‘Boomer Sooner’ Ranked Among Nation’s Top-5 Fight Songs

College fight songs are one of the great traditions that make college sports such a fun-filled and spirited environment. In a day and age in which we tend to list and rank anything that strikes our fancy, NCAA.com has come out with a ranking of the five best college fight songs. Oklahoma’s ‘Boomer Sooner’ is No. 5 on the list.

The popular Oklahoma fight song is among some pretty elite company when it comes to top universities and their prestigious athletic traditions.

The top college fight song, according to NCAA.com is the Notre Dame “Victory March,” with the University of Southern California’s (USC) “Fight On” as No. 2 on the list. Michigan’s is third and “Rocky Top,” the popular song of the University of Michigan is No. 4. Interestingly, “Rocky Top” is not the school’s official fight song, but it is the one most closely associated with the Tennessee Volunteers.

According to the OU athletics website, the origin of the school fight song dates back to 1905, when a history a physiology student named Arthur M. Alden wrote the lyrics, adopting the tune from Yale University’s “Boola Boola,” but changing the words to the song.

One year later, an alteration was made to the lyrics, this time borrowing from the North Carolina fight song, “I’m a Tarheel Born.” From this came perhaps the most memorable verse in the Sooner fight song:

"“I’m Sooner born and Sooner bred, and when I die, I’ll be Sooner dead.”"