Weirdest interaction with a Beaker

[NMSooner'80]

There was plenty of disgust to be had with the KU contingent if you lived in north Oklahoma County. Lots of anti-OU front-runners had a field day after the Mistake of '88.

But mine happened in Albuquerque, roughly 15 years ago. I was at a pharmacy, minding my own business, when a much-younger guy who resembled ex-OSU star Matt Clark, but was wearing a KU sweatshirt, started going off on me about my OU coat. I politely told him I was an Oklahoma native, and he still persisted with the nonsense that I should have become a Kansas fan.

I then calmly told him that I was not only an alum but also from southern Oklahoma. Ardmore is not KU country, and never will be.

Never figured why that guy thought it was okay to pick a verbal spat with a total (and much older) stranger over a basketball team. And back in my student days, their fan base always claimed some sort of moral superiority over OU and everyone else in the old Big 8.

 

[thebigabd]

I can honestly say i've never had an interaction with a Beaker.

 

[Hollisp]

I try to avoid them as much as possible.

 

[MsProudSooner]

Overheard at the NCAA Tournament games in Tulsa a couple of years ago:

KU Fan: If we don't get to the Filnal Four this year there is something seriously wrong!

KU lost in the Sweet Sixteen that year. I thought about that fan in the past couple of years and wondered what his attitude was.

 

[NMSooner'80]

I don't know if it was just the KU people, but my brother came back from the 1985 Big 8 tournament with some horror stories about how hateful people were. It didn't help that the KC Star branded OU as basically a thug program even before the season.

I also mentioned how Ardmore would never be one of those towns with a KU following, given in part that it's 200 miles south of the Kansas border. The Daily Ardmoreite had an excellent sports editor back in that same general era (mid-1980's). They also hired a KU grad to cover the news beat, but he also fancied himself as a college basketball guy. So they let him write a few articles, but the bonehead somehow assumed people in Carter County wanted to read his pro-KU, anti-OU nonsense.

Around Christmas '84, he penned this absurd "holiday wishes" article that included a couple of "pearls of 'wisdom'" related to hoops. His wish for Wayman Tisdale was to get ready for the NBA and to forget about the NCAA title that was "well out of reach." He also felt the need to go ahead and wish the KU team "best of luck in pursuit of the national championship..."

Needless to say, Tisdale came a lot closer to the natty than the Beakers did. KU didn't win the Big 8 regular season or the tournament. OU at least made the Elite 8.

And I think the Ardmoreite shut down that nonsense of giving that guy some space on the sports page. I think he left town quietly after that school year. I didn't live in Ardmore then, but I did have access to print copies of the Ardmoreite. So I did at least know what was happening with their product. I don't think the guy got chased out of town like I think happened to an idiot with the Duncan Banner (Colorado grad who trashed OU) about 10 years ago. But I'm quite sure he wasn't missed in Ardmore when he left.

 

[WaymanFan]

I read this in Sooners Illustrated back in the autumn of 1988. It was Barry Switzer’s last year at OU and he gave a pep talk to the team prior to playing Kansas in football. He was out for blood because of the way the Kansas basketball fans treated the OU fans in the title game 6 months earlier. His talk did not work initially as the game was competitive for the first half. The players interviewed after the game said they had never seen Coach Switzer as angry as he was at halftime. They were scared enough to go out and destroy KU in the second half. Obviously, the KU hoops fans left such a negative impression on Coach Switzer like no fan base had ever done.

 

[mict085]

ku fans have always been hypocrites. They like to call OU cheaters and a “rogue” program. They look down their noses at OU yet, Danny Manning’s dad was hired with no qualifications and they’ve been buying players for years. KU has an elaborate network of funneling money wherever it needs to go to buy the best players. Nobody has cheated as much as ku, yet they like to portray themselves as saints. They are the biggest hypocrites of all.

 

[opsooner]

Wilt the Stilt just wanted to leave Philly to play ball in Kansas. It had nothing to do with money.


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[Soonerinkc]

Ive got good friends that are hawkers... but most are obnoxious buttheads during bball season

 

[NMSooner'80]

I read this in Sooners Illustrated back in the autumn of 1988. It was Barry Switzer’s last year at OU and he gave a pep talk to the team prior to playing Kansas in football. He was out for blood because of the way the Kansas basketball fans treated the OU fans in the title game 6 months earlier. His talk did not work initially as the game was competitive for the first half. The players interviewed after the game said they had never seen Coach Switzer as angry as he was at halftime. They were scared enough to go out and destroy KU in the second half. Obviously, the KU hoops fans left such a negative impression on Coach Switzer like no fan base had ever done.

I think I read somewhere that a bunch of KU fans followed the OU team bus back to the hotel after that game, just to get some extra taunting in at OU's expense. I can't say I'd be surprised.

It didn't help that KU's print media buddies always spun that nonsense about the '84 OU team's alleged bad behavior in Lawrence. That was the one where the story morphed that someone "flipped off" the crowd. It was Choo Kennedy who was waving a Big 8 Champs ring at them, but the good lie was that it was "the bird." And I think the story further became out of control when Billy Tubbs was erroneously linked to it (his "incident," which I've heard from reliable sources was false, occurred in Boulder that January).

I still haven't forgotten how furious I was to see one of those hacks demean Wayman Tisdale in his demise by repeating that whole "OU bad" narrative from '84. That was the despicable Chuck Woodling who penned that nonsense. I haven't forgotten or forgiven.