls – This is a tough one. How does one not choose Rhett Bomar? Or perhaps Jamelle Holieway (multiple drug & DUI transgressions)? I view it as pretty easy. Rawls chose OU at the height of his high school recruiting hype at Shreveport Evangel. Sooners viewed him as the next big thing, but like all big time QB recruits under Stoops, Rawls busted worse than 3 face cards in BlackJack. I give Rawls the nod on the 2nd team because of his general incompetence when it comes to the simplest of things, like getting drunk. He received a PI after falling backwards out of the bed of a moving vehicle, also busting his head. Upon his return to the team months later, and they all return after committing crimes when they play for OU, he broke a hand while tackling a player in practice that had just intercepted him. Again, buffoonery plays a part. Rawls was last seen playing for the Sioux City Bandits, an indoor football team. Yes, you read that.
Honorable Mention
Dean Blevins – I give him this for general douchebaggery and calling the worst and most biased Texas-OU game in televised history.
Tailback
1st Team
Billy Sims – After a storied career, winning the Heisman and playing well in the pros for Detroit, Sims returned to Norman. He’s split his post-playing days between a busy schedule of panhandling to Sooner fans outside the Cotton Bowl before and after various Red River Shootouts, living underneath Interstate overpasses, and heckling his own Sooner counterparts on national TV after they too have won the Heisman. This is a guy that was actually fired from the Sooner Athletic Department at one point by many accounts.
2nd Team
Glen Bell – Few folks may remember Glen, largely because he wound up being acquitted for his biggest alleged crime. In the 1988-1989 winter, Bell at a minimum participated as a willing witness in the gang rape of a female coed inside a dorm room at Bud Hall, the OU athletic dorm. He was indicted and tried for the crime, but was the 1 participant of the 3 OU football players that was allowed to walk away free. Acquitted by a jury of his Okie peers, but not in the forum of public opinion – who continue to hold him accountable for his encouragement of the events. Well, perhaps not in Oklahoma, but here in the rest of the world, we certainly should.
Honorable Mention
David Overstreet – Another stud that went on to big things at the next level, most prominently with the storied Allouettes of the CFL. Overstreet was accused of his own incident of gang rape (with another OU teammate that we’ll address in a bit) when he was killed in a car accident in 1984. He was discovered to be driving drunk at the time of his death. The charges for rape were apparently dropped post-humously by the victim.
Wide Receiver
1st Team
Josh Jarboe – In spite of mounting evidence of Jarboe’s complete thuggery in the greater Atlanta area before his eventual signing with the Sooners and Coach Second Chance Stoops, Bob went ahead and inked the guy. Stoops at the time justified the signing with his own accusations of racial profiling by the Dekalb County police. Hilariously, Jarboe didn’t stop there and went on to create a rap video glorifying guns, kicking bitches, and other things of that ilk while at OU. This, apparently, crossed the Sooner line in terms of embarrassment, which is saying something, and only then was Jarboe sent packing. Jarboe’s felony conviction wasn’t enough. It was a rap video on YouTube that did him in. More likely, Stoops and Co. got a better picture of Jarboe’s skills over the 2008 summer and decided that he wasn’t worth the hype, the headache, or the ship since they had 3 seniors returning. They also had Ryan Broyles as an underclassmen that could not only satisfy their need to have a backup that could catch, but also had a proclivity for committing crimes…
Ryan Broyles – Ol’Ryan’s going to be a heck of player for OU. He’s got the skills to be elusive, relatively speaking, both on and off the field. In the early part of 2008, Broyles was busted for breaking into a convenience store and basically ransacking and stealing shit. The cops were never able to determine how the petty thief was able to obtain the store’s entry codes and he never admitted to how he did it, so they were forced to plea him down to a reduced sentence and a $100 fine. Stoops, the Nerf wall of discipline, was able bring the sponge hammer down on his player with a one game suspension.
2nd Team & Honorable Mention
Given that the Sooners ran the Wishbone for multiple decades, the odds have played out against me for thinking up or finding any other players that fit the bill at the WR spots. Help here would be appreciated. I pondered Malcolm Kelly for a number of reasons, but simply being a statehopping, whining bitch didn’t wind up being enough to make the cut.
Tight End
1st Team
Bernard Hall – Who? Oh come on, you have to remember this guy. Hall was actually convicted of participating in the gang rape of the coed that Glen Bell watched. The absurdity of the participation of Hall in the gang rape is that, by all accounts, he shouldn’t have been present. But this is Oklahoma. Hall had been booted off the team several years before due to stealing numerous personal items from his fellow team members. He was investigated by the local DA for the matter. Switzer allowed his removal from the team, even though Hall was a talented player, due to the presence of All-American Keith Jackson in the starting slot. When the team lost two other TEs in the following season, Switzer rushed to reinstate Hall to the team. Hall promptly got injured and was a non-contributor to the ’88 season. He started contributing early to the ’89 effort with the rape of a female in Bud Wilkinson Hall.
2nd Team
Keith Jackson – Keith’s record appears to be largely clean. He’s listed here due to the fact that his rampant motherfuckery with new recruits and players within the program during his tenure led to the proliferation of the piece of shit lifestyle that the Sooner football players exhibited on campus. He was one of the lead players to educate the incoming players on how Sooner football players roll on campus.
Honorable Mention
Trent Smith – I thought about Gresham, who has actually been recently arrested and was dumb enough to stay and play as opposed to taking the millions and playing in the pros next year. Good luck beating the brackets all year in ’09, genius. Anyway, Smith gets the nod due to his behavior and remarks towards Texas during and after his term on the OU football team. The guy took a ton of effort to sound like Brian Bosworth in every interview before using up his eligibility to go on to a probable life of failure as a former OU student, as most do.
OL
1st Team (Note: There are 5 spots, so naming more than a 1st team is overkill, although there’s more than 5 to choose from, easy, when it comes to OU OLs)
Nigel Clay – Nigel was the second guy convicted in the Bud Hall gang rape of the female coed. Apparently, Glen Bell watched, Nigel Clay and Bernard Hall did the deed. Clay was sent to prison for 10 years for his end. Pretty much any time you’re involved with a gang rape, you make the 1st team. Nigel never admitted his guilt, eventually telling USA Today in an article while in prison that "I hate to say it, but a lot of the women at Oklahoma were sluts. They'd have sex with the players just to have sex with a football player."
Greg Roberts – Roberts won the Outland Trophy in 1978 for the okies. He went on to Tampa and mediocrity until he found the highlight reel again, this time by leading the charge as a drug dealer. Roberts was busted for running a cocaine trafficking ring in Tampa in the 80’s. He was also the other participant in the alleged gang rape with David Overstreet mentioned earlier.
JD Quinn – Quinn is an easy selection for being dumb enough to play sacrificial lamb in the Big Red Sports scandal. He’s more or less held his tongue over the years, so he must have been paid off pretty well. An also-ran compared to the Bomar and Peterson pieces to the BRS issues, he still earns 1st team honors for stupidity. Quinn embodies the primary reason OU always walks largely unscathed from allegations – the players simply refuse to talk and hold the university accountable.
Brandon Walker – Another recent example of OU idiocy and general recklessness, Walker is one of the more recent okie OLs to be busted in some manner for driving under the influence or drug usage. He had the smart timing to do this after being picked up by the Houston Texans. He promptly found himself out of a job following his arrest. Walker represents any number of Sooners over the years to embarrass themselves and their school due to substance abuse transgressions.
Chad Roark – You may not remember this guy, but if you don’t, you haven’t been paying attention. Roark makes the 1st team for a number of reasons. The primary reason is due to his inability to muscle through the OU OL offseason and training program. Jerry Schmidt, the OU S&C Coach known for attacking opposing players on the sidelines and generally being a steroid-addled buffoon, allegedly made this guy eat his own vomit after puking during a lifting or conditioning session. Roark, and stories vary, either wound up outright refusing, or committing the act and then later quitting out of disdain. Either way, what kind of pussy refuses to chew up his own vomit when a coach requires it for the proof of extra effort? Another reason Roark makes the first team is for his awesome MySpace page, which includes a purported propensity for reading poetry and walking on beaches in East Central Oklahoma. Wow. He also admits to liking ECU much better than OU on the same page.
Defensive Line
1st Team (Note: Again, there are so many positions and so many players that deserve mention that this group could be listed 3 deep or more. We’ll stick with the 1st team.)
Justin Chaisson – There isn’t a ton to say here that hasn’t been said. He’s shown every sign necessary of being a sociopath with a proclivity for misogyny. I’m sure it will take something akin to rape or a YouTube video to see him booted before the end of year one. The Sooner rationalizing over this guy is nothing more than a standard example of their behavior whenever they take on someone that no one else will and no one else should.
Dusty Dvoracek – This star DL once clubbed one of his own best friends into a coma and was ultimately kicked off the team. This beating incident happened after several others, leaving a wake of smaller, beaten men behind him. Poor Dusty was later diagnosed with being a raging alcoholic. Bob Stoops, the Mother Theresa of CFB, took pity on the poor soul and pushed to have him reinstated. The NCAA, because OU chopped their dick clean off in the 90’s, cowed down and gave the guy a medical exemption and a 6th year of eligibility. If you missed Sooners at the time explaining this one and bleeding their hearts out for both Stoops and poor Dusty, you missed hilarity in action. If Dusty Dvoracek had been, say, a back-up OL or 3rd string QB, he would have found his fat, drunken, bullying ass on the side of the curb where it belonged just the same as you or I.
Demarcus Granger – Granger was but a wee 21 year old "kid" when he decided he needed a jacket during the 2008 Fiesta Bowl trip. Unfortunately for the jacket and Granger, he decided he really didn’t need to pay for it. So he didn’t. He was promptly busted and sent home for it. Bob Stoops is a disciplinarian of the shyest order. He wouldn’t tolerate that kind of nonsense. For a game, at least. Granger came back this year and was largely irrelevant. Stoops found another guy, Adrien Taylor, to take his starting role. Granger remains a part of the team heading into 2009. Now that he’s become expendable, any further incidents will probably have Stoops moving with authority to dump him.
Jimbo Elrod – Elrod was an All-American DE in the 70’s for the Sooners. He was also a bust in the NFL. After winding up broke and without much in the way of opportunity, Elrod apparently decided to take a nosedive, literally, into the world of cocaine and marijuana. At one point, he allegedly stole a truck and was later arrested for it. Given that all of this occurred in Oklahoma, I am not sure whether anything materialized for this state idol in the way of convictions or prison time. I doubt it. He eventually found his way into the media and is now a celebrated Oklahoma City sports radio personality, partnering with OU’s best example of media class, convicted felon James Hale.
Honorable Mention here for Tony Casillas for wearing a belly ring during his playing days in the 80’s at OU.
Had Lynn McGruder not rescued a family of 5 from a burning car wreck, I’d have happily thrown him into this list for getting tossed from Tennessee (it takes a lot to be booted from Tennessee – they just signed a guy that helped rape an underaged relative) for selling bricks of pot out of his dorm room, only to be happily signed by Ol’Second Chance Bob. This appears to be one time in which it worked out in everyone’s favor except OU opponents.
Linebacker
1st Team
Brian Bosworth – This is actually one of the few people on the planet that I’d risk my own life for in an effort to take his. Were I driving near the edge of a cliff and saw The Boz hiking up near the ledge ahead of me, it would be a very difficult problem in terms of the mental math between the value of continuing to breathe and the value of seeing the look on his face as we both vaulted towards certain death, thousands of feet below. Were I eating dinner with a plastic spork in prison and Bosworth sat two tables over as a leader of some white supremacist group and his posse let down their guard for a moment, I might find it compelling to take a dive for his throat, at which point I’d thrust the spork violently towards the general vicinity of his jugular in the hopes of giving him his before his posse regrouped and I got mine. Etc. These are fantasies and dilemmas I ponder daily. Anyway.
The beauty of Bosworth is the absurdity of the guy and his relationship with OU. He embarrassed them repeatedly, whether through on-the-field antics, getting busted for steroids and disgracing the school with a shirt about the ensuing suspension on the Orange Bowl sidelines, becoming one of the greatest busts ever in the NFL, or writing a tell-all book about the obscenities of the program during his time there. Yet somehow, this guy is celebrated by their fanbase to this day as some sort of demigod. They cheer him wildly when he makes an appearance at a game or appears on tv during a broadcast. While bewildering, it’s also entertaining. If anyone ever asks me why I view OU as a shithole and its fans as the guttural occupants, I tell the Bosworth story in its full glory. And that includes "Stone Cold", his real estate efforts, and his pastimes of drunk driving and steroid abuse.
If you have seen "One Man’s Justice", you are probably an okie.
Kert Kaspar – Kaspar is known in the record books of the RRS as having one of the longest interception returns for a touchdown in the history of the match-up. He’s known in the NCAA books as one of the primary recipients of improper benefits from a booster during his time on campus at OU. Kaspar was busted for driving a company car and receiving over $6,000 in salary for a job in which he had never done a minute of actual work. His case was a driving reason for one of the big infraction findings by the NCAA of OU in the 80’s, when the NCAA actually still had a pair of balls and knew how to use them.
Keenan Clayton – One could select Rufus Alexander or myriad other guys in this third coveted slot, but Clayton is a current player, so he gets the nod. Arrested recently for failure to appear and pay on an insurance violation, Clayton represents the continued return under Stoops of the outlaw past of the Sooner program. They’ve had 3 arrests this offseason, but give them time, there are 4 months left. My guess is that Clayton will not even be suspended for the arrest. However, if he is, you can bet it will be one game or less, and the game will not be against UT, BYU, or Miami. Starting ballers like Clayton continue to be largely exempt from Sooner punishment.
Defensive Back
1st Team (Note: Much like WR, this was a position in which I had a hard time finding good numbers and examples. Part of the issue remains my age and part of the issue is the age of the Internet and a dearth of old stories being available. Any help is welcome.)
Jerry Parks – Parks is another classic example of the glory days under Switzer. Parks is famous for having shot a fellow Sooner teammate in the middle of a dorm room during an argument. He didn’t like what the other guy had to say, so he went to his car or Barry Switzer’s locker, grabbed a handgun, and walked back into the room and shot his friend in the chest. The guy lived, so Parks ended up only spending 81 days in jail, unbelievably, and ended up transferring to another outlaw program, UH, to finish his playing career. He had his own dorm room there.
Ontei Jones – Jones is an example of the early Stoops days. Along with 6 other teammates, Jones joined in the beating of two fellow students at a frat party in 1999. Charges were never filed because, well, it’s the OU campus and these are OU football players. The two victims eventually sued for $10,000 per player. Jones went on to make a key interception in the national title game the following year against FSU.
Brandon Everage - Another example of the mighty hand of justice that Bob Stoops wields. Everage was once busted for buying pot near a Norman public school. He was suspended for the 1st quarter of the following year’s North Texas game. Everage was later arrested for possession of a fake ID but continued to play for the school. Everage was last seen trying to make an indoor team out of Utah, which means he could wind up on OK City sports radio or working for the OU athletic department some time soon.
Head Coach
1st Team
Barry Switzer – It is impossible to beat "The King" of the Crimson & Cream when it comes to outright chicanery and blatant cheating. No one has done more to set the entire sport of College Football back than Switzer. Under Switzer’s guidance, the Sooner program won multiple national titles while incurring multiple NCAA infractions and being the target of numerous exposes by SI and USA Today. The King was once caught by his assistant, Larry Lacewell, in his hotel room with Lacewell’s wife the night before an Orange Bowl against Lou Holtz’s Arkansas Razorbacks. Switzer was also busted for hiring a spy to watch and film UT practices before the annual RRS. Switzer denied it for years before eventually admitting that the accusations of cheating through spying were true.
Switzer is THE classic example of a walking piece of shit that the Sooner fanbase has proceeded to glorify into demigod status, embarrassing the human race in the process. What’s worse is that Fox has somehow made the determination that he belongs on tv, where we have to see him spout nonsense before, during, and after numerous post-season bowl games. When he is found dead, after a night of boozing and drugs in a hotel room, wearing some coworker’s wife’s panties, he should be dragged through the streets and then post-humously quartered. They should then bury his body parts in separate corners of the state of Oklahoma as a reminder to all who enter of what a disgusting geographic fart that state is.
2nd Team
Bob Stoops – We all know the story on Stoops. The only thing keeping this hypocrite from the First Team is that a guy named Barry Switzer actually exists and wasn’t made up in a pulp fiction novel.
Honorable Mention
Bud Wilkinson – Another celebrated cheater in Oklahoma, Wilkinson invented the model of: cheating, followed by a national title, followed by getting busted for cheating by the NCAA, followed by more wins and cheating, followed by more infractions, followed by sheepish denials and their accompanying winks. Wilkinson deserves mention beyond that for being so incompetent in other parts of his life that this icon of Oklahoma culture couldn’t even get elected after retirement by his own fanbase to Congress in DC.
Top Fan
1st Team
Allen Beckett – Beckett, a church deacon, is famous for tearing open a man’s scrotum in the middle of a bar in Oklahoma City. The alleged offense apparently took place because the victim was wearing a UT shirt in public. It takes a special kind of motherfucker to tear off another man’s scrotum because of his sports affiliation. Of course, in typical Oklahoma style, Beckett was set free and exonerated by Oklahoma authorities because "other witnesses came forward in Beckett’s defense". Apparently, the UT victim must have torn his own scrotum out and attempted to frame poor Beckett for the event in a spiteful act of sports treachery.
2nd Team
William Lambert – Lambert was a convicted felon in the ‘80’s for selling several $100k worth of stolen stock certificates. Upon being set free, Lambert affiliated himself with the OU program through numerous business endeavors. Through this, he was able to funnel benefits and payments to players and coaches until the entire program was busted by the NCAA. The NCAA cited the need for the OU program to separate itself from Lambert in their findings. Lambert was last spotted as the majority silent ownership partner of Big Red Sports in Oklahoma City.
Thoughts? Other nominations?