25yearstreak wrote:
The term Sooner refers to the 1889 land rush when Oklahoma land was open to stake claims. There was a set starting time for the land rush to start but some enterprising people snuck out and pounded stakes in the ground early "staking their claims", a bit early.
Hence the term "Sooners". It was at the time not meant to be a compliment.
Glad you pointed this out, 25. This program named their sports teams after the people who cheated on the people who were reneging on a treaty that gave land to Native Americans. They are literally named for cheaters who cheated on cheaters who were ripping off people who had already been cheated.
I was reminded of this plenty of times this week when they had a "what have YOU got to be upset about" and "just shut up and mind your business, you stupid big city Yankee" attitude on Twitter. Jeez.
Yes, I have a background in Central Oklahoma, too. In 1987, I was hired to host a morning show at KLTE FM in Oklahoma City. The show only lasted about three months before we realized it wasn't working-- I was doing large market Album Rock humor on an Adult Contemporary station in a rural-minded market. I was hired immediately by a Classic Rock station that was located in the suburb of Moore, OK in between Oklahoma City and Norman (I think the studio was wiped out in one of the several Moore tornadoes that flattened the town). But I decided to move back to Chicago.
But anyway, one of the things I did at KLTE was hosting a charity fundraising event with at the time Oklahoma football coach Barry Switzer. All I remember from that event was that Switzer was shockingly tiny and he had no personality whatsoever while not speaking on stage.
And the final thing that makes me angry about it is.... the money they gave to Poter to leave was FOOTBALL MONEY. It used to be that big sports programs were either football schools or basketball schools. Texas and Oklahoma and Florida never gave a damn about men's basketball until the mid-late 1970s. By the mid-80s, they realized they could use their football money to poach the best coaches from the flagship programs of long-time, historical basketball schools.
Contracts are an interesting thing these days in Oklahoma. According to a Supreme Court decision just last year, roughly half of Oklahoma is still Native land. I’m not sure if Norman falls within those boundaries, but PM may or may not now be subject to Tribal court jurisdiction for certain disputes in his new neighborhood.
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