Bradford trades ice for turf
BY JOHN E. HOOVER World Sports Writer
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The Sooner quarterback's
first love in sports was hockey.
NORMAN -- Sam Bradford had it all figured out.
He'd get on the best club team, find a talented skills coach and work
hard every day out there on
the ice. Yes, the ice. Eventually, his future would lead him
to a roster spot with the Vancouver Canucks.
If only his family would
move to Canada!
"He was adamant we move
to Canada so he could play
hockey," said Bradford's
mother, Martha Bradford.
Instead, the Bradford clan
remained in Oklahoma City,
which allowed Sam the opportunity to fulfill another lifelong
dream. When the University
of Oklahoma football team
steps onto Owen Field on Saturday for the 2007 season
opener against North Texas,
Bradford will be the Sooners'
starting quarterback.
"I've dreamed about it my whole life," Bradford said.
That is, when he wasn't
dreaming of skating for a living.
"He was a big hockey fan,"
said his father, Kent Bradford, "and was always saying,
'Come on, let's go up there.' "
Bradford excelled at baseball, was terrific at basketball,
was even better at golf. Oh,
and he was pretty good at
football, too. But his true love
was hockey.
"He would get up every
morning and look and see
how the Vancouver Canucks
had done," Martha Bradford
said. "That show, 'The
Mighty Ducks'? He'd watch
that every night before he
went to bed."
Alas, skates and sticks
don't play for a kid growing
up on the dusty red earth of
Oklahoma, especially one
whose father and grandfather
were pretty good football
players.
Grandfather Bill Bradford
played at Oklahoma A&M in
the late 1940s, under Jim
Lookabaugh, alongside Bob
Fenimore, Neill Armstrong
and Cecil Hankins. The '45
Aggies won the Cotton Bowl
and beat OU 45-0, a victory
that inadvertently helped turn
the Sooners into a national
powerhouse. (Martha, an OSU alum, once gave her
father-in-law a photo of little
Sam clad in kid-sized Cowboy
gear. Just don't ask to see it.)
Kent Bradford's career
(1975-78) as an offensive tackle under Barry Switzer came
during a memorable stretch
in which OU won four
straight Big Eight titles and a
national championship in
1975. He played with such luminaries as Billy Sims, Thomas Lott and Greg Roberts.
Sam came along in November 1987. The Bradfords
owned OU season tickets and
often spent fall afternoons at
Memorial Stadium, watching
the Sooners of the 1990s fall
on hard times. Sometimes, it
was hard to watch the games.
"What I remember most is
at halftime of those games, he
and I would go out and play
catch on that north lawn,"
Kent Bradford said. "He was
a typical kid."
OK, not typical. Not on the
athletic field, anyway.
"He just grew up loving
sports," Martha Bradford
said. "He always had balls
with him. Just from when he
was a little one, he always
played ball."
And he was good. At everything. In hockey, Sam played
for the Oklahoma City Junior
Blazers, which skated most
weekends in Texas (that got a
little expensive, Martha
says). Sam's grandfather routinely took him to the golf
course, where the boy's calm
demeanor became a strength.
At Cooper Middle School,
Sam was a pitcher on the
baseball team, with a fastball
that reached into the 80s.
He also toured the nation with Athlete's First, one of
Oklahoma's premier AAU
basketball teams. Family vacations were spent wherever
the AAU national championship tournament was being
held that summer.
"It was a lot of fun," his
mom says.
By the time Bradford arrived at Putnam City North
High School as a freshman,
he had given up baseball because of soreness in his
knees. Still, his reputation
had preceded him.
"They say he was pretty
good," said PC North coach
Bob Wilson. "I think he could
have done about anything he
wanted to. He definitely could
have played at the Division I
level in about three of those
sports, golf, basketball and
football -- and maybe baseball, heck, I don't know; he
never played it here."
After a successful freshman season, Bradford engaged in a preseason battle
for the Panthers' quarterback
job. He was a sophomore. His
competitor was a senior.
Many of the same qualities
Bradford used to the win the
job in August 2007 also won
him the job in August 2003.
"Leadership. Arm strength,
for a kid that age. Knowledge
of the game. He was far beyond a lot of sophomores,
things that he saw," Wilson
said. "Those are all things
that helped him get the job
here to begin with."
As a junior, Bradford
passed for 1,980 yards and 16
touchdowns as Putnam North
made the Class 6A semifinals.
Then-OU offensive coordinator Chuck Long had noticed
him the summer before in a
Sooner camp, but Bradford's
success as a junior got him
noticed by Texas Tech, which
quickly drew attention from
Iowa State, Kansas, Texas
A&M and Michigan.
The next fall, the Panthers
didn't make the playoffs. But
Bradford still passed for 2,422
yards and 19 TDs (with virtually no running game, he also
threw 15 interceptions).
At PC North, Bradford
played at 197 pounds. After a
full year in Norman, he's up
to 213, leaner, stronger and
faster. And, Wilson said, giving up basketball, golf -- and
yes, even hockey -- has allowed him to focus 100 percent of his efforts on football.
"Any time you take an athlete of his ability," Wilson
said, "and you concentrate on
one particular sport for two
years, I think you're going to
excel in that sport above and
beyond maybe some of your
wildest dreams."
Wildest dreams? Oklahoma football may not be The
Mighty Ducks. But for Sam
Bradford, it'll do.
John E. Hoover 581-8384
john.hoover@tulsaworld.com
Kickoff event Tuesday
The OU Club of Tulsa will hold
its annual kickoff event at 6 p.m.
Tuesday at the Fox & Hound in
Broken Arrow, 7001 S. Garnett
Road. Bob Barry, the voice of
OU football, and Merv Johnson,
director of football operations,
will be the featured speakers for
the free event.
From staff reports
Countdown
to kickoff
6 days
Until the
Sooners open
against
North Texas
When:
6 p.m.
Saturday
Where:
Norman
TV:
FSN-27
Associated Images:
OU quarterback Sam Bradford once
fantasized of a future in hockey.
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