50 Fun Facts About University of Oklahoma

Which 1990s disaster film modelled its research crew on University of Oklahoma graduate students the director had met?

Twister also leaned on a federal storm laboratory in Norman, which trained the crew in weather safety and took the actors along on a tornado chase.

Which famous architect coined the term Cherokee Gothic for the buildings of the University of Oklahoma campus?

Frank Lloyd Wright made the remark on a visit to Norman, and it stuck to a style that mixes Gothic Revival stonework with Native American elements.

The tune of Boomer Sooner, the University of Oklahoma fight song, was borrowed from which Ivy League school?

Yale's Boola Boola supplied the melody in 1905, when student Arthur Alden wrote the Oklahoma words, and a section from a North Carolina song was added a year later.

What did the University of Oklahoma's first president, David Ross Boyd, plant by the thousand on campus?

Trees were his own purchase: Boyd bought saplings from a bankrupt Kansas nursery and reportedly planted nearly 10,000 in his first 18 months.

The settlers nicknamed Sooners, who gave University of Oklahoma teams their name, were known for doing what in 1889?

Staking claims too early could cost a settler the land, because the proclamation opening the territory barred anyone who entered before the official noon start.

After a 1983 comeback win at Oklahoma State, Oklahoma's coach gave the game ball to which group?

The marching band was told by its director, as police led him off the field, to play until the Sooners led. It played the fight song about 300 times as 20–3 became 21–20.

Which future Supreme Court justice argued Ada Lois Sipuel's case to enter Oklahoma's all-white state law school?

Thurgood Marshall won a unanimous ruling in 1948, yet Sipuel was not admitted until 1949, when the school gave her a roped-off chair marked for her race.

Which Oklahoma quarterback was the first player picked in the first round of both the MLB and NFL drafts?

Kyler Murray went ninth to the Oakland Athletics in 2018, won the Heisman that autumn, then chose football and was the top pick of the 2019 NFL draft.

Which star of The Newsroom and X-Men: Apocalypse earned a journalism degree at the University of Oklahoma?

Olivia Munn added a minor in Japanese and dramatic arts, interned at a Tulsa news station, then moved to Los Angeles to host on the gaming network G4.

Which Oklahoma quarterback won the 2017 Heisman Trophy after starting his college career as a walk-on?

Baker Mayfield was the first walk-on to win the award since scholarships began in the 1950s, and Cleveland took him first in the 2018 NFL draft.

Which team ended Oklahoma's record 47-game winning streak with a 7–0 upset in Norman in 1957?

Notre Dame came in unranked, having lost 40–0 to the Sooners a year earlier in the middle of the run. Oklahoma had not been beaten in more than four years.

Which three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback started for Oklahoma as a freshman before transferring to UCLA?

Troy Aikman broke his ankle against Miami in 1985, the Sooners went back to the run-heavy wishbone under freshman Jamelle Holieway, and he chose to leave for California.

Which coach won three national titles at Oklahoma and later a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys?

Barry Switzer made his name as Oklahoma's offensive coordinator by perfecting the wishbone, then won titles in 1974, 1975 and 1985 as head coach.

Which coach led Oklahoma to an unbeaten season and the 2000 national title in only his second year in charge?

Bob Stoops arrived in 1999 after running Florida's defence and stayed through the 2016 season. Early wins over top teams earned him the nickname Big Game Bob.

Which Oklahoma running back finished second in the 2004 Heisman Trophy voting as a freshman?

Adrian Peterson was the first freshman ever to finish runner-up, trailing only USC quarterback Matt Leinart after a record-breaking season.

Which Oklahoma forward was college basketball's player of the year in 2009 and the NBA draft's first pick?

Blake Griffin grew up in Oklahoma City, won four state titles playing for his father's high school team, and went first to the Los Angeles Clippers.

Which Oklahoma guard was the first player to lead college basketball in both points and assists in one season?

Trae Young did it in 2017–18, his only college season, and tied what was then the Division I single-game record with 22 assists.

Under coach Patty Gasso, which Oklahoma women's team won four straight national championships from 2021 to 2024?

Softball became Oklahoma's dynasty: the 2023 team finished 61–1 and set a Division I record with a 53-game winning streak.

Which conference did Oklahoma join in 2024, leaving the Big 12 at the same time as rival Texas?

The SEC invitation went to Oklahoma and Texas together, and both schools accepted in July 2021, three years before the switch took effect.

OU's History of Science Collections, kept in Bizzell Memorial Library, include books hand-annotated by which astronomer?

Galileo Galilei's own handwriting sits among more than 94,000 volumes on the history of science held in Norman.

In which country did the University of Oklahoma buy a former monastery in 2012 as a base for study abroad?

Italy's small city of Arezzo was picked over nearby Florence, which already hosts about 50 American university programmes, so that students would mix with locals.

Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, home of Sooner football, honours university students and staff who died in which war?

World War I gave the stadium its memorial name, while the playing surface is named for coach Bennie Owen, who helped raise the money to build it.

The first degree the University of Oklahoma ever awarded, in 1896, went to a graduate in which field?

Pharmacy got its own school in 1893, only a year after the first students enrolled, because the territory had a high demand for druggists.

Before settling on Sooners in 1908, the University of Oklahoma football team tried Boomers and which other nickname?

Rough Riders and Boomers were both tried first, but Sooners stuck, and by the 1920s it had become the nickname of the whole state.

Vernon Parrington, an English professor who also coached Oklahoma football from 1897 to 1900, later won which award?

The Pulitzer Prize for History came in 1928 for Main Currents in American Thought, two decades after a new governor's purge cost Parrington his Oklahoma job.

Which former Oklahoma governor and US senator was president of the University of Oklahoma from 1994 to 2018?

David Boren resigned his Senate seat to take the job and became the second-longest-serving president in the university's history.

The University of Oklahoma's north campus and airport were built in the 1940s as a training base for which service?

The Navy trained pilots in landlocked Norman and passed the airfield to the university when it demobilised. An aviator's wings still mark the terminal entrance.

Which Oklahoma gymnast won two gold medals at the 1984 Olympics and later married Nadia Comăneci?

Bart Conner invited Comăneci to Oklahoma in 1991 to help run his gymnastics school, and the couple went on to operate an academy together in Norman.

Which astronaut with three University of Oklahoma degrees spent six months on the Russian space station Mir in 1996?

Shannon Lucid's flight stood as the longest by any woman until 2007, when Sunita Williams passed it on the International Space Station.

Which All-American Oklahoma quarterback of the 1940s later coached archrival Texas to three national championships?

Darrell Royal set a Sooner record with 18 career interceptions as a defensive back, and the Longhorns' stadium in Austin was renamed for him in 1996.

Which trophy, a gift from the State Fair of Texas, goes to the winner of the Oklahoma–Texas football game?

The Golden Hat is a ten-gallon cowboy hat that was bronze until a 1970s reworking turned it gold, and it is handed over on the field in Dallas.

What name, first used for raucous wrestling meets, is given to the rivalry between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State?

Bedlam described the crowds at Oklahoma State's Gallagher-Iba Arena when the two wrestling powers met, and the label spread to every sport they play.

The RUF/NEKS, the University of Oklahoma's all-male spirit squad, celebrate every Sooner score by firing what?

Shotguns also sound when the team takes the field and at the end of every quarter. The squad got its name after a spectator scolded its rowdy founders as roughnecks.

At the 1985 Orange Bowl, Oklahoma drew a 15-yard penalty when what got stuck in the mud near Washington's bench?

The mascot wagon, a pony-drawn replica of a pioneer schooner, had rolled out to celebrate a field goal that a flag had already wiped out, and the longer retry was blocked.

Which Oklahoma-raised professional wrestling announcer uses the Boomer Sooner fight song as his entrance theme?

Jim Ross, a devoted Sooner fan, also uses the song's title as a catchphrase to mark a good moment on commentary.

Buddy Hield, who led Oklahoma to the 2016 Final Four, grew up in which island nation?

The Bahamas got help in return after Hurricane Dorian, when Hield gave $105,000 and launched a fundraiser for families hit by the storm.

Which Oklahoma basketball star of the 1980s later topped Billboard's contemporary jazz chart as a bass guitarist?

Wayman Tisdale was the first player named a first-team All-American as a freshman, sophomore and junior, and the national freshman of the year award carries his name.

Oklahoma defensive end Lee Roy Selmon was the first draft pick in the history of which NFL expansion team?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost their first 26 games, yet Selmon became the first Hall of Famer to earn his place mainly with the team.

Which Oklahoma linebacker won the first two Butkus Awards and later starred in the action film Stone Cold?

Brian Bosworth, known as the Boz, helped win the 1986 Orange Bowl and was later the subject of an ESPN documentary about the brash persona he created.

Which literary award sponsored by the University of Oklahoma has been nicknamed the American Nobel?

The Neustadt Prize is given every two years for a writer's whole body of work, and about 30 of its laureates, candidates and jurors have also won Nobel Prizes.

The Kiowa Six, artists in a special University of Oklahoma programme in the 1920s, won acclaim abroad for what?

Painting made their names in 1928, when art director Oscar Jacobson sent their watercolours to an international art congress in Prague.

The Weitzenhoffer Collection, given to the University of Oklahoma's art museum in 2000, features which art movement?

Impressionism arrived in Norman through works by Degas, Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh, in a museum named for a student who died in a plane crash.

A Pentaceratops at Oklahoma's Sam Noble Museum was given a Guinness record for the largest what of any land animal?

Skull size is the record for this horned dinosaur, whose name means five-horned face, after the spikes beneath its eyes and its three more obvious horns.

Which University of Oklahoma graduate and Rhodes scholar served as Speaker of the US House from 1971 to 1977?

Carl Albert stood 5 feet 4 inches and was affectionately known as the Little Giant from Little Dixie, a nickname he reused as the title of his memoir.

Which star and director of Pollock studied drama at the University of Oklahoma after playing football at Columbia?

Ed Harris won roles in Oklahoma City theatres while a student, then moved to Los Angeles and finished a fine arts degree at CalArts in 1975.

Which Oklahoma track star, sixth in the 1948 US Olympic decathlon trials, later played Chester in Gunsmoke?

Dennis Weaver studied drama in Norman and set records in several track events. He said his showing at the trials persuaded him to stay in New York and try acting.

Which author of the Navajo police mysteries starring Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee earned a journalism degree at Oklahoma?

Tony Hillerman graduated in 1948 and later modelled Leaphorn on a Texas sheriff he met while working as a newspaper reporter.

Gladys West, who earned a University of Oklahoma master's degree, did modelling work behind which technology?

GPS navigation depends on the precise model of Earth's shape that West helped build, work so secret that her own children did not know her role.

Kirstin Maldonado, who studied musical theatre at Oklahoma, sings with which Grammy-winning a cappella group?

Pentatonix was the reason Maldonado left before finishing her degree: she formed the group with a high school friend and others, and it won its first Grammy in 2015.

Brothers Mark and Dave Schultz, Oklahoma wrestlers who won Olympic gold in 1984, are portrayed in which 2014 film?

Foxcatcher takes its name from the du Pont wrestling club where Dave Schultz was coaching when its founder shot him dead in 1996.