Favorite Kelvin Sampson stories/quotes

[BigTime]

What do you got? He had some gems over the years. I always enjoyed listening to his postgame interviews.

I liked this story regarding former Sooner Evan Hootie Wiley:

Apparently big Hootie thought he would be sly and get in bed prior to bed-check already wearing a nice suit in which he was planning to sneak out and hit the town. Coach Rab (I think it was) poked his head in each of the players' rooms and made sure they were in for the night. When he got to Hootie's room, the light was off, the fan was on, and Hootie was already laying in bed acting like he was asleep. There was one problem though....Mr. Wiley had already put his cologne on. Coach Rab smelled that cologne (Sampson used to always say that it was "thick enough he almost choked on it"), went over to the bed, yanked the cover off of Hootie and discovered his plan! haha

Another one Coach Sampson used to tell was when J Gilbert was a freshman. He was in a Geological Sciences course. The prof asked the class to please tell him what a cave, a cavern, and a catacomb was. One person explained what the definition of a cave. Another attempted to explain a cavern. But nobody was brave enough to define a catacomb. Finally, this guy in a hoodie in the back (JG) raises his hand and says "you know that boxing promoter dude, Don King? Somebody needs to give that cat a comb!". The whole class including the prof got a great laugh out of that.

I'd like to remember some more of Kelvin's stories and quotes. We have some good historians on here so please share.

 

[Big Old Booger]

What do you got? He had some gems over the years. I always enjoyed listening to his postgame interviews.

I liked this story regarding former Sooner Evan Hootie Wiley:

Apparently big Hootie thought he would be sly and get in bed prior to bed-check already wearing a nice suit in which he was planning to sneak out and hit the town. Coach Rab (I think it was) poked his head in each of the players' rooms and made sure they were in for the night. When he got to Hootie's room, the light was off, the fan was on, and Hootie was already laying in bed acting like he was asleep. There was one problem though....Mr. Wiley had already put his cologne on. Coach Rab smelled that cologne (Sampson used to always say that it was "thick enough he almost choked on it"), went over to the bed, yanked the cover off of Hootie and discovered his plan! haha

Another one Coach Sampson used to tell was when J Gilbert was a freshman. He was in a Geological Sciences course. The prof asked the class to please tell him what a cave, a cavern, and a catacomb was. One person explained what the definition of a cave. Another attempted to explain a cavern. But nobody was brave enough to define a catacomb. Finally, this guy in a hoodie in the back (JG) raises his hand and says "you know that boxing promoter dude, Don King? Somebody needs to give that cat a comb!". The whole class including the prof got a great laugh out of that.

I'd like to remember some more of Kelvin's stories and quotes. We have some good historians on here so please share.

:ez-roll:

 

[MsProudSooner]

I seem to remember Kelvin saying that they had to assign someone to pick up Hootie before every away game or he would have missed every flight. I do remember him saying that Hootie signed to play for a professional team in Europe and he did miss the flight when he was leaving to go over there.

I didn't hear Coach Smapson tell this story. My younger daughter was in the same IBC group as Tim Heskett and he told her this story. The very first week of school their freshman year, Tim and Renzi living life large, away from home, on their own for the very first time. At some point during that week, they were involved in some fun that included lobbing water balloons across Lindsay Street to the Moore Burger parking lot. They found out what a small town Norman was when they got a call early the next morning to come to Coach Sampson's office. Someone had already ratted them out. :ez-roll:

 

[playmakr]

"I've always believed that fatigue is the universal language for losers."

 

[MsProudSooner]

"Freshmen don't know if they are on foot or on horseback."

 

[stoops4pres]

Went to his camps all through the mid-to-late 90's, and one year our age group played our games at Lloyd Noble. The camp always convened at The Huff, so you had coaches and OU players carpool the campers from the Huff to Lloyd Noble. Sampson was one of the coaches that would carpool the campers in his van, and he was ALWAYS playing nothing but Marvin Gaye or Al Green. Every single time. Well one day we had a bunch of time to kill so he took the van all throughout campus, and while driving he turned up the volume as loud as he could, and would roll the windows down and tried to get the campers to yell at the co-eds walking to class. It was hilarious.

I went to camps all throughout the Big 12 and SEC, and Sampson was--by far--the most fun and friendliest coach to be around. Most coaches didn't care about the camps and would only make an appearance or two, they normally would have their assistants work the camps. Sampson was the complete opposite... He spent most of his time with the campers and you could tell he genuinely enjoyed doing it.

 

[Seymore Cox]

I actually heard Sampson story today. My buddy played juco ball with Taj Gray. He was telling me thatSampson would come to their practice and players would dive for loose balls and go all out. At one of the games he was talking to my friend and he said "Johnson, who you got tonight." My friend said Pete Mitchell. Sampson said "OK. I'm thinking about signing Pete." My buddy said he had the game of his life. He said he shut Mitchell down and was taking it to him on offense. He told me he looked up in the stand at Sampson and Kelvin would wink and shoot him the gun after every play and yell let's go Johnson. My guy said he talked to Kelvin after the game and he was pumping him up about his performance. He was like "man I knew I was going to OU, but he was just trying to get to Taj.

 

[BigTime]

"Ronnie Griffin is maybe a jack of all trades, master of none."

"I think the three greatest abilities a college player can have are responsibility, accountability and dependability."

 

[BigTime]

On Brian Cardinal and Eduardo:

"Excuse me if they don't win the dunk contest. Excuse me if they don't fit the mold," Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said Friday. "They're throwback guys. Those are guys that would look good in tight shorts. But those kids know how to play basketball."

 

[BigTime]

"I almost get offended when people ask me about junior college kids," coach Kelvin Sampson said Friday. "It's almost like there's something wrong with them."

"There's certain things that are not negotiable," Sampson said. "Talent sometimes can have an off day. Hard work and effort should never have an off day."

 

[UHsurfer12]

Johnnie Gilbert was awesome... I went to those camps too and one time he was my coach. He would drive me and couple other teammates around campus before/after the games we played in his SUV blaring rap tunes and having us all "holler at the pretty ladies". I was in 6th grade I think haha

 

[Tony]

This isn't really a Sampson story, but I just remembered it when reading this thread. Does anyone else remember when Rohde used Sampson's Native American heritage to make the argument that he was low-man on the totem pole among coaches in Oklahoma? That really pissed Kelvin off. I think he said in his autobiography that his family put a small totem pole in their backyard as a reminder.

 

[BigTime]

This isn't really a Sampson story, but I just remembered it when reading this thread. Does anyone else remember when Rohde used Sampson's Native American heritage to make the argument that he was low-man on the totem pole among coaches in Oklahoma? That really pissed Kelvin off. I think he said in his autobiography that his family put a small totem pole in their backyard as a reminder.

I had forgotten about that. You are so clever, JohnOn.

Tony, feed me some Sampson stuff. TIA.

 

[One More Rebound]

This isn't really a Sampson story, but I just remembered it when reading this thread. Does anyone else remember when Rohde used Sampson's Native American heritage to make the argument that he was low-man on the totem pole among coaches in Oklahoma? That really pissed Kelvin off. I think he said in his autobiography that his family put a small totem pole in their backyard as a reminder.

That's crazy.

 

[NickZepp]

This pretty much was Kelvin in a nutshell.

"You have to take what you're good at and work with it."

 

[soonermcd93]

He described the rough play of one of his post players as like being a drunk mule.

 

[NickZepp]

I remember trying to listen to just about every interview he ever had because you knew he would say something interesting and wasn't really about coach speak like most other coaches. Most of Capel's interviews you can pretty much know what they'll say same with Bob Stoops.

 

[BigTime]

"But they're going to miss Ostertag. When you're 7-foot-whatever and 300-whatever (pounds), that's a bother. Our guy, Ernie Abercrombie, turned around and saw his Adam's Apple. He had to run around him just to see the rim."

 

[Big Old Booger]

Went to his camps all through the mid-to-late 90's, and one year our age group played our games at Lloyd Noble. The camp always convened at The Huff, so you had coaches and OU players carpool the campers from the Huff to Lloyd Noble. Sampson was one of the coaches that would carpool the campers in his van, and he was ALWAYS playing nothing but Marvin Gaye or Al Green. Every single time. Well one day we had a bunch of time to kill so he took the van all throughout campus, and while driving he turned up the volume as loud as he could, and would roll the windows down and tried to get the campers to yell at the co-eds walking to class. It was hilarious.

I went to camps all throughout the Big 12 and SEC, and Sampson was--by far--the most fun and friendliest coach to be around. Most coaches didn't care about the camps and would only make an appearance or two, they normally would have their assistants work the camps. Sampson was the complete opposite... He spent most of his time with the campers and you could tell he genuinely enjoyed doing it.

This was the exact opposite of Billy Tubbs basketball camp. He only showed up 3 times: on Sunday the day we arrived because he took pictures with the campers, on the last day to hand out awards, and one of the mid-week days for a few minutes.

Taylor, his daughter, was there every day though. Most days in a bikini top and shorts and she was running a concession stand. You should have seen the line to buy cokes and candy.

Looking back, I was pretty happy with the trade off...

 

[Tony]

Tony, feed me some Sampson stuff. TIA.

I know this should be right up my alley but I'm blanking on the good stuff. I had e

I have a kinda funny story about his staff accusing me of being a poster on the internet that I wasn't that I'll post tomorrow when I get the time. It's too long for me to type out at the moment.