Author: Abby Bitterman

By Abby Bitterman

After Baker Mayfield shook all the hands of his fellow Heisman winners and said all his thank yous in his acceptance speech, he walked across the stage and picked up his Heisman Trophy. The trophy the senior quarterback hoisted in New York City had traveled just as many miles as he had to be there.

Since 2005, the Heisman Trophy has been made by MTM Recognition, a company located 18.3 miles north of Gaylord Family – Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Oklahoma City. The company has been around for 46 years and has become one of the nation’s top awards companies. It makes the trophy for Jostens, said Jack Nortz, director of sculpting for MTM Recognition.

In addition to the Heisman, MTM Recognition makes a lot of other awards and trophies for the college football world. It makes several bowl trophies, conference trophies — including the Big 12 Conference Championship trophy the Sooners won on Dec. 2 — and other individual awards, like the John Mackey Award won this year by junior tight end Mark Andrews and the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award Lincoln Riley is a finalist for.

The Mackey Award is one that Nortz sculpted himself, and, being a big Sooner fan, he was excited when Andrews won it last week.

“As OU fans we get really excited about them winning,” Nortz said. “We (the Sooners) won the Big 12 Championship, and that’s another one that we do and it was on TV and gave us a lot of notoriety, so that’s cool too.”

As Oklahoma’s sixth Heisman winner, Mayfield gets more than just a trophy to add to his shelf. He will get a statue of himself in Heisman Park alongside the greats that came before him, and it’s possible that MTM Recognition could be involved with that one, too, though no plans have been announced yet.

The first four statues to go up in Heisman Park — Billy Vessels, Steve Owens, Billy Sims, Jason White — were made as part of Oklahoma’s centennial celebration in 2007. The four statues were commissioned by the Centennial Commission, and the effort was led by Lee Allan Smith, an alumni of the University of Oklahoma and friend of Vessels. Smith led the fundraising effort for the sculptures, which he said can range in cost from $100,000 to $175,000 and were all made by different sculptors from Oklahoma.

It took Jim Franklin of Perry, Oklahoma, about a year and a half to make Billy Sims’ statue. He said the Centennial Commission sent him a photo of Sims taken during a game the year he won the Heisman to be his pose. Franklin found other photos from the time Sims was playing and used them as reference material to help him make an 18-inch maquette — a small scale version of the statue. He made the statue without his helmet on because while Sims was playing football he was known for his big afro, and Franklin said he wanted to show it off.

Franklin presented the model for approval to some people in the Oklahoma Athletic Department, Barry Switzer, Smith and Sims and his wife, he said. There was one comment from Sims and his wife that stuck out to him.

“His wife said ‘well that doesn’t really look like you,” Franklin remembered. “And he says ‘of course it doesn’t look like me because that was back in 1978 and I’ve changed a little bit since 1978.”

After the maquette got approved, Franklin said it was sent to a foundry where it was scanned, and computer programs digitally enlarged it and created a foam base the size of what the statue would be — about 9 feet. The foam base was delivered to Franklin’s studio where he assembled it and then sculpted clay over it to establish all the details and textures. Before he sculpted the clay on, though, he said he painted the foam with a latex paint to make it easier to work with.

Once the clay sculpture was approved, it was sent back to the foundry where a wax replica was made. That wax statue was then encased in a ceramic shell. The wax was melted out and bronze was poured into make the final statue. This process is called the lost-wax bronze process, Franklin said. When it was done, the statue weighed about 500-600 lbs and had to be transported by a flatbed truck.

“It’s one of the greatest honors of my career in sculpting — to have that piece at OU just outside the stadium,” Franklin said.

The process was similar for Jason White’s statue and all the others. The pose, though, is different for every statue. It’s what makes them unique and what immortalizes Oklahoma’s Heisman winners forever in the minds of Sooner Nation.

Sculptor, Jay O’Meilia of Tulsa, said he picked the pose of White — who O’Meilia said he had to force back into his Oklahoma uniform to make sketches of him.

“Being a great long-distance quarterback — he had a great arm on him, and I wanted to show that,” O’Meilia said. “Now he could throw a ball 60 yards down the field, so that’s the pose I wanted because that’s what people knew him for, his great arm strength.”

O’Meilia wanted to make the statue more of a portrait of White, so he asked for approval to make the statue without a helmet on his subject. Of all the Heisman winners, Vessel’s is the only one with a helmet on his statue.

Nortz and MTM Recognition made the most recent addition to the park — Sam Bradford. There was a bit of controversy surrounding the statue when it was first installed in Heisman Park because people were unsure whether it looked like him.

Nortz said he thinks he knows where that sentiment comes from, though. When Bradford was playing at Oklahoma, he would cut his hair short at the start of a season and then let it grow until the end. When he made the maquette, Nortz gave Bradford his longer, curly, end-of-the season hair style, but he said Bradford wanted his statue to have short hair.

Plans for Mayfield’s Heisman Park statue aren’t yet known, but some have already weighed in on what they think his pose should be. Before Mayfield even won the Heisman, a petition had already been started on Change.org for the pose to depict him planting the flag on Ohio State’s field. The petition had 7,446 online signatures as of 1:30 p.m. Sunday.

On an ESPN radio show on Dec. 8, though, Mayfield said he doesn’t think that will get approved. He did have some ideas of his own for what he’d like to see his statue look like.

“You have to have the bandana, that’s a trademark,” Mayfield said on the show. “Maybe a temporary handlebar (mustache) for Bedlam week.”

By Abby Bitterman

Bob Stoops was the head coach of Oklahoma’s football team for 18 seasons — starting in 1999 — but, until Aug. 26, 2017, no one had written a definitive profile on him.

Cody Stavenhagen, an OU beat writer for the Tulsa World, found himself not having much to do in May, so he decided to write about the man who no one else had truly been able to capture: “Bob Stoops rides away: A look behind the football facade of OU’s winningest coach.”

Stavenhagen started his reporting with a Google Doc titled “100 people who know Bob Stoops.” He said he maybe got to 31.

His goal was to write it by the end of the summer, and, when Stoops announced his retirement on June 7, he knew it was something he actually needed to do. At the time, Stavenhagen said everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but he tried to step back.

“We’re all going to end up writing the same thing, what can I do to really own this story at the end of day,” Stavenhagen said. “ I try to think about that a lot.”

Despite the story’s increased relevance, Stavenhagen waited until after his vacation to do most of the interviews. He waited for the frenzy to die down, he said, which made it a bit easier.

“It was a good point in his life for his family and his friends to want to talk about him because it was the end of a chapter,” Stavenhagen said. “I think they were a little more comfortable being open about his life and his retirement, so it all worked out really well from that standpoint.”

Stavenhagen said every interview he had was over an hour long, except the one he did with Steve Spurrier, and he was surprised at how candid his sources — his mom, sister and friends — were willing to be with him. There was one source he didn’t get though — Bob Stoops himself. He was actually happy he couldn’t get Stoops though because he thinks other people can talk about a person better than that person might be able to talk about him or herself.

In the story, Stavenhagen writes with a lot of detail — something he generally likes to do — so much so that it feels like he was there in the scenes he’s describing. He said he was able to get this detail by being very upfront with his sources about what he was trying to do. He told them he wanted to use a lot of detail in the story, so that’s what they gave him.

When all the reporting was done, Stavenhagen had more than enough material — so much so he put out a separate story with scenes that didn’t make it in the original feature but that readers might still like. With all that information, he had to figure out how to organize it. It was the most material he’d ever had and transitioned into the longest story he’d ever written.

“It was kind of just me and Microsoft Word and some printed out notes, and I just made it work,” Stavenhagen said.

After doing all of the interviews and reporting, Stavenhagen knew how he wanted to start the story and the order he wanted to tell it in, but he couldn’t figure out how to end the story. He had ideas, but none of them seemed good enough. Then, one day in August as he and other reporters were waiting to go into availability, Stoops drove out of the stadium in a new white car, and as all the beat writers remarked how happy and different he looked as he drove off, Stavenhagen knew he’d found his ending.

“Sometimes if you work hard on a story you get a little lucky,” Stavenhagen said. “And that’s definitely what happened.”

By Abby Bitterman

It’s about 30 degrees at 9 a.m. the morning of a Sooners’ home game, and the west side of the Lloyd Noble Center parking lot is full with RVs. Flags are flying over the top of almost every motor home — American flags with OU flags beneath them.

It’s a night game this week and it’s chilly out in the morning, not many people are outside yet. Those that are have started setting up their grills or are checking the meat they’ve been smoking since last night, and they’re getting the day’s tailgate ready. It’s quiet, and the voices of Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard and crew carry throughout the lot as ESPN’s College GameDay plays on televisions both outside and inside the RVs. Tents sit empty waiting for the party to start.

The parking lot transforms into SooneRVillage on home gameday weekends, and hundreds of couples and families come from across Oklahoma, and even Texas, to tailgate here. Fans start parking their RVs on Thursday and Friday and don’t pull out until Sunday. Some go to away games too, but the community is biggest at home.

The village is split into two sides, one with electric outlets and one without. By Friday night, everybody is there, and the lot is full of giant RVs. The Lloyd Noble Center is transformed into a big community, where people have been neighbors for years and cook and watch games together. They are out there through sun, heat, wind, rain, cold and snow.

With controversy surrounding permitted tailgating areas near the stadium — with some areas being taken away or restricted since the construction of the residential colleges and the completion of the stadium renovations — the SooneRVillage has remained the same, if not improved as the university responds to the complaints and comments of the RV owners. When the electric side first opened, the electric boxes were underground and have since been moved above ground for ease and safety. The people in the community are happy with the space the university has given them.

Scott Pryse walks around bundled up with a coffee mug and greets everyone that walks by with a big GOOOOD MORNING. He, his wife and their dogs have been parking in the same spot for about 12 years, but he’s been coming to OU games since his now-40 year-old daughters were children. He’s from Oklahoma City, and it only takes him and his wife about 40 minutes to get to the LNC but they come down on Thursdays to shop and beat the traffic.

Pryse can point out all of the different mobile home owners around him and where they’re from, and he knows a lot of people further down the lot, too. He partners with other tailgaters around him and feeds between 40-70 people — family, friends, fellow tailgaters — a weekend.  

“Some people, they only see their families here,” Pryse said. “They’re busy during the week and then they come here and get to see their kids or their grandkids.”

Tailgating

At 1:30 p.m. it’s warmer, everyone is out at their tailgates, starting to get the party going. The smell of hotdogs and hamburgers fills the air. The early games are playing on the TVs now — mostly the Oklahoma State game, and country music is playing over the football announcers’ voices.

In the patch of grass that separates the electric and nonelectric sides of the village, a man is playing quarterback and throwing passes to two boys who take turns playing corner and receiver.

Toward the back of the electric lot, Bonnie Wisel sits in her RV watching the OSU game, while her husband, Bob, is helping their neighbor George Dorris fix something wrong with his home. Eventually Bonnie and Bob Wisel, George and Ann Dorris, and Larry Lyles are all inside the Wisels’ RV sharing memories — and interjecting every time someone scores.

All retired and from the Oklahoma City area, they’ve been tailgating here since the electric side opened in 2004, and they all belong to the same RV club: Sooner Coaches RV Club. Larry is the president of the club, which is an affiliate of the Family Motor Coach Association and has about 35 RV members, who all pay a fee allowing them to participate in a tailgate on Fridays and gets them all the perks of the FMCA. The club has a tailgate every Friday night, and Bob and George are in charge of preparing the main meal, while everyone else brings a side dish or dessert. Last night it was pizza.

“We have jackets and everything and badges that say ‘Sooner Coaches,’” George says. “And when we got to a restaurant or somewhere to eat, everybody thinks we’re part of the football team.”

Everyone else breaks out into deep, loud laughter, agreeing with George and remembering times the misunderstanding had occurred.

“They give us first class service,” he says. “We didn’t realize that until a couple of years ago. Where were we?”

“What do you coach?” Larry asks jokingly mimicking a confused server. “I don’t wear my badge because I don’t need the notoriety.”

“They did that when I went and ordered the chicken stuff down there,” George says. “They said ‘They’re part of the coaches.’”

“Yeah we got a little discount for it,” Bob says as another uproar of laughter fills the RV.

“Yeah it’s kind of a misleading title that we have, you know,” Larry admits. “These are the coaches,” he says gesturing towards the motorhome around him. “We’re not the football coaches. We’re the motorhome coaches.”

Game time

Not everyone who tailgates in the lot goes to the game. Bob and Bonnie don’t have season tickets and never have. Bonnie likes to watch the game on TV, but they come down to the LNC from OKC on Friday mornings for the atmosphere.

And that’s all they do on home game Saturdays. George will cook food and they’ll eat, walk around and talk to other people in their club and watch the game.

“George is going to cook us up some brats,” Bob says of what they’re going to eat this week.

“I didn’t bring any brats,” George replies, confused.

“I did,” Bob says, and George laughs agreeing to cook them in addition to the usual hot dogs and hamburgers.

“The whole thing is eating,” Bonnie says.

“Between visiting and eating, that’s about all we get accomplished on a weekend,” Larry says.

Bonnie and Bob have even traveled as far north as South Bend, Indiana, and as far east as Knoxville, Tennessee, to watch the game from the parking lot. They don’t go to all the away games, saying they will especially never go back to Kansas State where they had to park their RV in a cow field.

He likes tailgating here because it doesn’t matter who a person is or how fancy their RV is. Everyone knows everyone and anyone is willing to lend a hand with a motor coach issue or share their food.

One of Bonnie’s favorite memories from tailgating in the parking lot is from 2010 when Florida State came to Norman for a game and some Seminoles fans’ grill stopped working. Bonnie and company invited them over to bring their steaks over to their party, and they watched the game together. The Sooners won in the end, but everyone had fun, and the Florida State fans told Bonnie and the rest to come tailgate with them when the game was in Tallahassee next year.

Everyone in the parking lot looks forward to football season every year so they can come back out and tailgate here and catch up on what everyone’s done during the off season.

“When the last ball game of the year is over, it makes for a miserable spring and summer waiting for the next ball game to show up so we can get down here again,” Larry says.

After the last games of the year, Bonnie and Bob will head to Arizona in their RV, but Larry doesn’t stray too far for too long. He gets pictures every so often of Bob and Bonnie’s trip as he waits through the winter to see them again at the spring game.

With the game still four hours from kickoff, people eat their fill of hot dogs, hamburgers, chips cookies and more and spent time with their friends and family.

Above all, there is one sentiment that rings true throughout the community, one thing that has kept people, their families, their RVs and their dogs coming back year-in and year-out: “It’s just fun.”

By Abby Bitterman

Parnell Motley put everyone on notice in the spring game.

The sophomore cornerback, who played mostly on special teams last season, intercepted Baker Mayfield on the first drive in April. Six months later, he hasn’t looked back.

The Washington, D.C., native, widely known as the biggest trash talker on the team, has been an early standout for the 2017 Sooners. Motley beat out sophomore cornerback Jordan Parker for the starting spot opposite senior corner Jordan Thomas. He knew he had this ability before the season started and was excited to prove what he could do.

“I just can’t wait to show my abilities of what I can really do on the field,” Motley said ahead of the season opener.

Nearly halfway into the season, Motley’s game has spoken for itself.

Fueled by environment

Motley, who comes from a the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Northeast D.C., an area known for violence and crime, has always been vocal on the field. Making it out of his neighborhood, he said, is like making it out of the jungle. He just stayed focused on his goals and his future and wanted to leave the trouble of his old neighborhood behind him. Originally committed to Maryland, Motley decided to pick a school farther from home to get away from those distractions.

But he did bring one thing with him to Oklahoma — his mouth.

“It comes from the environment I come from,” Motley said. His neighborhood is part of Ward 7, which has seen 80 violent crimes — including homicide, assault with a dangerous weapon with or without a gun, and robbery with or without a gun — and 301 property crimes between Sept. 11 and Oct. 11. “It’s rough. And I just bring that anger and all my issues out to my opponent and try to throw them off as much as I can.”

“It’s that street part of me that (comes) out when I’m on the field,” Motley said. “I’m a different me when I’m on the field.”

Off the field Motley is still talking, but he’s a chill guy, sophomore running back Abdul Adams said.

Motley said playing brings out a lot of anger in him — a lot of built-in intensity — and his frustration comes out more on the field and makes him better.

While Motley’s game has spoken for itself, he is widely known as the biggest trash talker on the team. The Sooners are full of big mouths this season, with Mayfield asking Baylor if it forgot who daddy was and sophomore wide receiver Marquise Brown, a Florida native, claiming Florida guys talk trash better than anyone — Motley tough, backs his words up better than any of them.

Standing out

The two grew up together playing football and basketball, and Motley has always been a talker, Abdul said, Motley’s middle school classmate turned roommate.

“Growing up with him I always knew what he could do,” Adams said. “A lot of people don’t know you out here so you’ve really just got to prove yourself and your ability and what you can do in front of everybody.”

He wasn’t necessarily trash talking in games at that age though, but, at this level, the mental aspect of the game is just as important as the physical. Motley uses trash talking to get in receivers’ heads and it is a big part of his game, that confidence is something fellow sophomore cornerback Jordan Park said is important for a corner to have.

A three-star recruit when he was coming out of H.D. Woodson High School, Motley has grown at Oklahoma and become a steady player in a defense that has been anything but consistent. Coach Lincoln Riley this week has pointed to the Sooners defensive recruiting as an area in need of improvement, but so far Motley, a 2016 signee, seems to have been a good catch.

“We are not as deep defensively as we are offensively,” Riley said.

Motley has been doing his part though, working his way toward being a lockdown corner for the Sooners. Rarely beaten, he has become one of the more consistent player on Oklahoma’s shaky defense.

So far this season, Motley has recorded 23 tackles, four pass breakups and two interceptions — the first of which came in Columbus, Ohio. His second pick of the season became the defining moment of the Sooners’ 56-14 win over Tulane, as he returned the ball 77 yards for six points on the play and shifted the momentum in Oklahoma’s favor for the rest of the game.

“Some guys have to make plays, and Parnell’s a playmaker,” defensive coordinator Mike Stoops said of Motley after the Tulane game.

Motley’s play has spoken volumes, and his mouth has spoken just as loud. His trash talk respected by almost all of the Oklahoma locker room. During fall camp, Parker gave Motley’s mouth a 12 out of 10.

“At corner you love that confidence,” Parker said. “He’s going to talk, but he could back it up at the same time.”

When he was younger, he would let his play speak for itself, but now the trash talk has become what he’s known for. What he says isn’t always clean, but it’s how he plays his game.

Motley isn’t quick to reveal what he’s saying to opponents though, hinting that what he does say would need to be censored.

“You’ve got,” Motley said, “to get them all kinds of ways at this level.”

Kayla Branch grew up in Chickasha, a small town in Oklahoma in a traditional family, with traditional conservative views impressed upon her by her parents and her town. However, as she grew up and came to the University of Oklahoma, her worldview changed, and so did her relationship with her mother.

Branch, a journalism junior at OU, has changed the way she thinks about the world and the way people are treated since she was a senior in high school. She has shared her journey with her mom, and seen her views change as well.

Abby Bitterman: You grew up in a small town right?

Kayla Branch: Yes, really small.

AB: What was that like?

KB: It was interesting. I think there are definitely some stereotypes that people talk about with small towns — like everyone knows your business, there are no secrets, you run into people all the time — and those are all absolutely true. The town I grew up in has about 16,000 people, so I mean it’s significantly smaller than just the student population at OU. It was good too though in some ways — you know all these people from the time you grew up together so you’re all friends. Yeah there’s really no getting away from your reputation in a small town. It was good though overall I think.

AB: You grew up with a more traditional mindset and world view and now after coming to college you’ve become more of a feminist.

KB: Yeah I would definitely agree with that assessment. Church — I guess that’s another thing about growing up in a small Southern community. Church was a big thing. Everybody believed or if they didn’t believe nobody said anything. And so that was a big part of my childhood growing up and then as I got older I started kind of seeing correlations between the teachings of the 25 Baptist Church in my tiny town and oppression in various forms of people of color, of women and whatever else. So I think as I got older and I started to meet new people and have new experiences it was kind of eye opening to me to see ‘Oh there actually are different ways to live and people don’t have to be treated that certain way.’

AB: Was there any sort of culture shock when you came to OU? I know some times even people from the South say they experience it when they come here from a small conservative town.

KB: Coming to a big liberal college can be different. Yeah it was definitely a shock. Freshman year was hard because I came to college with the mindset of ‘OK I’m not going to just try and make a bunch of friends as soon as I get there. I’m going to hold out and try to make actual friends that I enjoy.’ And so I did that but that meant the first eight months of freshman year I didn’t really have any good friends. And so it was lonely. And I think it was a culture shock when I come here because I come here and I see all these people who are very open about things that in my small town people were very secretive about. And it didn’t turn me off, but it just kind of challenged my world view and I adapted to that and my world view has since expanded. And so now I feel more at home here than I do when I go back to Chickasha.

AB: What are some of the things people are more open about here?

KB: Definitely social issues. Like people who are part of the LGBTQ community are very vocal and proud about that, as they should be. And I don’t recall ever meeting someone in Chickasha that was gay, and if they were it was like a thing. Everybody knew and everybody was talking about it. And people here who are of different religions — like I said everybody believed in God and if they didn’t believe they didn’t say anything and here people are like ‘I do believe’ or ‘I don’t believe and I’m a Buddhist.’ Or like people who don’t eat meat. Everyone ate meat in Chickasha, but you come here and people are like ‘I’m vegan. I haven’t had milk in 10 years.’ And it’s like what are you talking about? It’s just different. And there’s definitely still times on OU’s campus where people are judgmental, but less so than in the town I grew up in.

AB: Why did you want to go through recruitment and join a sorority?

KB: Looking back part of it was probably because I thought that was what cool girls did, but also like I said I was hoping to make real friends and come to college and have those connections. So I thought that might be a way that I could do that. And the girl that I lived with sophomore year in the house, we’re rooming together again, and she’s one of my closest friends. And so I ended up getting what I wanted out of it — really close friendships with some great people.

AB: Did you ever question your choice to join a sorority?

KB: Sometimes I think I’m paying a lot of money for something I’m too busy to do anyway. So practically I’m like ‘Yeah I probably should drop and save all the money.’ But I just went home this morning and I had a conversation with my mom before I left and I was talking to her about this movie I watched last night called Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising or whatever. I was watching it while I was supposed to be editing all these stories. I was trying to multitask. But in the movie they make this point that sororities aren’t allowed to party, and the girls going through recruitment are like ‘What are you talking about?’ And Selena Gomez is like ‘No actually for real though.’ And I was talking to my mom about that. Like I think that that is so ridiculous that boys can do whatever they want and throw parties or whatever, and girls have to leave the safety of their homes and go seek that out somewhere else. I guess sometimes when I think about it I’m like ‘Yeah this definitely is a system of oppression still that I am a part of.’ I question it sometimes. I haven’t dropped yet though, so I don’t know what that says.

AB: Yeah when Neighbors 2 came out I saw Seth Rogan on one of those late night interviews and he was like ‘yeah this is a real thing!’ And it was so shocking to him. 

KB: Yeah that’s the thing. And I guess when I — like it wasn’t ever shocking to me. Going in I knew sororities can’t have parties, but fraternities can. And just the understanding of boys are willing to take those risks and of course girls have to keep their houses clean and it’s so dirty and girls don’t want to be drunk like that, blah blah blah. And it made sense for a while, but now I’m like ‘Oh what the heck nu-uh’ because we’ve got all the sexual assaults that happen. I don’t know. It wasn’t shocking to me that sororities can’t party. But it was shocking that so many people didn’t know. I just thought everybody knew that.

AB: How has your relationship with your mom changed as your world view has changed?

KB: We definitely hit a lot of rocky spots like senior year of high school and freshman year of college because she was, I think, she was just confused about who I was or what I wanted. Which i mean I was confused so that’s understandable. So it was rocky and we fought a little bit, but I think as I have kind of journeyed to the spot where I’m at I’ve kind of included her in that by having phone conversations and calling her and telling her what I’m thinking. And so it’s not just like I left, and I changed a whole lot, and I came back, and she’s like ‘Who are you?’ But I left and was changing, and we stayed in contact. And so I think that the change has been good. We’re much more open with each other. We talk about everything. And I think for her personally the things that she believed prior to kind of having an avenue to see what different can be, I think that she’s been able to open up her mind to how she deserves to be treated and what she is personally capable of and how smart she is and what she can do independently. So I think it’s been really good, the changes that we’ve had.