Bud Wilkinson

Bud Wilkinson

Bud Wilkinson (right) with President John F. Kennedy, during a 1961 visit to the White House
Sport(s) Football
Biographical details
Born (1916-04-23)April 23, 1916
Minneapolis
Died February 9, 1994(1994-02-09) (aged 77)
St. Louis, Missouri
Playing career
1934–1936 Minnesota
Position(s) Quarterback
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1938–1941 Syracuse (line)
1942 Minnesota (assistant)
1943 Iowa Pre-Flight (assistant)
1946 Oklahoma (assistant)
1947–1963 Oklahoma
1978–1979 St. Louis Cardinals
Administrative career (AD unless noted)
1947–1964 Oklahoma
Head coaching record
Overall 145–29–4 (college)
9–20 (NFL)
Bowls 6–2
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
3 National (1950, 1955–1956)
14 Big Eight (1947–1959, 1962)
Awards
AFCA Coach of the Year (1949)
Amos Alonzo Stagg Award (1984)
College Football Hall of Fame
Inducted in 1969 (profile)

Charles Burnham "Bud" Wilkinson (April 23, 1916 – February 9, 1994) was an American football player, coach, broadcaster, and politician. He served as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1947 to 1963, compiling a record of 145–29–4. His Oklahoma Sooners won three national championships (1950, 1955, and 1956) and 14 conference titles. Between 1953 and 1957, Wilkinson's Oklahoma squads won 47 straight games, a record that still stands at the highest level of college football. After retiring from coaching following the 1963 season, Wilkinson entered into politics and, in 1965, became a broadcaster with ABC Sports. He returned to coaching in 1978, helming the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League for two seasons. Wilkinson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1969.

Early life and playing career

Wilkinson's mother died when he was seven, and his father sent him to the Shattuck School in Faribault, Minnesota, where he excelled in five sports and graduated in 1933. He enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where, as a guard and quarterback for head coach Bernie Bierman, Wilkinson helped lead the Golden Gophers to three consecutive national championships from 1934 to 1936. He also played ice hockey for the University of Minnesota. Following his graduation in 1937 with a degree in English, he led the College All-Stars to a 6–0 victory over the defending NFL champion Green Bay Packers in Chicago on August 31.

Coaching career

Wilkinson briefly worked for his father's mortgage company, then became an assistant coach at Syracuse University and later back at his alma mater, Minnesota. In 1943, he joined the U.S. Navy, where he was an assistant to Don Faurot with the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks football team and served as a hangar deck officer on the USS Enterprise. Following World War II, Jim Tatum, the new head coach at the University of Oklahoma, persuaded Wilkinson to join his staff in 1946. After one season in Norman, Tatum left the Sooners for the University of Maryland. The 31-year-old Wilkinson was named head football coach and athletic director of the Sooners.

Head coach at Oklahoma

In his first season as head coach in 1947, Wilkinson led Oklahoma to a 7–2–1 record and a share of the conference championship, the first of 13 consecutive Big Six/Seven/Eight Conference titles. Ultimately, Wilkinson would become one of the most celebrated college coaches of all time. His teams captured national championships in 1950, 1955, and 1956, and amassed a 145–29–4 (.826) overall record.

The centerpiece of his time in Norman was a 47-game winning streak from 1953 to 1957, an NCAA Division I record that still stands today and has only been moderately threatened three times: by Toledo (35 wins, 1969–1971), Miami (FL) (34 wins, 2000–2003), and USC (34 wins, 2003–2005). Earlier, the Sooners ran off 31 consecutive wins from 1948 to 1950. Except for two losses in 1951, the Wilkinson-coached Sooners did not lose more than one game per season for 11 years between 1948 and 1958, going 107–8–2 over that period. His teams also went 12 consecutive seasons totaling 74 games (1947–1958) without a loss in conference play, a streak which has never been seriously threatened. Wilkinson did not suffer his first conference loss until 1959 against Nebraska, his 79th conference game.

While coaching at OU, Wilkinson began writing a weekly newsletter to alumni during the season, helping to keep their interest in Sooner football. He also became the first football coach to host his own television show. He and the noted Michigan State University coach, Duffy Daugherty, partnered to sponsor a series of clinics for high school coaches nationwide. Later, they turned their clinics into a profitable business.[1]

Following the 1963 season, his 17th at Oklahoma, Wilkinson retired from coaching at the age of 47. Along with Bennie Owen, Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops, he is one of four football coaches to win over 100 games at the University of Oklahoma. No other college football program has had more than three coaches to accomplish the feat.

While at Oklahoma, Wilkinson served on the President's Council on Physical Fitness from 1961 to 1964. He designed 11 floor exercises for schoolchildren that were incorporated into the song "Chicken Fat",[2] the theme song for President John F. Kennedy's youth fitness program,[3] which was widely used in school gymnasiums across the country in the 1960s and 1970s.[4]

Later life and return to football

Politics

In February, 1964, Wilkinson announced that he would enter a special election to replace his friend, the late Robert S. Kerr, as U. S. Senator from Oklahoma. He had already resigned his position as head coach of the Oklahoma University Sooners. [lower-alpha 1] Politicians and the Oklahoma press debated whether he was qualified to become a U. S. Senator, though all seemed to agree that his popularity as a cultural icon gave him an important edge. Easily winning the Republican primary, Wilkinson became the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1964, at which point he legally changed his first name to Bud, but narrowly lost to Democrat Fred R. Harris, then a State Senator in Oklahoma. Both parties involved political heavyweights from out of state to campaign for their candidates. Republicans invited former President Eisenhower and Senator Barry Goldwater.[lower-alpha 2] Wilkinson's Republican advisers brought in Senator Strom Thurmond to appeal to ultra-conservative voters in Little Dixie, which had recently turned reliably Republican. That effort backfired. [lower-alpha 3] In the 1964 General Election, Republican presidential nominee, Senator Lyndon Johnson Barry Goldwater lost to incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson 55-45 percent in Oklahoma. Through 2016, Johnson is the last Democrat to carry Oklahoma in a presidential election.[6] Wilkinson served as Republican National Committeeman from Oklahoma, and was considered for the position of committeeman chairman by Richard Nixon but was not selected. Wilkinson entertained seeking the other Oklahoma U.S. Senate seat in 1968, but he did not run, and the position went to former Governor Henry Bellmon, also a Republican.

Return to football

In 1965, Wilkinson joined ABC Sports as their lead color commentator on college football telecasts, teaming with Chris Schenkel and, later, Keith Jackson. Wilkinson was the color analyst for three of the greatest games in college football history, each commonly referred to as a "Game of the Century": Notre Dame vs. Michigan State in 1966, Texas vs. Arkansas in 1969, and Nebraska vs. Oklahoma in 1971.

Wilkinson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1969. In 1978, Wilkinson returned to coaching with the St. Louis Cardinals of the NFL. After less than two disappointing seasons, he was fired, and returned to broadcasting with ESPN.

Death

Wilkinson suffered a series of minor strokes and, on February 9, 1994, he died of congestive heart failure in St. Louis at the age of 77. He is interred at Oak Grove Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.

Personal life

Wilkinson was married to the former Mary Schifflet in 1938, with whom he had two sons, Pat and Jay. They divorced in 1975. A year later, he married Donna O'Donnahue, 33 years his junior, who survived him in death.

Head coaching record

College

Year Team Overall Conference Standing Bowl/playoffs Coaches# AP°
Oklahoma Sooners (Big Six / Big Seven / Big Eight Conference) (1947–1963)
1947 Oklahoma 7–2–1 4–0–1 1st 16
1948 Oklahoma 10–1 5–0 1st W Sugar 5
1949 Oklahoma 11–0 5–0 1st W Sugar 2
1950 Oklahoma 10–1 6–0 1st L Sugar 1 1
1951 Oklahoma 8–2 6–0 1st 11 10
1952 Oklahoma 8–1–1 5–0–1 1st 4 4
1953 Oklahoma 9–1–1 6–0 1st W Orange 5 4
1954 Oklahoma 10–0 6–0 1st 3 3
1955 Oklahoma 11–0 6–0 1st W Orange 1 1
1956 Oklahoma 10–0 6–0 1st 1 1
1957 Oklahoma 10–1 6–0 1st W Orange 4 4
1958 Oklahoma 10–1 7–0 1st W Orange 5 5
1959 Oklahoma 7–3 6–1 1st 15 15
1960 Oklahoma 3–6–1 2–4–1 5th
1961 Oklahoma 5–5 4–3 4th
1962 Oklahoma 8–3 7–0 1st L Orange 7 8
1963 Oklahoma 8–2 6–1 2nd 8 9
Oklahoma: 145–29–4 93–9–3
Total: 145–29–4
      National championship         Conference title         Conference division title
#Rankings from final Coaches Poll.
°Rankings from final AP Poll.

NFL

Season Conference Division Finish Wins Losses Ties
St. Louis Cardinals
1978 NFC East 4th 6 10 0
1979 NFC East 5th 5 11 0
Totals 11 21 0

Notes

  1. ↑ According to reporter Andrew McGregor, the deaths of Senator Kerr, President John F. Kennedy and his own brother, all during the previous year, the former coach wanted to pursue, "...what he considered to be a more impactful and significant career."[5]
  2. ↑ Illness made Eisenhower miss the occasion, so his former Vice President Richard Nixon served as substitute. Harris supporters got Senator Lyndon Johnson to make an appearance, as well as several other national Democrats.[5]
  3. ↑ Harris later said, "my campaign got an extra benefit from Senator Thurmond's Oklahoma visit … Thurmond wound up scaring the daylights out of even a lot of conservative white voters with his jingoist speeches, advocating for the escalation of the American war effort in Vietnam."[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ McGregor, Andrew."Wilkinson, Bud". American National Biography Online. February 2000. Accessed October 6, 2016.
  2. ↑ Yagoda, Ben (13 June 2014). "The Strange 1960s Gym-Class Anthem in Apple's New iPhone Commercial". Slate. Retrieved 23 June 2014.
  3. ↑ "The Federal Government Takes on Physical Fitness". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. p. 2. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
  4. ↑ Riis, Richard (9 June 2014). "Apple's "Chicken Fat" Ad Harks Back to a Political Era Long Gone". Daily Kos. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 McGregor, Andrew. "Beyond Football: The Political Career of Bud Wilkinson (Part 2)." Sport in American History. November 24, 2014. Accessed October 6, 2016
  6. ↑ "Fred R. Harris: His political career". Carl Albert Center Archives at the University of Oklahoma. 2009-04-03. Retrieved 2011-11-20.
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