Oklahoma Vs Texas: When Football Becomes War (Hardcover)

by Robert Heard (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
" . . . a masterful job of reporting and research . . . it's a thrill to read about all those great games." -- Mickey Herskowitz, Houston Post [now with the Houston Chronicle]

"I couldn't put it down. I read it for two consecutive nights. It was a hell of a job. That must have been a labor of love. (Heard) must have researched that to a fare-the-well. The first chapter is the finest thing written about Oklahoma vis--vis Texas I've read. I think (Heard) has a viable thing there about 'The Grapes of Wrath' being a part of the OU-Texas series. That's genius. Nobody else has ever come up with that idea." -- Steve Perkins, Sports Author and Editor of Dallas Cowboys Weekly

"It's a fascinating book. It's more than a book about football. It's a book about the whole (Oklahoma-Texas) culture." -- Cactus Pryor, KLBJ-Radio, Austin

Product Description
This is the history of the University of Oklahoma vs. the University of Texas football rivalry from 1900, when it began, to 1980. It contains 292 photos or illustrations. An account of each game is given, with a major chapter devoted to each game beginning in 1946, when the rivalry became an intense one through OU's "Grapes of Wrath" reaction to create a powerhouse football team through whatever means, through the 1979 game. There is an Epilogue, plus appendices listing all of the Oklahoma All-America players and all the Texas All-America players through the 1979 game, the Associated Press Top 10 poll at the end of each year, beginning in 1936, when the AP poll started, through 1979, the same for the United Press International poll, beginning in 1950, when the UPI poll started, Oklahoma's year-by-year record of wins, losses and ties through 1979, the same for Texas, and a 10-page, double-column Index of names of players and coaches for both schools.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Honey Hill Pub (June 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0937642002
• ISBN-13: 978-0937642009
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,342,766 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The truth is told, September 29, 2008

By	No ou fan (oklahoma) - See all my reviews

The truth is finally told! Yeah, the book is biased, but the truth had to come out eventually. Besides, if an ou fan wrote a book comparing the two schools and their football programs, (and told the truth) it would be very difficult to show ou in a positive light, except to an ou fan. I went to ou and graduated with a doctorate from a football team that occasionally hands out degrees as long as it doesn't interfere with football season. When I asked some of the other students if they were concerned with the fact that every Title before 2000 was possibly "tainted" in some way, most didn't care. In fact, a common response was they didn't care if they stole the trophy without even playing the game, a title is a title. Although it does not appear to be as bad today as it was in the past (Stoops appears to be running a "clean" program and winning) ou's perception of what it means to be an institution of higher education has been completely warped by the "win by whatever means necessary" attitude of the past 60 years. While serving on the student council at the health sciences center, I saw the so-called "student leaders" vote getting a vacation day the Friday before the Texas game like the main campus in Norman as THE MOST IMPORTANT issue of the year by an astonishing margin of 15 to 1 over things such as campus security, an international student organization, or badly needed updates to the library and technology on campus. And these were the school's medical, pharmacy, nursing, and PhD students! What other school gets a vacation day based on a football game? Texas students have class Friday before they play ou, but ou has NO CLASS (that day, or any other). And what other school president cancels classes on Monday after ou beat Texas for the first time in three years? You guessed it, David Boren announced to the crowd at a local radio station's post game show at the conclusion of ou's victory over Texas in 2000 that Monday classes were canceled in celebration of the victory. This is the same person who took the time to write a formal letter to the NCAA a few years later expressing his anger over a bad call that cost his football team a victory, and demanded the game be counted as a win for his team. David Boren makes more headlines by his actions relating to the football team than he does for running a "university." All he ever says about the university is "blah blah national merit scholars blah blah blah national merit scholars" over and over again. Guess what, no one is impressed by your national merit scholars crap. That's because ou is a football team FIRST, and everything else second. This goes all the way back to 1951 when university president George Cross requested additional funding from the state legislature to "build a university our football team can be proud of." Obviously, he was denied the funding, because nobody could be proud of that school (as a place of learning at least). Look at the list of schools with the most NCAA probations of all time. Oklahoma has been dethroned for the moment, but still holds a strong second place with seven (Hmmm, seven titles, seven probations, does anyone else see a coincidence?). I can hardly see how some people say this book is "rumors and speculation" from people who hate ou. I guess the NCAA puts teams they hate on probation because of rumors and speculation. I guess all those falsified high school records that led to probation in 1973 were rumors and speculation, too. I mean how STUPID do you have to be that you have to have your high school record altered to go to ou? They let just about anyone who applies in! Heck, Texas turns down more people than ou has applicants! Many of the quotes in the book actually come from other books written by former coaches, players, and presidents at ou!!! Still more come from interviews published by the associated press or stories run in magazines such as SI. There is some speculation, but it is simply "if this is what they have been CAUGHT doing, WHAT ELSE have they done WITHOUT getting caught? Yes, the author takes a shot at the OKC zoo (this appears to be a very sore spot for ou fans) but he does it to prove a point. This book was written in 1980, and the zoo here has improved drastically since then. The author mentions the zoo (along with other attractions, or lack thereof) to compare the two cities. The argument is how else could a university in a city such as Norman or okc with nothing to offer a young man in his late teens or early twenties draw so many players away from a thriving economic and cultural center such as Austin with all of its night life and beautiful surroundings by any legal means. Remember, this is BEFORE ou had any tradition for winning. I will give credit to okc for making progress in recent years in areas such as culture, night life, the arts, recreation and such. But face the facts people. Norman and OKC today still aren't even half of what Austin was 30 years ago. And although Oklahoma has a few places with attractive landscape, they are very far from the campus in Norman. Conversely, much of Texas resembles the flat, barren middle section of Oklahoma (after all, they are bordering states) but Austin is located in one of the most scenic parts of the entire country with hills, lakes, wildlife, and vegetation that creates a scene one could enjoy for hours on end. Many of the people I went to school with at Oklahoma went there because they grew up in Oklahoma as fans of the football team. Most of them have come away with a sour taste in their mouths vowing to "never give a single penny to that place," yet remain loyal fans of their precious football team. Me, I just couldn't afford to go to a good school and I was living in Oklahoma at the time, so I decided to go to the closest major university. As you can see, I am extremely upset having wasted so many years on a degree that has little meaning outside this backwards state. Now I realize that education is like so many other things in life, you get what you pay for. And tuition at ou is one of the lowest in the country.

11 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Author Is From Texas So Expect Biased Reporting, April 26, 2000

By	Mike Wiseley "houstonsooner84" (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews

I have just started reading this book and it has a lot if interesting quotes, pictures, and stories for many of the OU-Texas games. The book does seem to be pretty biased towards the Texas point of view. The author tries so hard to point out any excuse for why in many years, Oklahoma out-recruited and outplayed Texas. The book makes a long list of claims about illegal recruiting tactics (buying players with gifts, spending lavish sums of money on recruiting, etc) and says OU will do anything it takes to win..lie, cheat, bribe, or steal. However the author spends only a small half a page discussing how the University of Texas had very few black athletes in the 1960s and early 1970s.

In the meantime, Oklahoma was way out ahead of most other colleges because it recognized talented athletes regardless of race. The major strategic edge enjoyed by Oklahoma in the 1960s and 1970s recruiting was its willingness to play the best talent. How many other colleges were starting black athletes in the 1960s, 1970s, besides Oklahoma? Barry Switzer had a whole extra ethnic to recruit from that other top notch programs (like Texas) declined to tap into. And Barry gathered all colors of players together to form the greatest teams in College football. Someday, after Texas wins three more national championships, they might catch up with Oklahoma.

8 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 55-33-5, July 9, 2000

By A Customer

Great book. Recounts the history of the series well. With the overall record being so greatly in TEXAS' favor (55-33-5), the book does a remarkable job of balancing the analysis so as to depict OU's endless struggle to one day overtake TEXAS.