The Undefeated: The Oklahoma Sooners and the Greatest Winning Streak in College Football

Rating:
Summary: OU
Review: A great great football story, but disappointingly written. For starters, Jim Dent misses his audience. Recreated quotes reminisce made-for-grade school stories, yet hollow and stereotypical characters go on big-time drinking binges and grow 'harder than Chinese arithmetic' over the ladies. More disappointing is that one must read between the lines to discover what's most fascinating about 1940s/50s-era football - that the national champion was chosen BEFORE the bowl games (imagine THAT before BCS), that players played on both sides of the ball, that there were no designated field goal kickers, and heaps of other subtleties that have faded away as college football has 'grown.' Perhaps there was a rush to get this out while the 2000 Sooners team was STILL undefeated and national champions. It takes time to make a winner, I guess.

Rating:
Summary: Not Likely to Happen Again...
Review: As a fan of the history of college football I found Dent's book to be a breath of fresh air in a genre that is often peppered with statistics, numbers and facts & figures. Dent goes beyond the numbers to present a living work about the Golden Program of the Golden Era of college football.

Many books about the history of a team give just that, a history of the team but overlook the individuals that comprise the whole. Not Dent. He relishes in crawling in the dirt or sailing into the clouds with the players, coaches, supporters and fans who made the story of the OU 47-game winning streak possible.

For all the glory and fame, it is well remembered that the Sooners, perhaps the greatest college football team of all-time, was made up of the same stuff as the worst college football team of all-time...a coaching staff of chain-smoking, hard drinking, middle aged coaches and stiff-legged college boys often more interested in getting laid than getting playing time.

From desk drawers full of cash, to skirt-chasing, to fist-a-cuffs, to race relations, to sweaty lockerrooms to game day, Dent captures the aura of the greatest winning streak of all-time and the crushing pressure of winning and gut-wrenching fear of losing like few sports writers can.

Careful in his details and persistent with his research Dent writes a classic tale of college football while weaving a great yarn of story-telling.

Combine this book with Dent's "The Junction Boys", gift wrap them both and you will have the perfect gift for not only the football fan on your gift list but the overall sports fan as well.

Hell, my wife actually read and liked the book and she doesn't know squat about football...

Great job, Mr. Dent.

Rating:
Summary: Unparalleled Insight
Review: As a former student and longtime football season ticket holder at The University of Oklahoma, I have read virtually every book ever written about the football program there. This may well be the best of them all. Although the era chronicled in this story ended before my birth, I now feel like I know intimately many of these characters (and let's face it - many of them WERE characters) who before were merely names and faces I had seen in old photographs.

I don't have time to read many books. This was well worth the time.

Rating:
Summary: Imperfect But Undefeated: Ten Years of Sooner Splender
Review: As the Sooners enter what may become a new era of prosperity, Jim Dent takes a timely look back at the roots of OU's football tradition. It is a tradition founded in corruption, hard-scrabble players and an innovative coach who gave birth to sporting excellence on the Southern Plains.

In the book's Forward, Barry Switzer notes, "From Wilkinson to Stoops, Oklahomans have a lot to be proud of." Perhaps. Dent is candid in documenting the corruption that dominated college football following the Second World War. Open recruitment of veterans, slush funds and payouts, influence peddling alumni and Camp Lincoln, Wilkinson's hideaway training camp in Minnesota designed to stretch NCAA practice rules. This was the seed of greatness.

Dent suggests that John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" might have been a catalyst for the emeregence of OU greatness. Inferred is that the specious rebuilding of OU football is somehow justified as it helped the people of Oklahoma emerge from the hardships of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. Aside from his mention that OU was in a recruitng war with other schools -- notably in Texas -- for returning GIs and that Jim Tatum took the OU slush fund with him when he left Norman, Dent offers little context on the shady maneuverings that dominated mid-20th Century college football. Dent does offer some perspective when he writes of OU President George Cross, "[Cross] learned the true meaning of academics at OU. After a round of speeches, the Muskogee Quarterback Club presented Wilkinson with a brand new Cadillac. As a testimonial to "higher education," the OU president received a cigarette lighter." As Cross would later say, I hope to build a university the football team can be proud of. Such observations reveal that "big time college football" is not a recent phenomena.

Integrity is, however, evident in Dent's description of Wilkinson personally, and the many characters who played under his direction. There's Tommy McDonald, who tried to put "I" into "team." Darrell Royal, an Okie who returned from California to fulfill a dream. Prentice Gautt, the first African American to play for the Sooners. Jimmy Harris, the quarterback Sports Illustrated would later rank ahead of Elway, Marino, and Montana. Dent paints a wonderful picture of athletes and party animals who pulled themselves out of hardship to fulfill a gridiron dream and build a football dynasty. And then there's Bud Wilkinson. Raised in strict discipline, educated at Shattuck Military School, honed by three national championships at the University of Minnesota, outwordly Wilkinson is the well dressed, reserved, well spoken Great White Father of football. Outside the public eye, however, Wilkinson succumbs to women, alcohol and a driving ambition.

Aside from a few factual errors (victory 46 came in Manhattan against the KSU Wildcats, not the Jayhawks, and Oklahoma was never part of the Confederacy) Dent's book is well researched and enjoyably readable. In the midst of "the streak" Dent describes suspenseful contests against Texas and Colorado, and brave individuals overcoming humble backgrounds and physical injury to leave it on the field.

For the college football fan, "The Undefeated" puts today's game into perspective. Before the hype of modern media, ESPN Sports Center, and loose superlatives there was "the streak." From the second game of the 1948 season to the eighth game of the 1957 season Oklahoma was 94-4-2 with winning streaks of 31 and 47 games. The men who "wrote" that story are worth knowing in Dent's "The Undefeated."

Rating:
Summary: Riveting Story, Albeit with some Factual Errors
Review: I LOVED the book. It is a window to an era, one in which my parents were young and attending OU. My dad was a walk-on tackle at the time, and it was great to ask him about the various personalities, and what he remembered about them. For instance, Kurt Burris is a big figure in this. He was known as a really tough guy. My dad was often asked to stay after practice and go "one on one" with him, and became friends with him. Likewise, there is much about Tommy McDonald's persona. My dad recalls an outdoor dance near the student union one evening, when he and some of the other guys saw a little guy wearing jeans and cowboy boots (unheard-of attire at the time) dancing with every girl there. They were asking "who IS that little guy with all that nerve?"---it was McDonald-very much like his persona in the book.

Although historical, this is written in the style of a novel. There are some threads which do not neccesarily blend in with the rest of the story. There are some grammatical and factual errors, which I ultimately attibute to the editors. For instance, one passages states that they were going to Manhattan, KS to play the Kansas Jayhawks. Hence, I wonder whether or not there were more errors of which I am unaware. A close friend of the family who know OU SID Harold Keith swears there are many factual errors, such as the events that took place in the TCU game. In spite of this, it is a great read, one that all OU fans should take the time to finish, which, by the way, doesn't take long. I came away from the book feeling that Jimmy Harris, OU qb, was really the hero of the whole story.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly Written
Review: I try to read every college football book that I can get my hands on. I can honestly say that I have read few books written as poorly as this one. I was expecting much more considering the potential story lines involved in this subject. I simply did not enjoy this book because of the way it was written.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly Written
Review: I try to read every college football book that I can get my hands on. I can honestly say that I have read few books written as poorly as this one. I was expecting much more considering the potential story lines involved in this subject. I simply did not enjoy this book because of the way it was written.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Historical Football Story
Review: If you like college football, you'll like this book even if you have no ties to OU or the Big 8 Conference. This is a great story of a well-run college football team in a depressed part of the country still struggling to overcome the Depression and Dust Bowl, and how much this team meant to the people of this state. This story also gives you insight into a totally different era where players were tougher from growing up in a frugal environment and played without facemasks. But it does have a lot in common with today's athlete, as there is open talk of OU paying their players to the particular chagrin of Texas boosters.

After a brief background set-up of the coaches and how Bud Wilkinson became coach (a unique story in itself) the book quickly dives into the record winning streak after briefly touching on the first shorter streak. Bud Wilkinson clearly comes off as a tremendous college coach respected by all. There are in-depth portrayals of the players including their strengths and weaknesses. One of the stars, Tommy McDonald comes across as a prima donna while quarterback Jimmy Harris is the ultimate team player. But maybe the most interesting story is of the first black player to play for OU and the problems from hotels, restaurants and even other teammates.

I strongly recommend this book for college football fans with interests in OU or wanting to broaden your horizons on what it was like to play in a previous era without faceguards and developed passing and kicking games. This of course will be of interest to anyone with Oklahoma ties as it is such a significant part of the history of the state.

Rating:
Summary: A great book about a great team.
Review: Jim Dont's Junction Boys was one of the greatest sports books I ever read, so I couldn't wait for his next one. It's a different kind of story, but this book is wonderful too. Dent knows how to make his characters come alive, from the great coach, Bud Wilkinson, to all those great players, and there were quite a few during the Streak. No, Wilkinson isn't portrayed as a saint here, because he wasn't--he was a human being, and that's how Dent shows him, warts and all. I'd rather read the truth, and if John Herman Bell says "this book is as true as true can be" (that's what he told the Daily Oklahoman), that's good enough for me. The best part of the book is getting to know all those great players, and reading about all those great games they played--and there were some great games. Also, getting behind the scenes is really cool, to see how the players and the coaches prepared (or didn't). There are a lot of funny stories, too. All in all, a great follow-up to the great Junction Boys.

Rating:
Summary: A great read, but how accurate is it?
Review: This is a difficult book to review for me. On one hand, being a rabid Oklahoma Sooner fan, I found this book a totally fascinating account of the 47-game winning streak of Bud Wilkinson's Sooners in the mid-50's. On the other hand, being in contact with many other Sooner fans, some who personally know players from that era, they say this book is a crock. For example, Tommy McDonald is portrayed in this book as a selfish player who was not well-liked by his teammates. But talk to those who know Tommy and they'll tell you just the opposite is true: he was a total team player who brought a huge dose of infectious enthusiasm toward the game.

For the first time anywhere, Bud Wilkinson, perhaps the greatest college football coach in history, is portrayed as a split personality: conservative and aloof in public, and a hard-drinking, womanizing party animal in private. Only someone from outside the family (the Sooner family and the Wilkinson family) would have the guts to show Bud in this rather dubious light. This is quite entertaining to the reader, but is it accurate? Some of the things that occurred later in Bud's life (like dumping his wife for a much younger woman) would make this portrayal seem not so far-fetched.

The inaccuracies of this book have been documented elsewhere (repeat after me Mr. Dent: Kansas U. is in Lawrence, Kansas State is in Manhattan!) But beyond the minor inaccuracies lies the question: how much of this is actually true? Barry Switzer has been quoted as saying he never would have written the Foreword for this book if he had read it first. Although "The Undefeated" has great entertainment value, it's sort of like an Oliver Stone film. It leaves you wondering, "Is this the way it really was?"