To Rick Barnes: In the beginning …
‘Twas a morn’ long ago, the year doesn’t matter,
When Frank Erwin awoke, his mind in a clatter.
The TV was on and what did he see?
Big crowds in Champaign and Knoxville, Tennessee.
“What game are they playing?” The Regent did whoop.
It’s round and it bounces and it goes through a hoop.
“It’s not football,” he cried, awash in a dither,
No end zone, no goal post, no halfbacks did slither.
“Who cares what the game is,” Frank Erwin did shout,
As he fell from his couch and tumbled about.
He ran to the phone, nine Regents he did call,
“We must have a meeting,” and get on the ball.
“The game sure is strange,” to that I’ll agree,
“But there’s money to be made, for you and for me!”
So the meeting was held, the decision was quick,
To build an arena, lickety split.
A jewel it will be, the pride of the town.
A fine work of art, a place of renown.
“But what is this game?” a skeptic did say.
“Hush your mouth,” said Frank Erwin, “don’t get in my way.”
With three tumblers of bourbon, no regrets or forlorn,
Like sweet baby Jesus, the Erwin Center is born.
So out of the earth on the street of Red River,
It grew higher and higher, the town was atwitter.
Few cared to note any signs of ill tidings,
The bulldozers were roaring, the critics were hiding.
But at Gregory Gym, just a few blocks away,
Fifteen students did come to see basketball played.
Come Mayor, come Senator, come President Carter,
Coach Akers, Coach Royal, what have we started?
Many seats there will be, all cloaked in orange,
But the game is a mystery in the Land of the Horn.
“Empty seats sure look bad,” it was frequently mentioned.
How can we fill them? Now there was a question.
Then out of the night there came a great clatter,
An idea was born, one that would matter.
“Let’s sell them to boosters, they have lots of dough.”
A volleyball, a basketball? What do they know?
So boosters did buy them, this we can say,
But most nights they sit empty, no matter who plays.
Not Tom. Not Rick. Not even Abe Lemons,
Could shrink the big tomb to its proper dimensions.
And where goeth the frat boys and dorm rats from Plano?
Go to Frank’s house? They’d rather drink Draino.
Two decades have passed for the building so round.
Mr. Frank Erwin is deep in the ground.
But oh don’t you hear, as the wind shakes and sighs,
His eternal lament from his place in the sky?
Some say it’s a ghost, but they’re sick in the head.
“Get a grip on it, son,” the man’s twenty years dead.
“I hear him,” I say, when the wind gets to blowin’.
He’s laughing I tell ya’, a cigar he’s a smokin’.
“This game’s still a puzzle,” he howls to us all,
“But we’ll get rich again, when we tear down that hall!”
Parting Shots: The Sooners are down in Miami so fair … sorry, sorry. Do you want to be a millionaire? Prepared to risk it all? Here’s what you do: Stake the house and the kid’s college fund on Florida State in the Orange Bowl. Why? Because I think Oklahoma, getting 12 points, is a lock … for OU. In fact, the Sooners will beat the Seminoles straight up. A rested OU and a healthy Josh Heupel is a team most of the country has not seen. I have. So what’s the catch? Anytime I feel this certain about anything, I’m always dead wrong. Every time.
This article appears in December 29 • 2000.