Oklahoma football: Eight great books on Sooner gridiron history
By Chip Rouse
“Bootlegger’s Boy,” by Barry Switzer, with Bud Shrake. William Morrow and Co., 1990, 416 pages
When Barry Switzer stepped down in June 1989 amid scandal and controversy after 16 seasons as Oklahoma’s head coach, he was the winningest coach in Sooner football history. Allegations of recruiting violations and player misconduct forced Switzer out, but not before his OU teams had amassed 157 wins, including three national championships and 12 Big Eight championships. His .837 winning percentage is the best among the Sooners’ 22 head coaches.
“Bootlegger’s Boy” is an autobiography that chronicles Switzer’s life from the beginning, as a poor boy from the Arkansas swamp bottoms, as described by the Library Journal, to his playing days at the University of Arkansas and his coaching success at the University of Oklahoma.
Revered by many in the State of Oklahoma as “next to God,” Switzer has also been both praised and reviled by the media as a supposed outlaw of college football, characterized in the blurb written for the book cover as “the greatest rogue, pirate, hustler and con man” ever to command a football team.
One reviewer wrote: “This is a chance to walk a mile in the shoes of one of college football’s mavericks. If you’re a Switzer hater, this book might give you a new perspective. And for Sooner fans, it’s just pure Barry.”
Switzer will best be remembered as the man who installed the explosive, run-dominated Wishbone offense at Oklahoma.
This is the definitive story of Barry Switzer life before and during his coaching years at Oklahoma, and its an excellent read.