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Can you guess Barry Switzer's first salary as head coach at OU?
Published: 4/30/2012 12:05 PM
Last Modified: 4/30/2012 12:05 PM

I was doing some spring cleaning over the weekend, going through some old boxes in the closet, and I ran across the Tulsa World's preseason football tabloid for 1973.

The tabloid usually ran 70-plus pages and covered all of college football, with particular emphasis, of course, on TU, OU, OSU and Arkansas.

I was a young sports writer then, and I wrote about 95 percent of the tabloid for six years. When a new coach was hired, I always wrote a full-page feature on him, and in 1973 I had three -- F.A. Dry at TU, Barry Switzer at OU and Jim Stanley at OSU.

Anyway, I was glancing through the articles and in Switzer's this statement jumped out at me: "Switzer was hired in February. The Board of Regents approved a four-year contract at $24,000 a year."

I'm sure there were perks, but still, $24,000 a year? Imagine what the remainder of the staff was paid. Imagine what they are thinking when they see coaching salaries today.

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