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The University Of Oklahoma 's sports teams are called the Sooners , a nickname given to early Oklahoma land rush pioneers. They participate in the NCAA 's Division I-A, in the South Division of the Big 12 Conference . The University's current athletic director is Joe Castiglione . NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
In addition, the Sooner tradition includes 205 conference championships and more than 700 All-Americans. True Division I-A football championships are not sanctioned by the NCAA. See below for a discussion of football championships. VARSITY SPORTS Football Undoubtedly the most famous aspect of Sooner athletics is the College Football program, considered by many to be a top three all-time program. Calling Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium at Owen Field its home since the 1920s, the team has won numerous bowl games, 39 conference championships (including every Big Seven championship awarded), and seven Associated Press National Championships, making the Sooners the most decorated program in the Big 12 and third most decorated in all of college football. The Sooners possess seven poll-determined national championships in football, with the 1950, 1955, 1956, 1974, 1975, 1985, and 2000 seasons featuring the top team in the Associated Press final poll, along with the 2000 Bowl Championship Series National Championship. Individual success is also a major part of Oklahoma football; four Heisman Trophy winners, Billy Vessels , Steve Owens , Billy Sims and Jason White , are surrounded by many other award winners, including Joe Washington , Brian Bosworth , Greg Pruitt , Josh Heupel , Jerry Tubbs , Teddy Lehman , Lee Roy Selmon , Roy Williams and Tommy McDonald Legendary coaches Barry Switzer , Bud Wilkinson , Bennie Owen , and Bob Stoops have passed though the gameday tunnel for the Sooners. Owen was the first highly successful coach at OU and was a major advocate of the forward pass, which at the turn of the century was not popular. Wilkinson left many imprints on the game, such as the 5-2 defense with five linemen and two linebackers; the perfection of the split-T, an early option offense; three national championships; and his teams set the NCAA record for consecutive wins at 47. Switzer won three national championships and forged arguably the fiercest rushing offense ever, the Oklahoma wishbone, throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Though the end of Switzer's career was marked by controversy among players leading to the end of his tenure at Oklahoma, he is generally well-regarded by both his past players and Sooner fans. The university is currently home to head coach Bob Stoops and junior Adrian Peterson , one of college football's most talented running backs. Conference championships 2002 Big 12: Bob Stoops 2000 Big 12: Bob Stoops 1986 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1985 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1984 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1980 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1979 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1978 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1977 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1976 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1975 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1974 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1973 Big 8: Barry Switzer 1968 Big 8: Chuck Fairbanks 1967 Big 8: Chuck Fairbanks 1959 Big 8: Bud Wilkinson 1958 Big 8: Bud Wilkinson 1957 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1956 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1955 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1954 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1953 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1952 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1951 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1950 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1949 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1948 Big 7: Bud Wilkinson 1947 Big 6: Bud Wilkinson 1943 Big 6: Snorter Luster 1918 Southwest: Bennie Owen 1915 Southwest: Bennie Owen Men's basketball The men's Basketball team is highly successful and has risen to national prominence since the early 80’s with head coach Billy Tubbs and three time All-American power forward Wayman Tisdale . Sampson is expected to be named the head coach at Indiana. It currently plays in the Lloyd Noble Center , which came to be known as the house Alvan Adams built and Tisdale filled. While the team has never won a national championship, it ranks second in most tournament wins without a championship behind Illinois . The team played in the 1988 national championship game but lost to Kansas, despite having beaten the Jayhawks three times earlier in the season. The program has won a combined twenty regular-season and tournament championships. The Sooners headed into the 2005-06 season ranked #6 in the AP preseason poll, led by Taj Gray, Kevin Bookout, Terrell Everett, and David Goldbold. Despite disappointments throughout the early season, after the emergence of Micheal Neal, the Sooners salvaged a #3 seed in the Big 12 Conference Tournament The men's basketball program is currently under investigation for NCAA recruiting violations, mainly regarding an excessive number of telephone calls made by coaching staff members to recruits and contacting recruits as juniors, which is forbidden by the NCAA. The school has submitted a list of self-imposed sanctions which the NCAA has yet to accept. A final ruling is due in April 2006. On March 29, 2006, Kelvin Sampson left the University of Oklahoma to become the head basketball coach at Indiana University. 13 days later, on April 11, 2006, Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione named Jeff Capel III the new head coach. 2004 - 2005 Big 12: Kelvin Sampson
1988 - 1989 Big 8: Billy Tubbs 1987 - 1988 Big 8: Billy Tubbs 1984 - 1985 Big 8: Billy Tubbs 1983 - 1984 Big 8: Billy Tubbs 1978 - 1979 Big 8: Dave Bliss 1948 - 1949 Big 7 : Bruce Drake 1946 - 1947 Big 6 : Bruce Drake 1943 - 1944 Big 6: Bruce Drake 1941 - 1942 Big 6: Bruce Drake 1939 - 1940 Big 6: Bruce Drake 1938 - 1939 Big 6: Bruce Drake 1928 - 1929 Big 6: Hugh McDermott 1927 - 1928 Old Mo. Valley: Hugh McDermott
Men's gymnastics The men's gymnastics program has won four of the last five national championships (2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006). The team is led by their coach, Mark Williams. Baseball The Oklahoma Baseball tradition is long, proud and storied, with two National Championships in 1951 and 1994, along with numerous All-Americans. The baseball program was a source of recent controversy when the head coach, Larry Cochell, resigned after making racially insensitive remarks about one of the players on the team. OU rebounded to make the college baseball playoffs as a third seed. They call L. Dale Mitchell Park home and now have a new head coach, Sunny Golloway. Women's basketball OU Women's Basketball has gained national prominence, after the 2002 season, in which they advanced to the National Title game, losing to the all-time greatest women's college team, the 2002 University Of Connecticut Huskies. The Sooners are led by their coach, Sherri Coale, and stars, the nationally-known freshman twins, Courtney and Ashley Paris. As with the Men's team, they call Lloyd Noble home. 2005-2006 has been a particularly good season for the Sooners, winning the Big 12 regular season championship with a 16-0 conference record and winning the Big 12 Tournament. Wrestling The wrestling program is the fourth most decorated in college wrestling, having won seven national championships in 1936, 1951, 1952, 1957, 1960, 1963 and 1974. They are led by their coach, Jack Spates. While Oklahoma State claims the mantle of most dominant wrestling program in the state, the Sooners are considered a power in their own right. RIVALRIES The University Of Texas is considered the primary rival of the Sooners. Inverted versions of the Longhorn mascot can be seen on automobiles all over the Norman campus, and many T-shirts referring to the rivalry present the word "Texas" in mirror image, upside-down, or possibly surrounded by obscenities. While, unlike most of their Big 12 South opponents, there is no official hand signal equivalent to the Hook 'em or Gig 'em Aggies signs, an inverted form of Texas's hand sign, known by Sooners as the "Horns Down" sign, is highly popular. Their annual college football match up in Dallas , Texas , known as the Red River Shootout , draws attention from all of the college football world. 2005 marked the 100th " Red River Shootout ", taking place on October 8th in the Cotton Bowl , alongside the Texas State Fair . Oklahoma was defeated by eventual national champion Texas, 45-12, in the 100th Red River Shootout. A college football rivalry with the University Of Nebraska has been less intense in recent years (although recent off-the-field incidents have heightened the animosity between the two programs and their respective fanbases), but several historical match-ups, including the "Game of the Century" and the so-called "Game of the New Century" have pitted Nebraska and Oklahoma against each other ranked 1 and 2 in the Associated Press Poll, making the games of great importance in deciding the national championship. Historically, the rivalry's most distinguishing quality has been the grudging respect and appreciation between the two tradition-rich programs. Other rivals include Oklahoma State University , whose athletic contests with the University of Oklahoma are known as the " Bedlam Series ". Today, this has developed into a major game in Big 12 basketball. The football rivalry, while intense, remains lopsided, being 77-16-7 in favor of the Sooners. However, legends such as Barry Sanders have featured prominently in the Cowboys' lineup during these games. TRADITIONS The "fight song" of the University of Oklahoma is " Boomer Sooner ", a version of "Boola Boola", the fight song of Yale University . Other songs played at athletic events by the Pride of Oklahoma Marching Band are a version of Rodgers And Hammerstein 's " Oklahoma! ," "OK Oklahoma," played after touchdowns, and the " OU Chant ". The Mascot present at all football games is the Sooner Schooner , a Conestoga wagon, pulled by two crème white ponies, Boomer and Sooner. The caretakers of the wagon are the spirit group called the Ruf/Neks, who shoot off modified shotguns in celebration of scores by the home team. The group was launched in 1915 when an elderly female spectator at an OU-Oklahoma A&M basketball game chided the group for raising hell ("Sit down and be quiet, you roughnecks!") {Link without Title} Recently, in time for the 2005 football season, two new mascots, based on the ponies who pull the Schooner, were created, named appropriately, Boomer and Sooner. They are costumes of two identical (except for eye color) crème white ponies. The schools colors are "crimson and cream," often expressed as simply red and white, and the school logo is an interlocking OU design in crimson, which resembles a paperclip. EXTERNAL LINKS
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