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In every issue of Sooner Spectator, we ask legendary coach Barry Switzer to share his thoughts on a number of topics, ranging from football to food to his favorite anecdotes. In this installment of King's Corner, we asked Coach about the Bob Stoops statue unveiling and Sooners Helping Sooners.

Sooner Spectator: You are a major advocate for the Sooners Helping Sooners organization. What makes that group so close to your heart?

Barry Switzer: I've always felt it is extremely important how you treat your former athletes. You just can't use them and lose them. What Sooners Helping Sooners does is help former athletes, regardless of who you are or what sport you played — find jobs or assist them if they're struggling or fallen on hard times, or if they just need a reference or some help some other way. It's tough out there in the world today, especially with the economy being unpredictable like it can be. What this organization does is special. I know all of the coaches are behind it — Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley are both very supportive of what they do. You have people running it who know everybody whether they played at OU 40 years ago or are just out of school. It takes leadership with maturity and age to be able to reach back far enough to donors and also people who run big companies today. I'm not sure a young person in their 20s would have the contacts or the knowledge to do what Jerry Pettibone and Jay O’Neal have done with Sooners Helping Sooners. They know all of the people who have ever supported OU athletics, so they know where to go for help and how to make good things happen. Plus, people know who they are and how genuine and sincere they are, and that they are working for a very good cause.

Sooner Spectator: You were recently invited to speak at the ceremony honoring Bob Stoops, and your shared a lot of positive memories from his time at Oklahoma. Besides OU football, what was at the foundation of that friendship?

Switzer: I was thinking about that the other day and realized that we obviously had a lot in common, including the fact that we both coached here at Oklahoma and both had a lot of success here. I also realize that there are successful coaches who have followed each other at other schools who never developed the relationship that Bob and I shared. Hell, there are some that don’t get along at all. But the truth is I always respected Bob and the way he ran his program, and the fact he never shied away from the expectations or the pressure that went with running a program like Oklahoma. I believe there is a mutual respect there and we became good friends over the years. Even from the day Joe Castiglione hired Bob back on December 1, 1998, listening to what Bob said and how he said it — I knew he was the right guy for the job and he was going to be successful here. And here we are almost 20 years later and he more than lived up to those expectations with an incredibly successful career. I was proud to speak on his behalf.

SS: At one time not long ago, you had signed a deal to make your book 'Bootlegger's Boy' into a movie. Is that still in the works?

Switzer: We did sign a deal with (Blind Side producer) Molly Smith and she let her writers work on a script for the movie for a while. But there is something about Hollywood writers and how they like to sensationalize everything, and when they came back with the script, there was just too much in there that was never in my book. I talked to Molly about it and she agreed. It just didn’t work. It was disappointing, but at this point, I really think the only way to tell that story is through some sort of documentary. It's not a sports story or a book about football — it goes way beyond those things. I've always felt it was much more of a human interest story, and that’s the way it needs to be told.

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