The state of football

Up and down the field with Oklahoma State head coach Pat Jones

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TTV: When did you know that you wanted to be a coach for a living?

PJ: I wrote an occupational themed paper in the seventh grade.

TTV: You knew when you were in the seventh grade? What did you about it?

PJ: The basketball coach at my junior high had been the seventh grade football coach. I got pretty close with him and after football season he asked if I’d want to come and be the manager for the basketball team—you know, get people towels and mop the floors and all of that bullshit. But I got very close to him. He was a young guy, really sharp and we’d sit up in the gym and talk sports after the practices and games and he’d give me a ride home at night. I can remember swiping the magazines out of the coaches’ offices. There was Scholastic Coach and I can’t remember what the other one was, it had to do with athletic administration or something, and then I started subscribing to them. You know, I would get the magazines at my home. I was just a glorified gym rat, but I was lucky because the guys that coached me on the way up were larger than life, really good guys—and they were the ones that would ultimately hire me when I got out of school. I was incredibly fortunate. I worked hard and I was a loyal guy, but I owe them a lot. They were some of the best coaches I’ve been around at any level. A lot of them never had the opportunities that I had, but they were as good as it gets.

TTV: You coached during integration in Arkansas.

PJ: Yes. I learned so much during those days. As soon as they drew those lines that let us know which kids would be transferring from the all black schools, I got in my car and drove it down to the east end of Little Rock and found those kids - I had the roster. They had had a great program with their school and now they shut it down and told them, “We’re gonna bus you across town.” So I went down and knocked on their doors and I told them, “Hey, we want you. We’re gonna work you hard, you’re gonna have access to better equipment and we’re gonna win a bunch of games.” The coaches and administration that were over me could’ve said, “We’re gonna do what we do and if you can’t make it, then the hell with you.” But they didn’t. They knew what the right thing to do was and they helped to instill that in me.

It was an interesting time. I had never even played alongside a black athlete. Even though Brown versus the Board of Education had gone through, the schools did not fully integrate until much later, when they closed the all black schools. I thank my lucky stars for being around those guys at that time. I can remember addressing a roomful of kids, half of them black, half of them white, in 1970. I was 22 years old, and they sent me to talk to the squad. I told them, “That football field out there is 100 [yards] by 52 [yards]—for everybody in this fucking room. But you’re here and we care about you, and when you set foot on that football field, it doesn’t matter whether you’re from the east end of town, or Little Rock Country Club, or who your parents are or anything else. That’s the beauty of competitive athletics.” Now we pulled the cork on them and we practiced hard, but everybody was the same. And they won.

But truly, we had no idea what was going to happen. We didn’t know if they were gonna play, or if they were gonna say “Fuck you.” We really didn’t know. But from that moment on, I saw it in their eyes, and they trusted us. We weren’t bullshitting them and they knew it.

TTV: Your last two stops in coaching were for the Miami Dolphins and the Oakland Raiders. South Florida and Northern California are pretty attractive spots to retire. Why Tulsa?

PJ: Ironically enough, I started to buy a condo right down in this area in 1985, just to have a “Get out of Stillwater” place. Because we would come over to Tulsa on Sundays when I was coaching at OSU and we’d park at Swan Lake, go for a run, go to Queenie’s in Utica Square and have some breakfast, then hit Scribner’s Bookstore, make the rounds to Petty’s and then head back to Stillwater. So, Tulsa was my Sunday escape.

TTV: To get away from the job.

PJ: Yeah. So, when I was trying to decide whether we should retire to Tulsa, I told my wife, “I’m gonna go back down there and park at Swan Lake, and do the same route.” I wanted to see if it all felt the same to me as it had before—and it did. I also knew I might have some opportunity media-wise out here, which helped to make the decision easier. But again, this part of Tulsa has always felt incredibly iconic, safe, timeless. It’s a comfortable, familiar place for me. It’s a comfort zone, I’m not gonna lie, but that’s not always a bad thing. Now had I come back here and gone for my run and things had changed drastically, it may have been a different story. But it wasn’t. It still felt the same. I kick my own ass for not buying that condo down here in ’85.

TTV: Did you come to Tulsa before coaching at OSU?

PJ: Oh yeah, we used to come over from Fayetteville and come and watch Drillers games and drink Coors beer—you know, maybe buy a case of Coors to take back, that was kind of a big deal back then. And then when I came to OSU in ’79 Tulsa was still a real town, you know? The streets were paved with gold from the oil money and all. That was my initial remembrance of what Tulsa was. But the geography, the river, the rolling hills, it was a lot like what I grew up around. Tulsa’s big enough to have stuff to do, you can travel out of here, but at the same time you don’t have to sit in traffic for an hour waiting to get through the Oakland Hills or something. It’s a great little town, especially now that downtown is coming back. My early memories of Tulsa were that downtown was vibrant and alive. Everything was down there. Now it’s coming back and I think that really adds to the overall experience.

TTV: Did you ever have any other job outside coaching?

PJ: No. I was extremely lucky. I had a job at 22, just incredibly fortunate. I was talking with Switzer about that the other day and he was very fortunate that way as well. And not only that, but I coached for a little under 40 years and I know a whole bunch of guys who have and they have never been so fortunate to coach one of the really iconic, marquis players. They’ve coached some quality people maybe, but not Hall of Fame caliber type guys. I’ve gotten to be around those types of athletes through my career, so I consider myself very fortunate.