It would be impossible to talk about the great college football teams
and not include the mind-boggling exploits of Bud Wilkinson and his
great Oklahoma Sooners teams.
In his seventeen years as the Sooners' head coach, Wilkinson amassed a
145-29-4 record. Included in that span were separate winning streaks of
31 and 47 games, three national titles, four undefeated seasons, and
thirteen consecutive conference championships. His career .826 winning
percentage surpassed that of other coaching legends whose careers
overlapped his, such as Woody Hayes and Paul "Bear" Bryant.
It wasn't just the steady stream of victories and titles, however, that
distinguished Wilkinson in a profession dominated by Type-A
personalities and Xs-and-Os savants. Tall, blond, handsome, charming,
and soft-spoken, Wilkinson was well-liked and would have fit well into
today's media-driven model of the "successful coach." A star quarterback
at the University of Minnesota, Wilkinson emerged as a sports star who
wasn't just an athlete. He earned a master's degree in English from
Syracuse University and later pioneered the role of
football-coach-turned-expert-television-analyst, beginning in the early
fifties with his own coach's show at Oklahoma. He later achieved a
different kind of notoriety in the sixties and seventies as a
network-television commentator. Along the way, he also took a foray into
politics and a brief return to coaching in the late seventies with the
NFL's St. Louis Cardinals.
I Remember Bud Wilkinson is the newest in the popular I Remember
series, offering hundreds of anecdotes and memories of Wilkinson by
dozens of people who knew him. Sources include former players, fellow
coaches, television personalities, friends, and others. This
comprehensive work goes into the locker room, between the white lines,
and behind the scenes to explore and explain what made the
multitalented, innovative Wilkinson a legend in his own time and beyond.
