Great blog post from Zach Rosenfield, he gives a good perspective on what Oklahoma fans need to focus on moving forward:
Oklahoma in National Championship Race
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Bennie Owen: OU’s Man for All Seasons
By: Gary King
Before Bob and Barry, even before Bud, there was Bennie… Bennie Owen, and he might have been the best of them all. He was certainly the most innovative.
Beauty pawed the dirt, tossed her head back and flared her nostrils. “Easy girl,” Bennie said. “The gun will sound in just a minute and then we’re gonna race.”
It was almost noon on Saturday, September 16, 1893. Bennie Owen and his black mare, Beauty, were waiting at the south border of Kansas for the start of the Cherokee Strip Land Run. It was the largest land run in American History. The United States government was offering 40,000 parcels of free land in what is now northern Oklahoma. The Cherokee Strip contained more than 6 ½ million acres. It was larger than the states of Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. Any United States citizen (male or female) who was at least 21 years old and had not previously benefited from the Homestead Act was eligible to stake a claim. Native Americans, whose ancestors had hunted on this land for at least 10,000 years were not considered U. S. citizens and were not allowed to race.
By nightfall every acre had been claimed. The intrepid settlers built sod huts and tried to farm the dry land but conditions were so unforgiving that only 25% of those who filed claims were able to survive for six months in order to satisfy the residency requirement and receive their official deeds.
Bennie’s family lived in Arkansas City, Kansas which was only three miles from the northern starting point for the land run. On the day of the race it was estimated that 100,000 people were in town. Three days later only 5,000 remained. For months Bennie had watched them come. Some came on horseback. Others came in wagons with their families. Others came on foot. It was a time of great hope and high adventure.
Bennie had ridden Beauty deep into Oklahoma Territory many times chasing coyotes and jackrabbits. He knew the area well. He was one of 50,000 who lined up on the northern border of the Cherokee Strip that day and there were at least that many on the southern boundary. A few shameless mercenaries at the starting line were charging a nickel for a drink of water and many were willing to pay it to choke down the dust; dust so thick, by one participant’s account, that he could not see more than three feet in front of his face.
Bennie was only seventeen years old and therefore ineligible to file a claim but he was not about to miss this adventure. When the shotgun blast sounded, he and Beauty raced among the leaders for four miles before he reluctantly pulled up and turned for home.
It was not yet time for him to live in this untamed land. Twelve years later he would move into the very heart of this windswept prairie and he would play an important role in shaping the history of the young state and the destiny of the new university in Norman.
Bennie Owen made such an impact on Oklahoma that the most valuable and best known acre of land in the state now bears his name. This acre is, of course, Owen Field, the turf on which the University of Oklahoma football games are played. He was afforded this honor because…Benjamin Gilbert Owen was a coach. He is best remembered as the mentor of the University of Oklahoma’s football team from 1905 through 1926 but he also coached basketball at OU from 1909 to 1921 and baseball from 1906 until 1922. Truly he was a man for all seasons.
On October 16, 1907 Bennie Owen lost his right arm in a hunting accident. He was soon back at work and doing everything a man with two arms could do…and more. He hunted and fished. He shuffled, dealt, held and played cards with one hand. He drove his old stick-shift Buick all over Norman with reckless abandon. He even tied his own shoelaces. His good friend Phillip Kendall observed. “Bennie didn’t know he only had one arm. I think he made himself forget it and he made you forget it too. He was the most complete and well rounded person I’ve ever known.”
During the first ten years Owen coached at Oklahoma there were many rules changes in football. Owen used these new rules as an opportunity to add to his offensive arsenal. J. Brent Clark wrote in Sooner Century: One Hundred Glorious Years of Oklahoma Football, “Nowhere in America was there a more skilled or creative mind than Bennie Owen of Oklahoma.” He split his ends out, unbalanced his line, ran the “tackle-around” play. The “tackle-eligible” pass is one of the oldest plays in football but Bennie’s tackles didn’t just catch passes they also threw them. He developed the “long punt” formation which was an early prototype of the single-wing, and he was the first OU coach to have a spring practice.
Bud Wilkinson, in the 1950s, ran the “fast break,” reeling off plays as fast as he could and in 2008 Bob Stoops installed the “no huddle” offense. Owen ran both fifty years before Bud and a hundred years before Bob. Charley Orr, a 117 lb. quarterback who won his letter in 1912, said, In those days we didn’t hold any conferences (huddles) behind the line of scrimmage after each play. We called signals and we called ‘um fast. I’ve called many a signal flat on my back thirty yards from the ball.”
However, Owen is probably best remembered for the innovations he made in the passing game. It might surprise some fans who remember OU football before Bob Stoops, back in the days of Wilkinson and Switzer who disdained the pass, to learn that Bennie Owen’s teams were throwing the ball 30-35 times a game before WWI. Forrest “Spot” Geyer, the first Sooner to be picked as an All-American consistently threw for over 200 yards a game between 1913 and 1915. Geyer could easily heave the ball 55 yards in the air even though the ball they were using in those days more closely resembled a pumpkin than the streamlined missile quarterbacks hurl today.
In a 1914 game OU scored five passing TDs. That same year Al Lindsey, a halfback for Kansas who would later become a coach at OU said, “Oklahoma bewildered us with forward passes.” The venerable Harold Keith wrote in Oklahoma Kickoff, “Oklahoma appears to have been the first team in America to go in consistently for mass production of aerial play and to prove that the forward pass could be a major unit of the offense in every game on the schedule with the forward passing yardage usually surpassing the running yardage.”
Owen’s twenty-two year tenure is the longest of any coach in OU history. He won 122 games, lost 54 and tied 16. If these numbers don’t seem all that spectacular in comparison to some of the coaches who followed him, it must be remembered that his players were walk-ons – all of them. He did not recruit players and he gave out no scholarships. He thought the reason for going to college was to get an education and that football was an extracurricular activity. “All we got out of football was the fun,” Sabe Hott, a tackle for Owen from 1910-’13, said. “It was sport and that’s why we played. If Bennie had offered me board, room and tuition I wouldn’t have played for him.”
Owen had three all-victorious seasons, 1911, ’15, and ’18, and his 1920 team was undefeated with one tie. Even though he would never have tried to embarrass an opponent by running up the score, his teams scored more than 100 points nine times and more than eighty on four other occasions. Such lopsided victories were unavoidable since his starters had to play almost the whole game because he seldom had more than fifteen men on a squad.
Bennie Owen was always noted for his fine sportsmanship in a time when sportsmanship was not exactly commonplace. Dewey “Snorter” Luster, Captain of Owen’s unbeaten 1920 team and later OU’s head coach said, “Bennie was a sportsman in every sense of the word, a true sportsman. He knew how to win and lose like a gentleman.” Ivan Grove an outstanding quarterback for Henry Kendall College (which later became the University of Tulsa) in 1917, recalled, “Oklahoma absolutely had the cleanest team of all the teams we ever played.”
In this regard Oklahoma teams clearly reflected the personality and values of their coach. No one led a “cleaner” life than Bennie Owen. He did not drink, smoke, chew or use profanity. His favorite expression was “Gee Cly!” but if he was really upset he might shout out “murder, murder, murder!” Page Belcher, a guard for Owen in 1918, said, “Bennie was clean as a pin himself and wouldn’t let us swear, either in practice or in a game. If some player sang out in disgust, ‘Hell I dropped it!’ Bennie would stop practice in a flash and call the whole squad in. ‘We don’t use that kind of language around here,’ he’d tell everybody. ‘You’re men now and men don’t talk that way.’”
When Owen stepped down as head football coach in 1926, OU President Dr. William Bennett Bizzell, said, “For more than twenty years, Bennie Owen has stood for good sportsmanship and high ideals. No man identified with athletic activities in this country has contributed more than he has to the wholesomeness of athletics.”
But Owen was much more than a coach. He was also a visionary and a builder. As Director of Athletics from 1907-1934 and later as Intramural Director from ’34 until his retirement in 1950 at the age of 75, he was the driving force which produced Owen Field, the Fieldhouse, the men’s swimming pool, the baseball field and bleachers, the concrete tennis courts, the nine-hole golf course, and the intramural playing fields.
Bennie Owen died on February 26, 1970 at the age of ninety-four. Upon hearing of his death University of Oklahoma President Emeritus, George Lynn Cross said, “His contributions to the university athletic program can never be measured. He was a legend in his own time and the name of Bennie Owen will always be synonymous with OU football.”
Let’s hope so.
Before Bob and Barry, even before Bud, there was Bennie… Bennie Owen, and he might have been the best of them all. He was certainly the most innovative.
Beauty pawed the dirt, tossed her head back and flared her nostrils. “Easy girl,” Bennie said. “The gun will sound in just a minute and then we’re gonna race.”
It was almost noon on Saturday, September 16, 1893. Bennie Owen and his black mare, Beauty, were waiting at the south border of Kansas for the start of the Cherokee Strip Land Run. It was the largest land run in American History. The United States government was offering 40,000 parcels of free land in what is now northern Oklahoma. The Cherokee Strip contained more than 6 ½ million acres. It was larger than the states of Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. Any United States citizen (male or female) who was at least 21 years old and had not previously benefited from the Homestead Act was eligible to stake a claim. Native Americans, whose ancestors had hunted on this land for at least 10,000 years were not considered U. S. citizens and were not allowed to race.By nightfall every acre had been claimed. The intrepid settlers built sod huts and tried to farm the dry land but conditions were so unforgiving that only 25% of those who filed claims were able to survive for six months in order to satisfy the residency requirement and receive their official deeds.
Bennie’s family lived in Arkansas City, Kansas which was only three miles from the northern starting point for the land run. On the day of the race it was estimated that 100,000 people were in town. Three days later only 5,000 remained. For months Bennie had watched them come. Some came on horseback. Others came in wagons with their families. Others came on foot. It was a time of great hope and high adventure.Bennie had ridden Beauty deep into Oklahoma Territory many times chasing coyotes and jackrabbits. He knew the area well. He was one of 50,000 who lined up on the northern border of the Cherokee Strip that day and there were at least that many on the southern boundary. A few shameless mercenaries at the starting line were charging a nickel for a drink of water and many were willing to pay it to choke down the dust; dust so thick, by one participant’s account, that he could not see more than three feet in front of his face.
Bennie was only seventeen years old and therefore ineligible to file a claim but he was not about to miss this adventure. When the shotgun blast sounded, he and Beauty raced among the leaders for four miles before he reluctantly pulled up and turned for home.
It was not yet time for him to live in this untamed land. Twelve years later he would move into the very heart of this windswept prairie and he would play an important role in shaping the history of the young state and the destiny of the new university in Norman.
Bennie Owen made such an impact on Oklahoma that the most valuable and best known acre of land in the state now bears his name. This acre is, of course, Owen Field, the turf on which the University of Oklahoma football games are played. He was afforded this honor because…Benjamin Gilbert Owen was a coach. He is best remembered as the mentor of the University of Oklahoma’s football team from 1905 through 1926 but he also coached basketball at OU from 1909 to 1921 and baseball from 1906 until 1922. Truly he was a man for all seasons.
On October 16, 1907 Bennie Owen lost his right arm in a hunting accident. He was soon back at work and doing everything a man with two arms could do…and more. He hunted and fished. He shuffled, dealt, held and played cards with one hand. He drove his old stick-shift Buick all over Norman with reckless abandon. He even tied his own shoelaces. His good friend Phillip Kendall observed. “Bennie didn’t know he only had one arm. I think he made himself forget it and he made you forget it too. He was the most complete and well rounded person I’ve ever known.”
During the first ten years Owen coached at Oklahoma there were many rules changes in football. Owen used these new rules as an opportunity to add to his offensive arsenal. J. Brent Clark wrote in Sooner Century: One Hundred Glorious Years of Oklahoma Football, “Nowhere in America was there a more skilled or creative mind than Bennie Owen of Oklahoma.” He split his ends out, unbalanced his line, ran the “tackle-around” play. The “tackle-eligible” pass is one of the oldest plays in football but Bennie’s tackles didn’t just catch passes they also threw them. He developed the “long punt” formation which was an early prototype of the single-wing, and he was the first OU coach to have a spring practice.
Bud Wilkinson, in the 1950s, ran the “fast break,” reeling off plays as fast as he could and in 2008 Bob Stoops installed the “no huddle” offense. Owen ran both fifty years before Bud and a hundred years before Bob. Charley Orr, a 117 lb. quarterback who won his letter in 1912, said, In those days we didn’t hold any conferences (huddles) behind the line of scrimmage after each play. We called signals and we called ‘um fast. I’ve called many a signal flat on my back thirty yards from the ball.”
However, Owen is probably best remembered for the innovations he made in the passing game. It might surprise some fans who remember OU football before Bob Stoops, back in the days of Wilkinson and Switzer who disdained the pass, to learn that Bennie Owen’s teams were throwing the ball 30-35 times a game before WWI. Forrest “Spot” Geyer, the first Sooner to be picked as an All-American consistently threw for over 200 yards a game between 1913 and 1915. Geyer could easily heave the ball 55 yards in the air even though the ball they were using in those days more closely resembled a pumpkin than the streamlined missile quarterbacks hurl today.
In a 1914 game OU scored five passing TDs. That same year Al Lindsey, a halfback for Kansas who would later become a coach at OU said, “Oklahoma bewildered us with forward passes.” The venerable Harold Keith wrote in Oklahoma Kickoff, “Oklahoma appears to have been the first team in America to go in consistently for mass production of aerial play and to prove that the forward pass could be a major unit of the offense in every game on the schedule with the forward passing yardage usually surpassing the running yardage.”
Owen’s twenty-two year tenure is the longest of any coach in OU history. He won 122 games, lost 54 and tied 16. If these numbers don’t seem all that spectacular in comparison to some of the coaches who followed him, it must be remembered that his players were walk-ons – all of them. He did not recruit players and he gave out no scholarships. He thought the reason for going to college was to get an education and that football was an extracurricular activity. “All we got out of football was the fun,” Sabe Hott, a tackle for Owen from 1910-’13, said. “It was sport and that’s why we played. If Bennie had offered me board, room and tuition I wouldn’t have played for him.”
Owen had three all-victorious seasons, 1911, ’15, and ’18, and his 1920 team was undefeated with one tie. Even though he would never have tried to embarrass an opponent by running up the score, his teams scored more than 100 points nine times and more than eighty on four other occasions. Such lopsided victories were unavoidable since his starters had to play almost the whole game because he seldom had more than fifteen men on a squad.
Bennie Owen was always noted for his fine sportsmanship in a time when sportsmanship was not exactly commonplace. Dewey “Snorter” Luster, Captain of Owen’s unbeaten 1920 team and later OU’s head coach said, “Bennie was a sportsman in every sense of the word, a true sportsman. He knew how to win and lose like a gentleman.” Ivan Grove an outstanding quarterback for Henry Kendall College (which later became the University of Tulsa) in 1917, recalled, “Oklahoma absolutely had the cleanest team of all the teams we ever played.”
In this regard Oklahoma teams clearly reflected the personality and values of their coach. No one led a “cleaner” life than Bennie Owen. He did not drink, smoke, chew or use profanity. His favorite expression was “Gee Cly!” but if he was really upset he might shout out “murder, murder, murder!” Page Belcher, a guard for Owen in 1918, said, “Bennie was clean as a pin himself and wouldn’t let us swear, either in practice or in a game. If some player sang out in disgust, ‘Hell I dropped it!’ Bennie would stop practice in a flash and call the whole squad in. ‘We don’t use that kind of language around here,’ he’d tell everybody. ‘You’re men now and men don’t talk that way.’”
When Owen stepped down as head football coach in 1926, OU President Dr. William Bennett Bizzell, said, “For more than twenty years, Bennie Owen has stood for good sportsmanship and high ideals. No man identified with athletic activities in this country has contributed more than he has to the wholesomeness of athletics.”
But Owen was much more than a coach. He was also a visionary and a builder. As Director of Athletics from 1907-1934 and later as Intramural Director from ’34 until his retirement in 1950 at the age of 75, he was the driving force which produced Owen Field, the Fieldhouse, the men’s swimming pool, the baseball field and bleachers, the concrete tennis courts, the nine-hole golf course, and the intramural playing fields.
Bennie Owen died on February 26, 1970 at the age of ninety-four. Upon hearing of his death University of Oklahoma President Emeritus, George Lynn Cross said, “His contributions to the university athletic program can never be measured. He was a legend in his own time and the name of Bennie Owen will always be synonymous with OU football.”
Let’s hope so.
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