Crimson and Cream Memories
By Mark Jones
Likely, it’s just age talking, and maybe memories hang on a little tighter than they used to. There are days when I can still hear the band tuning up outside the stadium, brass catching sunlight, the bass drum booming across the turf, and, of course, Cecil Samara and his antique crimson and cream car. Back in the mid-70s, the Pride of Oklahoma marching band was, and is, a huge part of the game day traditions. We wore heavy wool uniforms even when the heat rolled in like a furnace. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder as the Cotton Bowl split in two: crimson on one side, burnt orange on the other. Oklahoma-Texas. It doesn’t get any bigger.
1962 is my earliest memory of OU football. I was five years old, and my parents took me to my first game. I sat behind a guy with a cigar, but I don’t remember the score or the opponent. Bud Wilkinson waved to the crowd. My mother said he waved at us. That moment lit a spark in a little kid.
I lived and breathed football, knew the names down the depth chart, and followed recruiting like scripture. The rivalries were earned over decades: Texas, the Big Eight, and Nebraska. Those games always meant something. But much of that world is gone now. The conference has scattered, rivalries discarded, and new ones manufactured. Now, the players pass through campus like shadows. Bronze statues aren’t cast for short stays.
My freshman year, the 1975 season culminated in the Orange Bowl against Michigan. It wasn’t an easy march to glory. OU had just come off a 37-game winning streak, only to lose to Kansas in Norman. We dropped all the way to #8. But the team clawed back, beat Nebraska, and earned the Orange Bowl bid. We needed help to climb to #1 and got it. UCLA upset Ohio State in the Rose Bowl that afternoon, and by the time the confetti settled in Miami, we were national champions again. People remember a win over Michigan. If you were there, you also remember the nerves in the stands before we ever played a note. Back-to-back championships.
We took a road trip to Lincoln in November of ’76 for the OU-Nebraska game. It was twenty degrees, the windchill near zero, and it cut through everything like a blade. It was the kind of cold that stiffened the valves and keys on your horn and froze your breath. We stood in formation, half-frozen but loud, and played Boomer Sooner until our lips were numb. We hollered through chattering teeth as two flea-flicker plays broke the game open, and we won. Those were the kinds of victories you never forgot.
That same season, we left for the Fiesta Bowl band trip early on Christmas morning. While everyone else unwrapped gifts, we loaded buses and airplanes. Played at the game, packed it up, and we were back home that same night. No time to soak it in, just a long ride and a sense that we’d been part of something.
After I married, football was something we shared. Those Saturdays in the ’80s, watching Barry Switzer’s great defensive teams and celebrating another national championship. Years later, it was Bob Stoops’s turn. His early 2000s teams gave us something to celebrate and rekindled the tradition. My wife and I carved out time together, cheered, and made new memories.
These days, I watch OU football at home, still hoping for wins and feeling pride when the band strikes up or the crimson helmets charge the field, flashing the interlocking OU. But it’s not the game that keeps me coming back. Not really. It’s the memories. The frozen breath in Lincoln, the crowd's roar when a trick play breaks open a game. Sweating at the Cotton Bowl, the wishbone, friendships in the band, and feeling part of something.
Because as much as the modern game leaves me cold with its NIL deals, transfer chaos, and corporate maneuverings, those old echoes are loud enough to pull me back. I can still hear the drums, feel the hot wool, my mother’s hand pulling me through the crowd, and still see Bud Wilkinson waving through time. Boomer.
