Sooner Sports Will Miss Oklahoman’s Jason Kersey
By Chip Rouse
Friday will be a sad day for those of us who write about and religiously follow Oklahoma Sooner sports. That will be the final day we will see the byline of Jason Kersey in the Oklahoma City Oklahoman.
The popular OU beat writer announced last week that he was leaving the Oklahoman to be part of a new venture with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. There he will cover the Arkansas Razorbacks for a new media outlet launched by the Journal-Constitution titled SECCountry.com.
Kersey has been a member of the Oklahoman’s sports staff for almost a decade, but for the past four years, his focus has been totally on the Sooners. He is an award-winning sports journalist whose career is really just getting started, given that he joined the Oklahoman when he was just 19 years old.
Over the last nine and a half years, his duties at the newspaper have ranged from answering phones, editing copy and covering high school sports to reporting and writing about National Football League games, including Super Bowl XLV.
In my time editing StormininNorman.com, I have gleaned a number of ideas from Kersey’s articles and cited quite a few of them as news sources.
Although we have never met personally, I have thoroughly enjoyed his informative and colorful writing style and I feel we will had and will always have a common bond in our abiding interest and passion for all things Sooner sports.
In a farewell article in last Friday’s editions of the Oklahoman and NewsOK.com, Kersey wrote about his memorable time at the newspaper and all the people whose path he crossed and were instrumental in enabling, supporting and even tolerating him a time or two him throughout his time at the publication and, in particular, his time covering and writing about Oklahoma sports.
“The four years I covered Oklahoma sports were certainly interesting…Bob Stoops was on his way out, then bound for renewed greatness, about 12 times during that stretch.” —Jason Kersey, OU beat writer for The Oklahoman
About Bob Stoops, he wrote: “The four years I covered Oklahoma football were certainly interesting ones. Bob Stoops was on his way out, then bound for renewed greatness, about 12 different times during that stretch.”
He also pointed out that his four years as the OU beat writer coincided with the Sooner careers of Sterling Shepard, Zack Sanchez, Charles Tapper and Eric Striker (three of whom were selected this past weekend in the NFL Draft, and Striker signed with Buffalo as a free agent).
We wish Jason well in his new pursuit, but we will truly miss his work in the Oklahoman.