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For four years, he was no tackling dummy: Scout teamer honored for GPA, cherishes time at OU

OU scout team running back Derek Gove took daily beatings from the Sooner defense. At one point, his shoulder dislocated every time he raised his arm. JAMES GIBBARD/Tulsa World

 
By GUERIN EMIG, World Sports Writer
Published: 5/1/2009  2:21 AM
Last Modified: 5/1/2009  3:35 AM

 NORMAN — Derek Gove, a scout team running back for Oklahoma the past four years, can finally see through the wreckage.

"Most of the guys wake up Sunday morning like they've been hit by a train," he said. "I woke up Monday morning feeling that way. And Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning and Thursday morning."

There is a term for how Sooner defenders treat scout teamers when they're in an ornery mood — they "rag doll" them.

Well, Gove has a few threads loose. Two years ago, his shoulder got to the point it would dislocate every team he raised his arm.

"I had torn my labrum and broken my clavicle," he said. "I had surgery on my shoulder the next March (of 2008)."

The healing process has begun. So has the remembering. And when Gove looks back on his time with the Sooners, it doesn't hurt as much as you'd think.

In fact, he loves the view.

"After my senior year of high school, I gave Merv Johnson (OU's football operations director) a call and asked, 'Is there still a chance I can walk on?' " Gove said. "Right after my junior year, I had come up for a visit and he showed me every bit of this campus. I loved it.

"He said, 'Absolutely. Show up in August.' I came here, and the last four years of my life have been amazing."

Gove carried three times for 5 yards. That was in the 2007 opener against North Texas, when he fouled up his shoulder. You have to dig a little deeper than OU statistical archives to find the "amazing" part.

You
have to put yourself inside the OU Memorial Union the morning of April 14, where Bob Stoops showed up to present one award at the Scholar Athlete Breakfast. He gave it, the Sooner Schooner Scholastic Award, to Gove for maintaining the highest cumulative grade point average among the team's seniors.

"He's a guy that Gerald (McCoy, OU's All-American defensive tackle) has probably tackled more than once," Stoops said. "But Derek is always there. He's a great, great player for us and has really contributed in a great way for four years."

You have to put yourself on the Sooners' practice field at various points of the past four years, where Brent Venables would scream into an ear hole, "This kid is a scout-team running back! He's not a Texas 4.4 guy! He's on the scout team, and you can't even tackle him!"

"I got more joy out of that than anything else in the world," Gove said, smiling. "Just hearing coaches rag on (the defensive starters) if I made someone miss. That was kind of my reward."

There were others.

The last two OU-Texas game days, a proud woman waded into a sea of burnt orange wearing crimson, a party-crasher of the annual breakfast hosted by University of Texas president William Powers Jr. at the African-American Museum near the Cotton Bowl.

She is Sue Gove, UT graduate, UT McCombs School of Business advisory council member, and displayer of a Vince Young autographed picture in the living room at home in Austin.

She is also Derek's mother.

"Our blood is pretty thick," she said with a laugh. "The breakfast is for people that contribute to the university and the president's club. I'm a member and have been a long time. But the first time I walked in with my crimson on, before they saw I had a ticket, they said, 'Ma'am, I'm afraid you're at the wrong place.' There was not another person there in red.

"Eventually, they let me in and I ran into President Powers. He knows Derek's situation and we had a good laugh. People kept staring, though, like, 'She must have some reason she's doing this.' "

It's the same reason Derek's older brother Rick, a UT business school grad, threw a crimson shirt over his orange one before entering the Cotton Bowl the past few Octobers.

"We're a little bit of a UT family, and I had hoped Derek would go there at one time," Sue Gove said. "But as it turns out, we saw from the very beginning what a wonderful experience OU would be for him."

Obviously, this was about more than three career carries.

"Derek wants to coach college football, so he wanted to be a part of a big program and sort of learn that business," Sue Gove said. "I have had many conversations with him week by week the last four years, and it's clear to me he got an amazing education. That program is pretty intense all the way around, from all of the meetings to the rigors on your time and the ethics they go through...

"Why put your body through what Derek has? He saw the value of the other things they were giving him. It was an amazing education."

Gove will graduate with his 3.31 GPA in communications in a couple weeks, then begin pursuit of a master's degree in intercollegiate athletic administration at OU. He has consulted football staffers like Venables and running backs coach Cale Gundy. He figures now is the time to jump in, if he really wants to coach college, and in fact will work with the Sooners' strength and conditioning staff while taking classes.

So that's the plan, along with a wedding with his high school sweetheart.

"Things are great," Gove said. "My body has felt better in the past four months than it has in eight years."

Not bad for a guy who tore two knee ligaments and broke his leg during a Carrollton (Texas) Creekview prep career in which he played center, defensive tackle and linebacker. He walked on to play defensive back at OU, only to be sent to Adrian Peterson's line his first practice.

"I called the guy who trained me back home, George Adams, and said, 'George, I've never played running back in my life,' " Gove recalled. "He said, 'You'll be fine. Just go about your business and do it right. Don't be afraid to run somebody over, and don't be afraid to take a hit because you're going to get hit.' And I did. I definitely got hit."

He got rag dolled. For four years.

But at least he got something for his trouble.

"I remember my first day off Saturday of my first year, when everybody else got to play," Gove said. "I was like, 'Man. All right, got another week of it coming. There's no way I'm going to give up. I'm here for the long haul.'

"I got the routine down. Coaches began to learn my name as I went through. I made sure I made friends in the locker room with guys across the ball from me. After that, the beating got a little easier to take. I'd even jaw back and forth with some of the linebackers.

"I knew exactly what I was getting into, and I had the time of my life. I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Guerin Emig 581-8355
guerin.emig@tulsaworld.com
By GUERIN EMIG, World Sports Writer

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COMMENTS 
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15 comments have been made for this team so far. Tell us what you think below!
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2curious, Tulsa, OK 74104 (5/1/2009 7:06:58 AM)
Derek - I'll bet my last dollar that you'll be a tremendous success at whatever you choose to do in life. You have what it takes - and then some. I'm so glad you chose the University of Oklahoma. "Thousands strong join heart and song in alma mater's praise..."
Report Comment
Graybeard, Tulsa (5/1/2009 7:50:09 AM)
What a great story and well written. Derek and the other scout team members never get any publicity for the hard work they do. I'd buy a white commerative football with all their autographs on it if I had access, and place it next to my OU Heisman football. These guys are the heart and soul of college football.
Report Comment
DanTheMainMan, Sand Springs (5/1/2009 8:00:49 AM)
Ruuddyy! Ruuddyy! Ruuddyy!

Way to go, Derek.
Report Comment
ram14, (5/1/2009 8:29:33 AM)
It's great to hear a story like this. I will be sharing this one with my children. Derek Gove is a great example of seeing the rewards of his efforts, despite knowing very few people will notice or even care. I enjoy reading about all the "newsmakers" in college football, but stories like this should be told more often. Thanks to Guerin Emig!
Report Comment
hawkdaddy, (5/1/2009 8:30:38 AM)
I have to worry about a person's mental state if they are willing to put themselves through what this kid did. If the coaching thing doesn't work out, he can just enter the business world locally and all the "Mouth Breathers" will be lined up to give him a job because he brushed shoulders with Sam Bradford and the other Sooner footballers.
Report Comment
Graybeard, Tulsa (5/1/2009 10:03:12 AM)
Hawkdaddy, you obviously never played a team sport of any kind, because you just don't get it. You missed a wonderful learning experience that would have benefited your psyche.
Now go take your medication and lie down for awhile.
Report Comment
JoJo, (5/1/2009 11:24:14 AM)
A true student athlete!
Report Comment
Arbythree, Tulsa (5/1/2009 11:42:21 AM)
A very nice article. Few would know about things like this without this story. Thanks for writing it Guerin.
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Arbythree, Tulsa (5/1/2009 1:49:01 PM)
That would be a great article T-Town. I remember him too.
Report Comment
JCCool, (5/1/2009 3:09:00 PM)
Hawkdaddy, Gove carries a cummulative 3.31 as a Senior communications major and YOU wonder about HIS mental state? Your envy is equalled only by your ignorance.

Derek, thanks for helping the program.
Report Comment
okcthunderrolls, (5/1/2009 3:13:41 PM)
good story. hope he's a good coach, that way we could have a replacement when Bob retires.
Report Comment
pat, Kiefer (5/1/2009 3:24:00 PM)
A GREAT young man who will go far in any career with his determination!

BOOMER SOONER !!!!!!!
Report Comment
Ignatz, Broken Bow (5/1/2009 3:24:03 PM)
3.31 is the highest gpa of any OU football senior? Well written story detailing there is always a reward for masochism in big time college football.
Report Comment
OUKK, (5/1/2009 8:48:52 PM)
Awesome story.
Report Comment
SoonerChris, Tulsa (5/2/2009 8:37:19 PM)
Great story - love to hear about the blue collar kid that never gets enough credit!
 

 
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