Barry Switzer

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Barry Switzer

Date of birth	October 5, 1937
Place of birth	Crossett, Arkansas
Sport	Football
Overall Record	157-29-4
Championships   won	3 National Championships (1974, 1975, 1985) 12 Conference Championships
Coaching Stats	College Football DataWarehouse
School as a player
1956-1960	University of Arkansas
Position	Center/Linebacker
Coaching positions
1973-1988 1994-1997	University of Oklahoma Dallas Cowboys
College Football Hall of Fame, 2002 (Bio)

Barry Switzer (born October 5, 1937 in Crossett, Arkansas) is a former football coach, in the college and professional ranks, between 1962 and 1997. He has one of the highest winning percentages of any college football coach in history, and is one of only two head coaches to win both a college football national championship and a Super Bowl (the other is Jimmy Johnson).

Contents 1 Family 2 Early life and career 3 Head Coach, University of Oklahoma 4 Head Coach, Dallas Cowboys 5 After football

[edit] Family

Switzer is the son of Frank Mays Switzer (b. 1908; d. 1972) and Mary Louise Wood Switzer (b. 1914; d. 1959). Frank Switzer attended the University of Arkansas, and Mrs. Switzer was the valedictorian of her high school class in Crossett, Arkansas. After spending several years with Bethlehem Steel and the U.S. Navy during World War II, Frank Switzer returned to Arkansas in 1945 and attempted to run his father's farm. Unable to earn a decent living for his family as a farmer or in a number of other businesses, Frank Switzer turned to selling untaxed liquor in a dry county in Arkansas, a "bootlegger." Frank Switzer ultimately served prison time on a related conviction that was later overturned.

Frank Switzer was known as progressive in seeking fair treatment for African-Americans in South Arkansas in the 1940s and 1950s. In addition to operating a small loan business with the African-American community at a time when no bank would do business with them, Frank Switzer paid the college tuition for numerous African-American young people in an attempt to provide greater opportunities, and made certain certain that his young sons, Barry and Donald, had African-American playmates.

In 1959 Mary Louise Switzer, suffering from severe depression, committed suicide. Frank Switzer was murdered in 1972 shortly before his elder son became the Head Coach of the University of Oklahoma.

[edit] Early life and career

Barry Switzer made Honorable Mention All-American as a high school football player, was granted an appointment to the United States Naval Academy, but, in a choice to remain "closer to home", he accepted an athletic scholarship to the University of Arkansas. He played center and linebacker for two years under Head Coach Jack Mitchell and two years under Head Coach Frank Broyles, completing his eligibility following the 1959 season. After graduation, he did a brief stint in the U.S. Army and then returned to Arkansas as an assistant coach. He worked in that capacity on the Razorbacks' 1964 National Championship team (whose players included Jimmy Johnson, Jerry Jones and Ken Hatfield).

Following the 1966 season, Switzer moved to the University of Oklahoma as an assistant coach under new Head Coach and good friend Jim Mackenzie, who died of a heart attack following spring practice of 1967. Mr. Switzer continued as an assistant under former University of Houston assistant and new Oklahoma Head Coach Chuck Fairbanks. In 1969, he became the Sooners' offensive coordinator during a run of several seasons in which the team set NCAA team rushing records that still stand today. He is often credited by Sooner fans and other major college coaches as having "perfected" the wishbone offense.

When Fairbanks accepted the position of Head Coach of the New England Patriots following the 1972 season, Switzer was the choice to succeed him.

[edit] Head Coach, University of Oklahoma

Switzer became head coach at Oklahoma in 1973, leading the team to undefeated seasons that year and the next. The 1973 squad went 10-0-1, and was recognized as national champions by Billingsley, Dunkel, and Sagarin. Although 1973 was unusual in that 5 teams were recognized as some form of national champs, Alabama(UPI) and Notre Dame(AP) were the most agreed upon kings of college football that season. Things were more clear-cut in 1974 as the Sooners went 11-0 and shared the national championship with USC. They were outright national champions in 1975, winning 11 games against just one defeat. Because of the lesser amount of influence the aforementioned polls that declared Oklahoma champs in 1973, the university does not claim a national title for 1973, thus meaning they did not achieve the elusive three-peat. Regardless, Switzer's Sooners were a national force in the 1970s as his teams won or shared the Big Eight Conference title every year between 1973 and 1980. Another highwater mark came in 1978 as running back Billy Sims won the most prestigious award in college football, the Heisman Trophy. Oklahoma also played for another national championship in 1977, but lost in the January 1978 Orange Bowl to Arkansas.

Oklahoma slumped slightly in the early 1980s, but rebounded with another conference title in 1984. They won the national championship the next year in the 1985 season, going 11-1 and defeating top-ranked Penn State in the 1986 Orange Bowl. The next two years, they posted the same record but finished ranked third in the final polls both seasons.

Switzer was a "lightning rod" for controversy. While he was frequently accused of lax discipline, his players and associates note that he was one of the first coaches in major college football to allow his players to show off their individual personalities, e.g., allowing All-American Brian Bosworth to "paint" his hair to grab attention and market himself to the public and the NFL, and quarterback Thomas Lott to wear a bandana under his helmet, which many took as an affront to the dignity of the game. Switzer knew, however, that Lott wore the bandana to keep his Afro from being imprinted by the inside of the football helmet.

Switzer was among the first major college coaches in America to recruit and allow African-American athletes to play any position on the team. It was perhaps because of his background and his comfort in the African-American culture learned as a youth, that made him, to his coaching competitors who were mostly "old school" and not comfortable in that culture, the most feared recruiter in America. He was a candid public speaker and often said things in jest that caused difficulty when they appeared in the media. A significant example came once when Switzer answered a question from an audience at the Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa as to why his teams seemed (at that time) to regularly beat those of University of Texas Coach Darrell Royal. His answer, although Switzer loves Country music, was, "Darrell would recruit better if he quit hanging around with those guitar pickers." Royal was incensed, and it was apparently the beginning of a lasting hatred of Switzer by Royal and many other coaches and members of the media.

His team of the 1988-1989 school year was racked by scandal and placed on NCAA probation. In a whirlwind series of events after the 1988 season, on February 13, 1989, Charles Thompson, the starting quarterback, Stephen Wyatt, a local drug dealer, and John Beebe, a local drug dealer were arrested for Illegal distribution of CDS, a Felony in Oklahoma. Wyatt and Beebe were tried and found innocent due to an illegal search and seizure, Thompson plead guilty and served two years in prison. He made the February cover of Sports Illustrated in orange prison garb. Switzer was held by many in the public and almost all of the media as responsible. Switzer responded to this charge, sagely, by saying that he never knew he had to instruct his players not to commit criminal acts. Switzer survived the media and public discontent, but he could not survive the ire of a temporary University President and a new Board of Regents who in late May of 1989 threatened to fire him, not for the earlier incidents but for false charges that he had been involved in unrelated criminal activity (pushing the limits of local Bingo parlor laws). Many similar incidents of such activity by players have occurred in years since at other major universities, but Switzer was the only coach to be personally accused of being responsible for criminal actions of players. He actually resigned on June 19, 1989. In a team meeting with his players after the arrests had stopped, he asked his players if he had messed up by giving certain players "second chances." To a man, all of the players told him and the media he was not responsible. Several players stood up and said that they were glad that they had been given a second chance.

Switzer left Oklahoma with a career record of 157-29-4. His winning percentage of .837 is fourth-best all-time, and he posted remarkable records against several famous contemporaries, going 3-0-1 against Darrell Royal, 12-5 against Tom Osborne, 5-3 against Jimmy Johnson, 2-0 against Bobby Bowden and 1-0 against Joe Paterno, Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes. He was, however, 0-3 against Johnson when Johnson coached the Miami Hurricanes. The losses to Johnson's Hurricanes were Switzer's only defeats from 1985 to 1987, a span in which Switzer's Sooners were 33-0 against all other teams they played.

[edit] Head Coach, Dallas Cowboys

Barry Switzer resurfaced in coaching in 1994 with the Dallas Cowboys, replacing former player and longtime rival Jimmy Johnson on a team now owned by former player and longtime friend and University of Arkansas team-mate Jerry Jones. Switzer was successful with the Cowboys, going 13-6 his first season and 15-4 in his second, when Dallas won Super Bowl XXX over the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-17. Many would cite the next NFL season as a "litmus test" to determine Switzer's actual coaching ability, as the Cowboys would undergo much flux in the offseason. Other experts cite the declining fortunes of the team as being more directly related to free agency and salary caps (which caused a diffusion of talent) and the fact that owner Jerry Jones spent enormous sums of money on a very few "super" players and neglected to leave enough money to re-sign their good veteran players.

Switzer and Jones were unable to halt the team's decline from age and free agency following the Super Bowl, and Switzer was again accused of lax discipline by some of his players, most notably quarterback Troy Aikman. The Cowboys won their division in 1996, but had a losing season (6-10) the next year (the first losing season in Switzer's career). Switzer resigned as Cowboys' coach with a 45-26 career NFL coaching record, after being asked by owner Jerry Jones to remain.

[edit] After football

The University of Oklahoma maintained some distance from Coach Switzer for many years after he left. This changed in 1998, when current Sooner head coach Bob Stoops was hired and sought to restore the program's ties to its successful past. Switzer now maintains a close relationship with the Sooner football program.

In 1990, Switzer released his best-selling autobiography, "Bootlegger's Boy," written with Bud Shrake with a foreword by Joe Paterno. Switzer was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2004, he received the Jim Thorpe Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2006, Switzer announced his support for former rival Tom Osborne's campaign for Governor of Nebraska.

Switzer still resides in Norman, Oklahoma, not far from the University, and in 2001, married longtime girlfriend Becky Buwick, the former head gymnastics coach at OU.

Switzer served as a pregame analyst for Fox television's coverage of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, along with former rival and fellow ex-Cowboy head coach Jimmy Johnson .

Preceded by Chuck Fairbanks	Oklahoma Sooners Head Coaches 1973–1988	Succeeded by Gary Gibbs
Preceded by Barry Switzer	Walter Camp Coach of the Year 1974	Succeeded by Frank Kush
Preceded by Jimmy Johnson	Dallas Cowboys Head Coaches 1994–1997	Succeeded by Chan Gailey
Preceded by George Seifert	Super Bowl winning Head Coaches Super Bowl XXX, 1996	Succeeded by Mike Holmgren

Dallas Cowboys Head Coaches
Landry • Johnson • Switzer • Gailey • Campo • Parcells • W. Phillips

Persondata
NAME	Switzer, Barry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Retired football player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH	October 5, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH	Crossett, Arkansas
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH