Boomer Sooner Baby!

Rick, John, Kristin and Mark during a break in Tulsa’s Channel 8′s pre-game show

The final score doesn’t tell the whole story. Sure, Sooner diehards are disappointed with OU’s 30-13 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday, but the match-up in Norman of two of college football’s most successful football programs EVER was a blast for fans. You know it’s a big game when ESPN’s GameDay is in town.

ESPN GameDay’s Kirk Herbstreit

Since the big game was on ABC, it was on Tulsa’s Channel 8. With such a huge audience tuning in, Kristin and I, our sports guys, Rick and John, and our “live” crew made the trek down to Norman for a pre-game special.

Tulsa’s Channel 8′s “Gameday” crew

We ran into a slight roadblock right off the bat when the University of Oklahoma told us we couldn’t set up our satellite truck, cameras and lights anywhere on campus. Go figure. Although two of my boys are students there, and I’m a big Sooner supporter (a lot of my money goes there), I think that’s lame. Shame on you OU. But apparently that’s their policy. That was about week before the game. So we scrambled to find a location for our pre-game special.

Maybe that wasn’t the best place to put the portable fire pit for our show!

Three Sooner fans came to the rescue. One of them with a name almost too good to be true. Every home game these three men put on the tailgate of all tailgates. About a dozen years ago they bought a house a couple of blocks from the stadium just for tailgate parties. No one lives in the house. It’s sole purpose is to host game-day parties, fully catered with entertainment (Mary Cogan sang last Saturday).

Mary Cogan sang at the tailgate party

Since then, they’ve bought the house next door for the same reason. And half a dozen or so Saturdays each Fall as many as 400 people are invited. On any given Saturday three former Heisman winners (Steve Owens, Billy Sims and Jason White), and a coaching legend (Barry Switzer), show up to mingle with the masses.

Tailgating before the Oklahoma/Notre Dame game

So a big thanks to Gary Torres, Jerry Williams and Dr. Mark Boomer for letting us set up shop at their tailgate. Did you catch that last name? I wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last, to ask to see Mark Boomer’s drivers license.