Switzer, Sooners Circling the Wagons

NORMAN, Okla. —  More successful than any other college football coach the last 16 years, Barry Switzer suddenly finds himself defending a program hit by more serious incidents in a more compressed time frame than any program in recent memory.

“I’m a fighter,” he said this week in his office. “I’ve always been a fighter. I’m going to get things in shape. My total mission is to regain the respect of the university. . . . God, what a price to pay for what a few people have done.”

The FBI’s arresting quarterback Charles Thompson Monday on charges of allegedly selling 17 grams of cocaine to an undercover agent in the athletic dorm was the latest in a series of unrelated events the last two months. Other serious incidents:

--Dec. 19--The NCAA placed the Sooners football program on three years’ probation. It charged Switzer with failing to “exercise supervisory control.”

--Jan. 19--Starting cornerback Jerry Parks was suspended after being charged with shooting with intent to injure teammate Zarak Peters in an athletic dorm. Parks is home in Texas awaiting his preliminary hearing and is not enrolled in school.

--Feb. 10--Nigel Clay, Bernard Hall and Glenn Bell were suspended from the university for two years after being charged with first-degree rape stemming from a Jan. 21 complaint at the athletic dorm.

Thompson, 20, a sophomore, became the fifth player suspended, several hours before being formally charged.

In addition, Oklahoma players were charged with destroying a hotel room before the Jan. 2 Florida Citrus Bowl loss to Clemson and four Sooners coaches were accused of causing about $500 damage to furniture at an Orlando, Fla., country club.

All of this follows publication of “The Boz: Confessions of a Modern Anti-Hero.”

In that autobiography, former all-America linebacker Brian Bosworth said NCAA rules were routinely broken at Oklahoma and steroids “were about as common as Anacin.”

Bosworth said cocaine was free-based on game days and one player interrupted a snowball fight with some blasts from an Uzi machine gun. Switzer, his former star wrote, “just turns his back.”

Switzer this week said Bosworth “exploited and embellished for obvious monetary reasons. You’ve got to recognize Bosworth for what Bosworth was. And what he is.”

Of the latest incidents, Switzer said: “I want to get them handled right now. We’ve got four, five, six people who need to be out of here. . . . Let’s get (the investigations, reforms and penalties) done right now and get on down the road.”

The day that rape charges were filed against three players, the school’s regents approved sweeping changes in academic standards, written rules of conduct and dorm security for athletes.

Switzer spoke about most of the important matters:

On Thompson: “Kids over there (in the dorm) had to know that Charles was doing that. Yet they wouldn’t come tell me.” Switzer said Thompson had been picked up on shoplifting charges while in high school.

On the shooting: “He (Parks) shoots a guy he’s been raised with. They came up together. I’m at the hospital and you know what the guy that’s been shot (says)? ‘I don’t hold a grudge. I want to call Jerry.’

“Here’s a guy lying in the bed. Bullet goes down (a few inches) and he’s dead.”

Switzer on Switzer: “I’ve been at this 30 years. It’s the only thing I know and I like. I’ve had to deal with a lot of situations that aren’t good. I’ve been at the top (three national championships); I’ve been at the bottom; I’ve been at a lot of places in between.

“I’ve had experience at all of ‘em, so I know basically how to handle all of ‘em. All you’ve got to do is ask the good kids here in this program. I can’t let those (bad apples) that are down in that jailhouse now answer to Barry Switzer. And for Barry Switzer to be responsible for ‘em. No way in my mind can I accept that.

“Barry Switzer’s future is my players, my athletes, the ones who walk in here and say: ‘Hey, I love you, coach. Stick your hand across this desk. I’m worried about you. I’m thinking about you.’ ”

OU on Friday named former Olympic hurdler Thomas L. Hill as assistant athletic director for academic standards. Since 1985, he had been at Tulane, which dropped basketball after a point-shaving scandal.

Hill’s duties include checking prospective recruits to see if they meet OU’s academic standards, evaluating their character and potential for success. Hill will work with the recruits the Sooners sign.

“You can’t put the bumper of the car over here and another part over there and expect the car to run,” Hill told local reporters. “I’ve already had some conversations with Coach Switzer. I just thought aloud about some things, and he has already taken those ideas and begun to implement them. He has been willing to go further than I suggested.”

Some have suggested Switzer has bent too far with players, given too many second chances. He responded: “We had a meeting the other day and somebody said just that: ‘We wouldn’t be having these problems if (one of the players charged with rape) hadn’t gotten a second chance.’

“The player caught himself and said: ‘But I’m glad he does (give second chances). He gave me one.’ ”

Switzer was asked to look across his desk and see a prospect’s mother where a reporter sat. The mother had read all the recent newspaper stories and also Bosworth’s book. Why should her football-brilliant son attend Oklahoma?

The coach countered by saying those who follow Oklahoma closest know it best, that the father of a recently signed tight end had just reconfirmed his loyalty.

Probation limits OU to 18 scholarships instead of 25. Switzer said 15 prospects have been signed, 10 of whom were on the Sooners’ preferred list of 18.

He said if those charged with rape are guilty “I want ‘em locked up, behind bars. They’re animals. I want ‘em caged up, because I have a 19-year-old daughter.” He added that campus officials told him 19 rapes allegedly took place at OU last year.

The business with his assistants at the Orlando-area country club also involved Clemson aides, he said. He admitted the Sooners caused the damage but that it amounted to “horseplay.”

He said the bill arrived Tuesday.