This Says It All For Me

(SEMI-DISCLAIMER: this post is related to Sooner football. HOWEVER, it's really much more about me than about the football program, so I actually urge you to read this one and not skip it.)

I can remember going to the OU-Nebraska game back in 2000...yes, I was really, truly, actually there in the stadium and got to see it live...one of my most cherished Sooner memories. It was my first game at Owen Field in several years, and we were lucky that my Mom worked at the same law firm as one of the OU regents, who gave her two tickets in the south end zone. I didn't care; we were there and that's what counted. What a glorious game...

Anyway, every year, the OU Athletic Department does a new intro video for the games, and they show it up on the big diamond-vision screen at the south end (and now the north end as well...they added a new screen there this year). These videos are wonderful at invoking the long, storied tradition of Sooner football...the Selmons, JC Watts, Joe Washington, Jamelle Holieway, Josh Heupel, Jason White, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, and of course, Bennie, Bud, Barry, and Bob...so many names every Sooner is born knowing, from the game that truly made Oklahoma what it is today. These names whisper in our heads and ooze through our veins. So as I watched that video, and as my identity as a Sooner flooded back into me after so long being dormant from my time here in Colorado, and as childhood memories of OU-Nebraska games I'd gone to with my Dad rushed back to my brain, tears began to fall from my eyes. I shivered with a great chill, even though it was a warm day, realizing what I was connecting to and what I was a part of.

I've been thinking a lot over the last few months about what makes me a Sooner, and why I feel that so strongly. Sooner football is a part of my identity as a Sooner and the ties of family and friends that strengthen and are strengthened by that identity. That identity is why I married Heidi on a box full of authentic Oklahoma red clay. It is why this blog is The Daily Okie, and not the Daily Coloradan or the Daily Denverite; I have ties here, but those deeper ties are stronger and will never be broken.

Some who read this might think I'm slightly insane, or that I'm silly for feeling that so strongly. Lots of people in Colorado undoubtedly would think that way, mostly because so many are transplants themselves and willingly left their old homes behind; they willingly severed those ties and chose to stay here. I respect that, but that's not my bag, baby.

All that being said, the new 2007 Sooner intro video is on Youtube and it is AWESOME. I'm putting it here below, so that you all may enjoy it, and perhaps for just a brief moment, you'll understand a little bit about why I'm a Sooner, and why I always will be. I'm a Sooner born, and a Sooner bred, and when I die I'll be Sooner dead, and that really says it all. Enjoy the video.



Thanks for reading along.