THE NATURAL
OU fan treasures her extensive Heisman winner memories
Sarah Miller was 13 in 1952. She went to OU football games and admittedly didn’t pay a lot of attention. Lots to take in. The band, the cheerleaders, Little Red, the American Indian mascot. The man who spilled beer on her, outraging Miller’s tee-totaling mother.
Big stuff for a girl from small-town Wilson, just west of Ardmore.
So forgive her if her memories of Billy Vessels are rusty. Sixty-six years is a long time. Hard to keep Heisman winners straight when you’ve had so many, and Miller has seen all six OU Heisman winners play live. And her memories are much stronger of Steve
Owens, Billy Sims, Jason White, Sam Bradford and Baker Mayfield. Precious even.
“It’s been just part of my life,” said Miler, now 79 years old and living in Bethany. “It’s always been a part of my life. Look forward to the fall. It’s the best time of the year.”
Miller no longer goes to OU games. Too many knee surgeries. Too far to walk. But in November 2017, her son, Gerald, took her to the West Virginia game. The game Kyler Murray started for Mayfield. Miller was there when Murray broke off that 66-yard run on the game’s first play.
Saturday night, the 2018 Heisman will be awarded, and Murray now is considered the front-runner for the trophy. If he wins, it will make seven Sooner winners, and Miller will have seen them all live.
“Kyler Murray, to watch him play is unbelievable the way that boy can run around,” Miller said.
When we think about Heismans, we think what it means to the winner, or the school, or the football program. But that piece of cast bronze means as much to fans as it does to the people who actually get to hold and display the most famous trophy in sports.
Miller is among the thousands of Oklahoma elders who have seen all the Sooner Heisman winners play live. The Heisman is a symbol of football excellence, and football excellence has been a part of their lives for going on a century.
The Wadleys of Wilson never went on vacation. They spent their surplus money going to the ballgames up in Norman, or to the OU-Texas game, leaving at 5 a.m. to navigate the two-lane road down to Dallas.
“Been going to football all my life,” Miller said. “Born in August, started going to ballgames in September. My mother was a huge football fan.”
The games they didn’t make, they would listen to on the radio. Miller’s mother would do her ironing on Saturday afternoon, with the adventures of the Sooners coming through on the Philco. Memories like that make for strong bonds.
And Sarah Miller is not some sweet, innocent fan. She’s the fan who hates the network announcers because they’re all anti-OU, who bristled when Bob Stoops would say he got outcoached after defeats (“we don’t pay you to get outcoached!”) and who dances around the house when the Sooners score.
Miller doesn’t say so, but it seems like Owens is her favorite Heisman winner. “Steve Owens ... he felt the goal line no matter where he was, and he could go across it,” she said.
Miller reminded her son the other day that she was pregnant with him when Owens won the 1969 Heisman. “Maybe this child I’m carrying will be a great football player,” she said then. “Unfortunately, he wasn’t.”
No, Gerald Miller just turned into a great fan. Been to 21 straight OU-Texas games, gets to Owen Field often and made sure his mother was there last year to keep her streak alive in case Mayfield won the Heisman and they got the Murray bonus to boot, if he wins the Heisman on Saturday and thrills Sooner fans from 8 to 80, who treasure their football and treasure their memories more.