.jpg) Wilkinson in 1969 | |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1916-04-23)April 23, 1916 Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Died | February 9, 1994(1994-02-09) (aged 77) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Playing career | |
| 1934–1936 | Minnesota |
| Position | Quarterback |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1937–1941 | Syracuse (assistant) |
| 1942 | Minnesota (assistant) |
| 1943–1944 | Iowa Pre-Flight (assistant) |
| 1946 | Oklahoma (assistant) |
| 1947–1963 | Oklahoma |
| 1978–1979 | St. Louis Cardinals |
| Administrative career (AD unless noted) | |
| 1947–1964 | Oklahoma |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 145–29–4 (college) 9–20 (NFL) |
| Bowls | 6–2 |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 3national (1950, 1955–1956) 14Big 6/7/8 (1947–1959, 1962) | |
| Awards | |
| |
| College Football Hall of Fame Inducted in 1969 (profile) | |
Charles Burnham "Bud"Wilkinson (April 23, 1916 – February 9, 1994) was an Americanfootball player, coach, broadcaster, and politician. He served as the head football coach at theUniversity of Oklahoma from 1947 to 1963, compiling a record of 145–29–4. HisOklahoma Sooners won threenational championships (1950, 1955, and 1956) and 14 conference titles. Between 1953 and 1957, Wilkinson's Oklahoma squads won 47 straight games, a record that still stands at the highest level ofcollege football. After retiring from coaching following the 1963 season, Wilkinson entered into politics and in 1965 became a broadcaster withABC Sports. He returned to coaching in 1978, as head coach of theSt. Louis Cardinals of theNational Football League (NFL) for two seasons. Wilkinson was inducted into theCollege Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1969.
Wilkinson's mother died when he was seven, and his father sent him to theShattuck School inFaribault, Minnesota, where he excelled in five sports and graduated in 1933. He enrolled at theUniversity of Minnesota, where as aguard andquarterback for head coachBernie Bierman, Wilkinson helped lead theGolden Gophers to three consecutive national championships from 1934 to 1936. He also playedice hockey for Minnesota. Following his graduation in 1937 with a degree in English, Wilkinson led theCollege All-Stars to a 6–0 victory over the defendingNFL championGreen Bay Packers inChicago on August 31. He was drafted in the third round of the 1937 NFL Draft by the Packers (29th overall) but never played.[1]
After Wilkinson worked briefly for his father's mortgage company, he became an assistant coach atSyracuse University and later at his alma mater, Minnesota. In 1943, he joined theU.S. Navy where he was an assistant toDon Faurot with theIowa Pre-Flight Seahawks football team. He served as a hangar deck officer on theUSS Enterprise. Following World War II,Jim Tatum, the new head coach at theUniversity of Oklahoma, persuaded Wilkinson to join his staff in 1946. After one season inNorman, Tatum left theSooners for theUniversity of Maryland. The 31-year-old Wilkinson was named head football coach and athletic director of the Sooners.
In his first season as head coach in 1947, Wilkinson led Oklahoma to a 7–2–1 record and a share of the conference championship, the first of 13 consecutiveBig Six/Seven/Eight Conference titles. Ultimately, Wilkinson became one of the most celebrated college coaches of all time. His teams captured national championships in 1950, 1955, and 1956, and they amassed a 145–29–4 (.826) overall record. Twice Minnesota attempted to hire him away from Oklahoma, in 1950 and 1953, but both times Wilkinson rebuffed his alma mater.[2] OU football was placed on major NCAA probation twice in a five-year span (1955 and 1960) during Wilkinson's tenure for illegally paying players out of a $125,000 slush fund for a decade and a half after World War II ended.[3]
The centerpiece of his time in Norman was a 47-game winning streak from 1953 to 1957, anNCAA Division I record that still stands. It has been approached only four times: byNorth Dakota State inDivision I FCS (39 wins, 2017–2021),Toledo (35 wins, 1969–1971),Miami (FL) (34 wins, 2000–2003), andUSC (34 wins, 2003–2005). Earlier, the Sooners ran off 31 consecutive wins from 1948 to 1950. Apart from two losses in 1951, Wilkinson's Sooners did not lose more than one game per season for 11 years between 1948 and 1958, going 107–8–2 over that period. His teams also went 12 consecutive seasons (1947–1958) without a loss in conference play, a streak which has never been seriously threatened. Wilkinson did not suffer his first conference loss until 1959 againstNebraska, his 79th conference game.
Wilkinson had only one losing season, in 1960. However, during that season Wilkinson still passedBennie Owen to become the winningest coach in Sooner history. Wilkinson's OU record has since been eclipsed byBarry Switzer andBob Stoops.
While coaching at OU, Wilkinson began writing a weekly newsletter to alumni during the season to keep them interested in Sooner football. He also became the first football coach to host his own television show. With Michigan State University coachDuffy Daugherty, Wilkinson sponsored a series of clinics for high school coaches nationwide. Later, they turned their clinics into a profitable business.[4]
Following the 1963 season, his 17th at Oklahoma, Wilkinson retired from coaching at the age of 47.
While at Oklahoma, Wilkinson served on thePresident's Council on Physical Fitness from 1961 to 1964. He designed 11 floor exercises for schoolchildren that were incorporated into the song "Chicken Fat",[5] the theme song for President John F. Kennedy's youth fitness program,[6] which was widely used in school gymnasiums across the country in the 1960s and 1970s.[7]
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In February, 1964, Wilkinson announced that he would enter a special election to replace his friend, the lateRobert S. Kerr, as U. S. Senator from Oklahoma. He had already resigned his position as head coach of the Oklahoma University Sooners.[a] Politicians and the Oklahoma press debated whether he was qualified to become a U. S. Senator, though all seemed to agree that his popularity as a cultural icon gave him an important edge. Easily winning the Republican primary, Wilkinson became theRepublican nominee for theU.S. Senate in 1964, at which point he legally changed his first name to Bud, but narrowly lost toDemocratFred R. Harris, then a State Senator in Oklahoma. Both parties involved political heavyweights from out of state to campaign for their candidates. Republicans invited former PresidentEisenhower andSenatorBarry Goldwater. Illness made Eisenhower miss the occasion,[citation needed] so his former Vice PresidentRichard Nixon served as substitute. Harris supporters got President Lyndon Johnson to make an appearance, as well as several other national Democrats. Wilkinson's Republican advisers brought in SenatorStrom Thurmond to appeal to ultra-conservative voters in Little Dixie, which had recently turned reliably Republican. That effort backfired. Harris later said, "my campaign got an extra benefit from Senator Thurmond's Oklahoma visit … Thurmond wound up scaring the daylights out of even a lot of conservative white voters with his jingoist speeches, advocating for the escalation of the American war effort in Vietnam."[citation needed]
In the 1964 General Election, Wilkinson lost by a narrow 51% to 49% and could not overcome Republicanpresidential nominee,SenatorBarry Goldwater’s loss to incumbent PresidentLyndon Baines Johnson by 56% to 45% in Oklahoma. Through 2020, Johnson is the last Democrat to carry Oklahoma in a presidential election.[9] Wilkinson entertained seeking the other Oklahoma U.S. Senate seat in 1968, but he did not run, and the position went to formerGovernorHenry Bellmon, also a Republican.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Bud Wilkinson | 100,544 | 79.22% | |
| Republican | Thomas J. Harris | 19,170 | 15.10% | |
| Republican | Forest W. Beall | 7,211 | 5.68% | |
| Total votes | 126,925 | 100.00% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Fred R. Harris | 466,782 | 51.17% | −3.67% | |
| Republican | Bud Wilkinson | 445,392 | 48.83% | +4.22% | |
| Majority | 21,390 | 2.34% | −7.89% | ||
| Turnout | 912,174 | ||||
| Democratichold | |||||
In 1965, Wilkinson joinedABC Sports as their leadcolor commentator on college football telecasts, teaming withChris Schenkel and, later,Keith Jackson. Wilkinson was the color analyst for four of the greatest games in college football history, each commonly referred to as a "Game of the Century":Notre Dame vs. Michigan State in 1966,UCLA vs. USC in 1967,Texas vs. Arkansas in 1969, andNebraska vs. Oklahoma in 1971.[12]
Wilkinson was inducted into theCollege Football Hall of Fame in 1969.
In 1975, he received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.[13]
In 1978, Wilkinson returned to coaching with theSt. Louis Cardinals of theNFL. After less than two disappointing seasons, he was fired, and returned to broadcasting withESPN.
Wilkinson suffered a series of minor strokes and, on February 9, 1994, he died ofcongestive heart failure inSt. Louis at the age of 77.[14] He is interred at Oak Grove Cemetery inSt. Louis, Missouri.
Wilkinson was married to the former Mary Schifflet in 1938, with whom he had two sons, Pat and Jay. They divorced in 1975. A year later, he married Donna O'Donnahue, 33 years his junior, who survived him in death.
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | Coaches# | AP° | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oklahoma Sooners(Big Six / Big Seven / Big Eight Conference)(1947–1963) | |||||||||
| 1947 | Oklahoma | 7–2–1 | 4–0–1 | 1st | 16 | ||||
| 1948 | Oklahoma | 10–1 | 5–0 | 1st | WSugar | 5 | |||
| 1949 | Oklahoma | 11–0 | 5–0 | 1st | WSugar | 2 | |||
| 1950 | Oklahoma | 10–1 | 6–0 | 1st | LSugar | 1 | 1 | ||
| 1951 | Oklahoma | 8–2 | 6–0 | 1st | 11 | 10 | |||
| 1952 | Oklahoma | 8–1–1 | 5–0–1 | 1st | 4 | 4 | |||
| 1953 | Oklahoma | 9–1–1 | 6–0 | 1st | WOrange | 5 | 4 | ||
| 1954 | Oklahoma | 10–0 | 6–0 | 1st | 3 | 3 | |||
| 1955 | Oklahoma | 11–0 | 6–0 | 1st | WOrange | 1 | 1 | ||
| 1956 | Oklahoma | 10–0 | 6–0 | 1st | 1 | 1 | |||
| 1957 | Oklahoma | 10–1 | 6–0 | 1st | WOrange | 4 | 4 | ||
| 1958 | Oklahoma | 10–1 | 7–0 | 1st | WOrange | 5 | 5 | ||
| 1959 | Oklahoma | 7–3 | 6–1 | 1st | 15 | 15 | |||
| 1960 | Oklahoma | 3–6–1 | 2–4–1 | 5th | |||||
| 1961 | Oklahoma | 5–5 | 4–3 | 4th | |||||
| 1962 | Oklahoma | 8–3 | 7–0 | 1st | LOrange | 7 | 8 | ||
| 1963 | Oklahoma | 8–2 | 6–1 | 2nd | 8 | 9 | |||
| Oklahoma: | 145–29–4 | 93–9–3 | |||||||
| Total: | 145–29–4 | ||||||||
| National championship Conference title Conference division title or championship game berth | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Team | Year | Regular season[15] | Post season | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Won | Lost | Ties | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
| SLC | 1978 | 6 | 10 | 0 | .375 | 4th in NFC East | – | – | – | – |
| SLC | 1979 | 3 | 10 | 0 | .231 | Fired Mid-Season | – | – | – | – |
| SLC Total | 9 | 20 | 0 | .310 | – | |||||
| Total | 9 | 20 | 0 | .310 | – | |||||
1958-1966 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by B. Hayden Crawford | Republican nominee forUnited States Senator fromOklahoma (Class 2) 1964 | Succeeded by Pat H. Patterson |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |