Norman / Oklahoma

[Blackshirt]

Article Published: Monday, September 22, 2003

big 12 football

Wild West vs. Hollywood: a pity party

 

By Bill Briggs

Denver Post Sports Writer

 

NORMAN, Okla. - Wearing powder blue - not exactly the testosterone of colors - into a red-clad horde of 83,000 is about as smart as a deer grabbing a stool at the hunters' favorite diner.

 

Everyone stares, some smile big, a few drool.

 

But when the boys in the end zone start firing 12-gauge shotguns over the goalposts, well, suddenly it's like Bambi is sporting butter underwear. And it gets really interesting when the closest Oklahoma fan spies your UCLA jersey and reveals, with a smirk, that he has a gun, too.

 

This is Saturday afternoon, Boomer Sooner style. A double-barreled blend of Wild West ritual and football feast, where a stagecoach circles the field after each score and the fans plead for points until the very last snap - even if their team leads by five dadgum touchdowns and is within a spittoon shot of 60.

 

They called me "Bruin." On every corner outside Owen Field, at tailgate parties tricked out with red buses, red awnings, red lawn chairs, red grills and red wheelchairs, I was the bizarre SoCal invader in powder blue, wearing a No. 26 UCLA home jersey and a Bruins ballcap. This was Week 2 of The Denver Post's tour of Big 12 football venues where I drape myself in the visiting team's attire to test the best and worst of fan hospitality.

 

"Hey, Bruin, thank you for comin'!"

 

"Wow, really great to see you, Bruin!"

 

Oh, how those Sooners faithful welcomed all 200 or so UCLA fans as we waded into a swarm of crimson. I felt like a guy who wears a Sponge Bob Square Pants get-up to a costume party - but instead walk into a stuffy Save the Sea Sponge soiree. The home fans offered me a mix of open pity and hidden snickers.

 

"Golly, I think it will be a terrific game today, Bruin! Right down to the wire, sir!"

 

They handed me O-Club burgers and fat brats. They jammed cans of beer into my palm. With red face paint, white cape and a box of Marlboro Lights crammed into his utility belt, Capn' Sooner, (think: Barrel Man minus 60 pounds) wished me and the entire UCLA team the best of luck and safe travels home.

 

Remember that old "Twilight Zone" episode where a seemingly friendly space alien gives the Earth a tome entitled "To Serve Man" and someone figures out it's actually a cookbook? We California types were about to be the main course - on the field, anyway.

 

That's not to say a number of well-oiled Oklahomans strolling to the game didn't give my UCLA jersey a long scan and fire a glare that seemed to say, "How 'bout we step into this here alley, Hollywood?"

 

"At Oklahoma, football is war without casualties," said Brent Clark, a lawyer on Main Street in Norman and the guy who wrote the book on OU football, called "Sooner Century." "A lot of us are not really fit to be around on game day. I mean that. I find myself snapping at the parking lot attendant for no reason at all.

 

"I decided, well, I'm either going to have to engage in some behavior modification or hit some medications," Clark said. "We're all just so intense. We take it so seriously here."

 

Truly, this football following has more rituals than some ancient religions.

 

Two hours before kickoff, a swift murmur swept through the tailgaters - coach Bob Stoops was coming. It was 12:30 p.m., time to salute the man who resurrected the program, won a national title in 2000 and has the Sooners ranked No. 1 again. Hundreds of people cut their conversations in mid-tale and sprinted to the curb to offer their respects as the Stoops' red SUV and the team bus rolled into the stadium. Stoops didn't stop. He also didn't wave or seem to be drawing any air whatsoever.

 

"Game face," someone said.

 

About 30 minutes later, the Sooners marching band, wearing white flannel, gathered on the grassy north oval near the campus stadium. Each instrument group formed a circle: The tubas locked arms and weaved slowly, the trombones thrust their horns into the air, forming a brass umbrella. Even these melodious guys and girls seemed ready to rumble.

 

The band merged to play a quick concert for the fans - "Boomer Sooner," the first of 712 renditions we would hear that day.

 

"You know why there are only two words to that song," cracked Mike Pfaffenberger, a visiting Bruins fan from L.A.

 

A few other UCLA fans slowly backed away from Pfaffenberger, who, at last word, made it out alive.

 

The band then played "Boomer Sooner" while snaking down Asp Street, past Louie's Deli and Bar and the Norman Christian Center. A few hundred fans followed the band into the stadium, singing along.

 

Inside, the "Ruf/Neks"- a red shirt-wearing male spirit group dating to 1915 - whipped up the crowd by wielding red-and-white wooden paddles above their heads. The tactic began in the 1920s when members thought the threat of a spanking would intimidate Oklahoma fans to cheer a little louder, according to the Ruf/Nek website.

 

After welcoming the Sooners players to the field by raising their paddles skyward, the Ruf/Neks sprinted 100 yards, slid into the farthest goalpost and, from their knees, chanted "Fadada." No one knows why this tradition started, how it started or what it means, the website said. Believe me, no one is asking.

 

The Ruf/Neks also drove the white-pony-pulled Sooner Schooner across Owen Field after each score. The mini Conestoga, donated to the school in 1965 by Dr. M.S. Bartlett and his late brother, Buzz, once may have cost Oklahoma a bowl game.

 

During the 1985 Orange Bowl, Washington and OU were tied 14-14 when the Sooners kicked a field goal to take an apparent third-quarter lead. But the kick was nullified when an official flagged Oklahoma for illegal procedure. The Ruf/Neks aboard the Schooner didn't see the flag and made their typical on-field gallop. The refs threw another flag, 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct. The kicker missed his second - much farther - attempt and Washington won 28-17.

 

When the Ruf/Neks stuffed their paddles into their back pockets, the guns came out. The Ruf/Neks frequently fired modified 12-gauge shotguns into the air before, during and after a game. It sounded like a four-hour clip from Ken Burns' "Civil War." White puffs of smoke curled from the muzzles. Even veteran Sooners fans jumped at the noise.

 

"On the one hand, people are having their bags checked for tweezers (as they enter the stadium). On the other hand, we have these guys out on the field with explosive weapons," Clark said.

 

The shotguns fire only gunpowder. My seatmate's weapon, back home, fires the real deal.

 

I enter section 10 in a corner of the stadium. A small contingent of Bruins fans are clustered on the opposite side, in a corner. A distant blur of blue. Too far to help me now.

 

"Bruins fan in the house!" I said cheerfully to the surrounding Sooners fans, as I took my seat.

 

"Oh, man, it never fails! Why do we always get one of THOSE here?" Janice said behind me.

 

"I have a gun," Donny, from Duncan, Okla., added with a sly grin. He sat just to my right.

 

When UCLA's Manuel White rumbled for an 11-yard touchdown to give UCLA an early 10-7 edge, the Sooners trailed for the first time all season.

 

"Yes!" I yelled, totally alone. "Here we go, Bruins!"

 

"I'm putting bullets in my gun," Donny said.

 

But when Oklahoma's Antonio Perkins scored on a punt return in the second quarter, the Sooners increased their lead to 21-10. Perkins would run two more punts back that day, an NCAA record.

 

"You want my gun?" Donny asked sympathetically.

 

The Sooners routed UCLA, 59-24. No one in the exiting crowd of 83,000 said a word to me as I trudged to my car.

 

But one guy did hold up a sign: "Hasta La Vista, UCLA, You've been Recalled."

 

 

 

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