KGOU Sports; Keen and Drake Program

It comes as a surprise to know one that the University of Oklahoma and its athletic programs have changed a great deal in the last 50 to 60 years. To find out how much they have changed, let's listen to former sooner wrestling coach Paul Keane and former basketball coach Bruce Drake as we turn back the pages of Oklahoma athletics. I thought I knew who you were, but I didn't got enough of my second work and the ball of my second work and the ball of my second work and the ball of my second work and the ball of my second work and the ball of my second work and the ball of my second work

85. The Oklahoma University wrestling program was started in 1920 by Dully Lustre and Lee Wallace argued andatge submitted Paul Keane at the post in 1928. Keane went to college at Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater participating in football, basketball and track, but not in wrestling. His track coach was Ed Gallagher, who also was the Aggie's wrestling coach. Keen was interested in wrestling by his brother Clifford, who had learned his wrestling from Gallagher at Oklahoma A&M. Keen coached at Connor's State School of Agriculture at Warner and a year at Yale Oklahoma, coaching football. He came back to A&M to learn more about wrestling and get a degree. He next coached wrestling at Geary Oklahoma for three years,

and then he went to the University of Oklahoma from there. From Geary, I got an invitation to come to University of Oklahoma. Claude Reed called me on the phone. One day I said, would you be interested? That you probably know Polly Wallace has resigned as, I mean, Lee Wallace has resigned as a flying coach, and Claude Reed said he was moving up to that job, but it left him back and see his wrestling coach. One know if I'd be interested, and I told him why sure I was. He asked me, when will Quince and you come down? I told him tomorrow or next day, so we decided that day after tomorrow I'd be down here. And from that, as I came through Oklahoma City, there was peace in the times that I'd been hired as the wrestling coach even before I got down here,

but I came on down here and talked to Mr. Owens and to others about the job here and looked around, and I had a Mr. Owens just said, well, he said, do you want the job? I said, well, we shouldn't, I do. He said, well, we'd recommend you to border regions, but he said, they've always observed our recommendation, so you have the job. We hadn't said anything about salary or anything else until then, and so I found out, he told me that what salary was, and it was less than I'd been making in high school, so he said, well, he said, we'll see that that's raised up at least what you were getting in high school, so that was the start. When he came to Oklahoma in 1928, the wrestling facilities were not particularly good. Wrestling was at the bottom of the athletic

totem pole. We had one big 18 by 18 wrestling mat, and my first year we started in what's known now as the military armory at the university, and we had one, as I said, one 18 by 18 match that was used also, we'd have used it for our matches, and then we had a smaller little 16 by 16 match, so those two mats were all of our facilities were. During Keynes first year at Oklahoma, the new field house was being built, and that was where the matches were held next. We wrestled our matches, and we wrestled our matches in the field house with a temporary floor in there and used barrels with gas in them to heat the building with. By the way, in those days too, another thing that we

did, we put up ropes like you do in the boxing match now, and we had ropes around the mat, so they didn't run off of it as much as they do now. In fact, one of the ingenuities of learning to wrestle was to learn how to get a man up against the ropes and make him straighten up and get a hold on him and pull him back onto the mat. At first year at Oklahoma, there was good interest in wrestling, between 35 and 40 men showed up for the team. However, some of the would-be athletes needed an incentive to come out. Most of the boys that came out for asking when my first team here were poor boys, and they came out on their own. A few of them that had to have some help, we would find a job for them for their board, some of them for their room,

and very few of them where we could find jobs where they could get paid for it, and then when they got paid for it, it was 25 cents an hour, it was going wage at that time. Actually, when Paul Keane took over as coach, the wrestling program at Oklahoma was in good shape as far as talent. Wallace had built wrestling on a pretty fair foundation, and he did have fundamentals of good wrestling. He had a couple of boys that he had taken to the National AAU meet the year before. One or two other boys, two others had graduated, including Bob Cook, who also was a good wrestler. And then we had a nucleus of all four or five boys that had wrestled the year before,

and then we had three new boys that came on that helped us a great deal. And those that were leech, kid leech, as they called him, kid leech, man of Lawrence, man of tooth, and Leo Miller. And it was those three new boys, leech, man, tooth, and Miller, who were to form the heart of the sooner team and bring notoriety to the school, but they needed a catchy nickname. Harold Keath, the sooner's fine sports publicist, provided it. Harold Keath designed a little nickname, and he called him the Three Mighty Adams. They wrestled, of course, three years, and lost very few matches.

So we had a good start, and nearly ever do a meet that we got into, we'd start with those three, and the rest of the boys had to kind of follow suit. And those three did well when the sooner's wrestled the tough A&M Aggies coached by Ed Gallagher. However, the sooner's lost. We started out our dual meet season and pretty good shape, and I remember our first match against that we had against the A&M at that time, and leech, man, tooth, and Miller each went in there and won their matches, so we had the score 9 to nothing after the first three matches. But things went differently after that, and we lost that match 16 to 9. Wrestling was a bit different in the 20s than it is now. One striking feature of the wrestling of this period was the rule concerning the

length of the individual matches. The wrestling in those days is only two things you can do, and that were, of course, a fall. Or you could get a decision, and by getting a decision was a matter of having control, as we call it, a man that was on top, a matter of time, and if he controlled his man as much as two minutes, he got a decision. If he didn't, of course, and there wasn't a fall, it was a draw. So, and there were also the bounce was divided into three 10-minute periods, and you had to win two of the three, or unless it was by a fall, and you had to win two of the three periods by a decision to win your match or win by a fall. So, many times you wrestled three 10-minute

periods. It was still a draw, and you wrestled two three-minute periods, what they called extension periods, to determine the, like so, in reality, a match could go as long as 36 minutes. Paul Keen's tuners wrestled a good schedule, including some Eastern teams, but there was hardly enough expense money to keep the team going. Really, most of the time, our own conference had a set conference fee of only $150, but that was just a matter of exchange. When I went to one conference school, I'd get $150 when they'd come to ours, so it just kind of even doubt as far as the conference was concerned. But outside of the conference, we usually were lucky,

if we got expenses when we went to another school, and most of the schoolers that came to owe you were lucky if they got their expenses when they came there. So, in fact, the first wrestling match that we had at home, I was surprised to find out that they didn't even charge for wrestling matches. And it embarrassed me, and I thought, I said right then, I said, if it's not at worth charging for, it's not worth going to see. So, I said, well, either charge for it or I'm not going to have anything to do with it. So, from then on, they charge for home wrestling matches. Attendance grew at Oklahoma. Keen's teams developed into national contenders. And in 1936, his team won the National Wrestling Championship, the first ever national championship

by an Oklahoma athletic team. From 1936, we had a good season. We went into the conference meet, and won every weight, but won and got a draw for it at 155. And then we, in the national meet, met the same man and won. And I had a man, Harry brought Ben, that wrestled at 175. When we got ready to go, Harry said, well, coach, he said, I'd have no business going to the national meet. Said to either Port Robertson beats me at 165 pounders. And like, I wouldn't, but I just, the way from a time to go up there. And I told him, I said, no, wait a minute, I'm coach here. I know wrestling better than that. And then if you, if you, I know that you can

place, if you want to go on us. And so, anyway, he went up there. And he just became national champion was all one, the whole thing. In addition to the team national championship in 1936, heans teams won six conference championships in his 12 years. And the 1938 conference meet was memorable. In 1938, we were at this nation, that means the conference tournament. And the last match that we're being wrestled in was for third place. And if, and it was between Charlie Robertson, Port Robertson's brother, and the boy from Nebraska. And if Charlie could win it, it would have meant that there were been three teams tied for the championship all with 16 points. But Charlie

won it by fall. And oh, you won at 17. And the two other teams tied for second at 16 points piece. So that one was a big thrill to me. Of course, actually, I've been grateful to Charlie for that third place that had, and a fall at the same time. Paul Keane coached 37 individual conference champions in his years as wrestling coach at Oklahoma. But in 1939, he resigned and continued with his work developing an intramural program for the university. He stayed with that job until his retirement in 1968. Meanwhile, one of Keane's best wrestlers, Port Robertson, took over as sooner head coach. And he maintained the fine tradition of Oklahoma wrestling until the 1950s. Paul Keane later became mayor of the city of Norman. Another sooner coach who shaped much of the athletics at Oklahoma for years was basketball coach Bruce Drake. The sooner basketball

program under coach Hume Dermott was a good one, but it got better in 1924. Bruce Drake remembers how he and Vic Holt came to Oklahoma out of Oklahoma City. I had a high school coach by the name of Roy Bennett, who was a graduate from University of Kansas. And my senior year, we had an all-state center by the name of Vic Holt and myself. And Hume Dermott was coaching at Oklahoma at that time and talked Victor Holt into coming down here and play center form. That was in 1924. And since he was one year ahead of me, that opened the way for me because he got me a job from a room and board. There was no scholarships at that time, Dick. And we got a job washing dishes and working in the dining room and so forth. So we both had jobs at Oklahoma and there was no questions asked.

We didn't even go up to the University of Kansas where we were supposed to go up for an interview with Dr. Forci out. So this is our first choice and no regrets. McDermott's teams prospered during the 20s and there was also an undefeated team. The last one to date at Oklahoma, Bruce Drake became all-american. Our first year, my sophomore year, we kicked away the championship. We had five games to go and we only had to win two out of the five to win the championship. So we finished second. And right after the last game of the season, we decided that it was kind of stupid that we lost the championship. So we just decided that we just we wouldn't lose the game the next year. So we go through my junior year, we go through 18-0. We didn't lose a ball game. And at that time they had no NCAA championship deck. So we challenged Purdue and at that time, Piggy Lambert

was coaching Purdue and they had a center by the name of Stretch Murphy. Same height as Victor Hold, our six foot six center. And they were considered in those days giants on the floor. And he also had a man playing at Purdue named Johnny Wooden. Well, we, McDermott tried to match up a game with him, but they wouldn't play us. So we were undefeated and no place to go. And then my senior year, that was the first year of the big six. And we did not lose a game in that one. And when I graduated, why, McDermott gave me a job as freshman coach, University of Oklahoma. Drake didn't get paid to coach the freshman team, but he did it anyway. He also was an assistant football coach and initiated the Oklahoma swimming and golf programs at this time. The fieldhouse

was built in 1928 that Drake recalls that it actually was never finished. Originally, Benioen, our director of athletics, conceived the idea. Well, in those days, a fieldhouse was an all sports arena. Your basketball court was generally put together in sections and then cabled together. Then it could be used for football practice and everything else. The old fieldhouse at that time, they constructed it half of it was constructed. And the football team has worked out in there many a time on dirt floor. And then just take up the floor. And at the north end, or in east and west, there was also a pole vaulting pit, which I pole vaulted back in there. And our heat was just gas piped into oil drums filled with brick. That was our heating system. And so Benioen decided to have a swimming pool and built a swimming pool on the north side of

the old structure. And that just about eliminated the possibility of making it any larger. The fieldhouse originally was supposed to seat 7,000 and wound up seating only five. But it was to become the home for the Oklahoma sooner basketball and wrestling teams. Drake was an assistant basketball coach for 10 years. And he got his chance to coach the varsity in that fieldhouse in 1938 and 39. That first team was good. And Bruce Drake is very proud of what he and his team accomplished that year. In 1938, 39, my first year of coaching was the first year that they had a national championship. And it was to be told in the western winter would be determined at in San Francisco at the World's Fair on Treasure Island. And the other semi-finalists would emerge from the Madison Square Garden. And so I was my fortune my first year to not only win

the conference, but I got to the NCAA. And I got beat in the finals at Seattle Washington to Howard Hobbson of Oregon who won the NCAA championship the first time when we went up there and played in the tournament. Some of it was carried on television, but very little of it was. And total amount of money that we received for participation in that was $378. That's transportation, that's food and everything. We had so little money to travel on that we went on the Pullman back in those days. And that was our hotel room. So when we got up on Treasure Island, we stayed there. We didn't have enough money to check in the hotel. But that was the first year of the NCAA. And it was my first year of coaching. And I'm kind of proud of the fact that there has never been a coach. It's very first year of coaching that went all the way to the finals of the NCAA championship. By 1944, basketball was

getting a new look. The big man, the seven footer like Oklahoma A&M's Bob Curlant and DePaul's George Mike and began to dominate the game. They gold-tended. That is, they blocked the ball away as it was going into the basket. Bruce Drake set out to have gold-tending outlawed in college basketball. He and Harold Keith wrote an article on the problem for the Saturday evening post and had it published. And then when Oklahoma A&M and their coach Henry Iba ventured to Norman for a game, Drake had a plan to bring about a change in the gold-tending rule. I knew that I was going to be severely criticized the way I was going to play this last game, unbeknownst to Mr. Iba. But I wanted to focus national attention on it. Because this was my livelihood and if a person doesn't fight for what he think is right, free sports, he's in bad shape. I'd be just like if you and I were playing a game of snooker. And the seven ball was fixing the roll in the pocket to beat you and you put your hand across

it and said, oh, oh, too bad. Now in preparation for this game, here was my, here was what I was going to do. I had to focus attention on it. And I felt like it. I could win the game. Well, I had Merle Ninkins who was a red-headed end. I had him practice all week walking on duck legs. That's short stills, scrapped to his legs. And then I had a special sweatsuit. He was going to lead my team on the floor. And he was going to be seven feet tall just exactly like Krillin. Our theme was this, when we got the ball, we would walk down court. And I wanted to have the ball 80% of the playing time. We'd walk down court with the ball. And we would shoot on the 17th pass. I started the four-string center against Krillin. And we wanted to send him to the line. So we just undressed him. We would let him shoot. On the top of each goal, we had a platform built. I get a load of this day.

On top of the platform was the chairman of the National Rules Committee of the United States and Canada, the late Mr. St. Clair from SMU. And he was seated in a chair all during the game, looking down at Bob Krillin goal-tending. And he wanted to observe the evils of goal-tending so he could take his findings back to the National Joint Rules Committee of the United States and Canada. Drake planned to put a man on Krillin to fall in whenever he shot and gamble that Coach Henry Iba would choose for Krillin to shoot the free-throws since he wasn't a very good free-throw shooter, about 40 percent. In order to send the big guy to the free-throw line, the Sooners had a man on him with an elbow in his chest. He did go to the free-throw line, but Oklahoma fell three men out of the game and they wound up losing by a score of 14 to 11. Drake was criticized for his action, but within a short time the National Rules Committee outlawed goal-tending. Drake also came up with a revolutionary new offense in the 1940s at Oklahoma.

He called it the Drake Shuffle. It took four years of research and it is a much copied offense even today. In 1947, Drake had possibly his best team in Oklahoma. Led by all-American Gerald Tucker, the Sooners were conference champions and they advanced to the NCAA tournament. However, after beating St. Louis and Oregon State in postseason competition, the Sooners worked to face Texas. The Sooners were given little chance of beating the undefeated Longhorns, but they did. That was a game that Kenny Prior, we were one point behind with 15 seconds to go when I put Prior in and I knew he could go anywhere he wanted to on the dribble and I knew that Gerald Tucker would be covered our All-American Center because then Prior had a deathly jump bank shots and so we were to gang up on that side if he banked if we knew where his rebound would come if he missed

and that was a game that he pumped it up there with the gun and it went in. We go and we play in the finals in Madison Square Garden against Holy Cross. Oklahoma lost the game, 58-47 to Holy Cross led by their star Bob Coosie. No sooner basketball team since has finished as high nationally as that 1947 Sooners squad. Drake coached eight more years at Oklahoma after that season and he wound up his coaching career with six conference championships in 17 years. That mark is surpassed over the period only by Kansas legendary coach Fogg Allen who had nine. Bruce Drake resigned from the University of Oklahoma in 1955. There was a misunderstanding from the administration from the headlake director on down and they cut my scholarships down to one and I didn't have my heart in it and that's the year that I gave up coaching golf, gave up coaching swimming and

quit running the public address system at football game. So I really didn't have my heart in so I call it quits. Ever since Drake quit at the University of Oklahoma he's been close to sports and the university. He and Gerald Tucker one of his former players coached the 1956 U.S. Olympic Basketball team. Of course Oklahoma has not had a conference championship since Drake's team of 1948 and 49 and he hopes that that will change soon. Special thanks for this program are Duke Paul Keane and Bruce Drake both Helms Foundation Hall of Famers and the many people who have followed Oklahoma sports through the years and have collected some of the history that has been so valuable in producing this program. This is Dick Pryor inviting you to join me next time when we will turn back to pages of athletics at the University of Oklahoma.