Dad sacrificed his spare time for me

Farewell to people with Oklahoma ties who enjoyed the game day experience:

•Ron Munn, 78, of Surprise, Arizona. Dad loved country music. He was a master wrench when it came to fixing cars. His dream weekend was somewhere in the woods hunting deer or dropping a fishing line.

Unfortunately for him, neither of his sons took to Waylon, Willie and The Boys, the inner workings of an engine or the great outdoors.

So he sacrificed. After a long day of work, Dad often forfeited quiet time in the recliner for a trip to the Astrodome for a baseball game, an hour in the yard passing a football or time in the basement with a knife and sand paper crafting a Pinewood Derby car that would win the 1971 Pack 7 championship.

Many fall Sundays were spent in the living room watching NFL games, especially the Pittsburgh Steelers and the old Houston Oilers. Together we laughed at the ornery Jack Lambert and cheered the runaway locomotive, Earl Campbell.

When Mom served Sunday dinner around 6, Dad and I watched a portable TV from the dining room table as Roger Staubach once again directed the Cowboys' 2-minute offense to a touchdown.

"Can you believe that?" he would say.

Dad took me to my first high school football game on a cold, fall night in Rochester, Pennsylvania. Years later, he delivered a pepperoni pizza to a hungry, young journalist working his first job as a reporter for the Bethany Tribune-Review. Together we sat at Putnam City Stadium, munching on pizza pie as Lawton High's great quarterback, Rodney Douglas, sliced through a helpless Putnam City North defense.

My family is originally from Ohio, and we were brought up Buckeye fans. But when my brother Jeff joined the University of Oklahoma athletic training staff, that loyalty changed. Although Jeff’s duties were to help prep the Sooners in the training room and tend to injuries, Dad wanted nothing more than OU to win because Jeff was part of the team.

Long after Jamelle Holieway, Tony Casillas, Spencer Tillman, The Boz — and my brother — moved on, Dad remained an OU fan through the ugly era of John Blake to the wealthy days of Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley.

Dad’s last OU game was Bedlam on Nov. 10. He didn’t get to see much of that wild Sooners triumph. He was too tired. Medication helped him sleep away the pain of pancreatic cancer.

Why is it we wait until it's too late to say thank you?

If I was granted just five more minutes with Dad, I would thank him for all the laughs and cool moments we spent together.

So, if you're looking down on me, Dad, I love you. And thanks a million.