Mizzou coach Barry Odom’s roots run deep in Oklahoma
Missouri coach Odom has strong ties with OK
MAYSVILLE — Jerry Gamble saw a typical boy, one who loved playing ball, whichever which season it was. One who loved being outside, getting dirty and going down to the fishing hole.
Same as a lot of boys growing up in Garvin County, or just about any Oklahoma town back in the 1980s.
Except for one thing, one unique quality that separated young Barry Odom from the pack of Maysville boys in Gamble’s eyes.
“Boy, he was competitive,” Gamble said with a laugh. “He was
intense. He always took everything serious, even schoolwork. Set his mind to it, and did a good job at it.
The Odom family lived next door to Gamble for several years in Maysville, and Gamble coached Barry Odom — the middle boy of three sons to Bob and Cheryl — in football from seventh through 11th grade.
When Gamble thinks about the fact that little Barry Odom, who used to scrape his knees playing ball out in front of the house, is now the head football coach at Missouri in the mighty Southeastern Conference, it’s mind-blowing.
“Mind-blowing, but not surprising,” Gamble said. “To me, he’s just Barry, but you go up there to their football facility, and you see these 50, 60, 70 people working, and there’s Barry. He’s the head man.
“But it doesn’t surprise me that he got to where he is, because of his competitiveness and the hard work his family taught him.”
This week, Odom is in Memphis, which is a homecoming of sorts. He was the defensive coordinator at the University of Memphis from 2012-14, the only college coaching stop he’s made away from Missouri.
Odom is 19-18 in three seasons at Missouri, with this year’s squad his best yet. The No. 23-ranked Tigers are 8-4 heading into Monday’s Liberty Bowl game against Oklahoma State, which includes another taste of home. Baron Odom, a redshirt freshman reserve tight end for OSU, is Barry’s nephew.
“We’ll see where the family ties lie,” Barry joked. “We’ll see how important I am on the list.”
From Maysville to Mizzou
The hardcore competitive streak that Gamble recognized when Barry was young never wavered. As he grew older, his natural athletic gifts began to elevate him as well.
Both qualities were born in Maysville, and more specifically, on Odom Field.
It’s not an actual stadium, and you won’t find it there today. But when Bob Odom’s boys were young, he went out on his property behind the house and found a good stretch where he could stake out a football field.
“It was 70, 75 yards long,” Bob said. “We poured diesel on it to mark the yard lines.”
Sitting just a few miles west of the actual football stadium at Maysville High School, Odom Field became a frequent gathering place, whether it was just the three Odom boys, or anyone else in town who wanted to come by.
Many of them were friends of Brad Odom, Barry’s older brother. Barry didn’t care. He’d go up against anyone who wanted to play.
“He was doing everything he could to keep up with what we were doing,” Brad said. “He got his butt whooped a few times, but man, he was tough.”
When he played against kids his own age, Barry stood out immediately. By junior high, he was nearly unstoppable.
“We had some talent, but Barry stood head and shoulders above everybody,” Gamble said of his Maysville teams. “Everybody we played knew they were gonna have to stop Barry.”
Maysville isn’t the same town it was 30 years ago. But it was the town that built Barry Odom.
“He never forgets how he got to where he is,” Maysville teammate Heath Massey said. “Never brags on himself and puts others on a pedestal. That’s the way he’s always been, except when it comes to fishing. He’ll always tell you he can out-fish people. That’s not true. That’s his only hold-up.”
Barry started at running back and linebacker for three seasons at Maysville, and though he might be better known for what he did at Ada or Mizzou, the lessons he learned in Maysville made those other accomplishments possible.
“That’s home, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Barry said. “Some of the things that you’re faced with, and the opportunities that you had growing up in a small town you’re able to apply in everyday life.”
In the summer of 1994, the family moved to Ada. Barry was going into his senior year, and younger brother Brian — now the linebackers coach for Barry at Mizzou — was going into seventh grade.
An established powerhouse, Ada was coming off a state title in 1993, but Barry still became an instant star. He carried the ball more than 350 times and scored 39 touchdowns as the Cougars won the second of four straight titles.
The 1994 season wasn’t a great year for college football in Oklahoma. OU and OSU parted ways with their coaches, Gary Gibbs in Norman and Pat Jones in Stillwater.
That was a blow to Barry Odom’s in-state recruitment. New OU head man Howard Schnellenberger showed no interest, and OSU’s new coach, Bob Simmons, had already identified his running back recruit for the upcoming signing class — his son, Nathan Simmons.
So Odom found himself scrambling for options. But he caught the attention of some out-of-state programs when he ran a 10.6-second 100-meter dash at the Southern Oklahoma Invitational track meet in Duncan, finishing second to his Ada quarterback, Brandon Daniels.
Complicating matters, Odom had been playing with a torn ACL since his freshman year of high school, and it needed surgery if he was going to get an opportunity at a Division I school.
One program told him they would have a spot for him if he could still run as fast afterward. Missouri coach Larry Smith came in with a better offer.
Missouri had a spot for him, and would cover his knee repair, promising his scholarship regardless of his ability after the surgery.
“Instead of going to Missouri and getting it fixed up there, they let him stay home and fixed it,” Brad Odom said. “Then he enrolled in January of ’96.”
Barry played in at least 10 games at linebacker in each of his four seasons at Missouri, being named a captain in 1999. His total of 362 career tackles still ranks seventh in school history.
The Ada boys
Ada offensive lineman C.W. Cook knew who Barry Odom was before Barry ever moved into town. In junior high, Cook lived in Stratford, which regularly competed against Maysville, so he knew exactly how talented Barry was.
Cook often found himself both aggravated by, and in admiration of Barry — all for the same reason.
While Barry was dominant on the football field, it was the track and field meets where Cook saw how talented the kid from Maysville was.
Cook threw the shot put, which happened to be one of Barry’s events in addition to the sprints.
“I’d always be leading the shot, and then I’d stand over there and just wait,” Cook said. “Barry, he’d run everything, and I’d have to wait on him to finish an event. He would come over there and he would beat me with his first throw, then he’d be gone, because he had to go run something else.”
Cook moved to Ada a couple years before the Odom family, so when Barry showed up before his senior year, Cook informed his teammates just what type of athlete they were getting.
That, along with Barry’s humble nature, helped him blend with the rest of the Cougars from the start.
“I remember him walking around the school the first day, and I just remember thinking how big his neck was,” said Tanner Landrum, who played defensive end for Ada. “When he got there, coming from Maysville, he said he didn’t know if he’d be good enough to start. Then he ended up starting both ways.
“He was a good leader and he was a perfect fit.”
When Barry is back in Oklahoma, he tries to visit as many of his old friends as he can, whether from Maysville or Ada.
But the bond he formed in one year with four other Ada Cougars — Cook, Landrum, Jamie Hart and Bruce Sutton — seems to strengthen with time.
Each year since 2008, those four have organized a trip to a game to watch Barry coach, whether he was at Memphis or Missouri.
They attended a game earlier this season, and they’ll all be at the Liberty Bowl on Monday.
They joke that Barry’s wife, Tia, is the victim of their tradition, often handling the organization of their weekend together, and getting stuck with them when Barry is busy with the team.
But the visits from the Ada boys aren’t the slightest hardship for the Odom family.
“It’s true friendship. They’ve showed it,” Barry said. “They obviously want us to win every time we line up and play, but when you’ve been friends for 25 years, it goes a little deeper than 3½ hours on a Saturday.”