In The Undefeated:
The Oklahoma Sooners and the Greatest Winning Streak in College Football,
The Junction Boys author Jim Dent chronicles how Charles "Bud" Wilkinson helped the dust-bowl-depressed state of Oklahoma regain self-respect by building a program that became one of the most dominant in college sports history. From 1948 to 1957, an era when players played both sides of the ball -- 170-pounders played tackle, and some players smoked three packs a day -- the Oklahoma Sooners dominated college football in incredible fashion: they tied twice and lost four times, and amid their 94 wins they compiled winning streaks of 31 and 47 games.Dent has an eye for detail, and the book is equally the story of coach Wilkinson and his eccentricities, with half-time speeches and an innovative coaching style that implemented schemes not found in the NFL for decades. Also of interest are the plight of Prentice Gautt, the first black OU player during a time of racial intolerance; the hardscrabble backgrounds of the tough-as-nails players; and how preparation for big games included espionage and decoy playbooks. Most of all, Dent retells game highlights in dramatic fashion, including how an opposing receiver, after potentially ending one of OU's streaks by scoring in the final seconds, confessed he had trapped, not caught, the ball.
The refs discussed the matter, and "[w]hile the man in the gray flannel suit waited, watched and paced, a crowd of 50,878 held its collective breath, and prayed."As the wins accumulated, it became increasingly difficult for Wilkinson to motivate players and fend off all comers. In like fashion, Dent loses steam, but not before making the heartfelt case that Wilkinson's Sooners fielded some of the greatest teams in history.
-- Michael Ferch
From Publishers Weekly
The 1954-1956 University of Oklahoma Sooners played heroic, near-perfect football under the Patton-like command of Bud Wilkinson, leaving a towering legacy of college football records: 47 consecutive wins in Division I. It remains, almost 50 years later, "the greatest winning streak in college football history."The characters and the high (and sometimes low, and comic) moments of "the streak" bear recounting in this era of evanescent sports records. Dent (The Junction Boys) conveys different aspects of his story unevenly, but his earnest documentation of the players on their own heartland turf will make the book of interest to nonfans. The Sooners' three seasons unwind in a leisurely haze, a game-film of an America, a brand of college life, and a kind of player that no longer exist.
The complex, handsome and stoic Wilkinson, who makes Tom Landry seem like a chorus line director, was known (without irony) by the players and campus officials as "Great White Father," ostensibly because of his regal head of silver hair. Perhaps the backroom reverence for Wilkinson, handed down across the High Plains generations, stops Dent from criticizing Wilkinson's womanizing and blatant recruiting corruption. For Dent and the Sooners, what matters is that Wilkinson's winning teams drew the entire region out of its dust-bowl Okie funk into the bright orbit of national sports respectability. His own booster instincts working against his terse style, Dent barely avoids falling into overwrought nostalgia peddling, and offers college football purists a look straight back at an astounding moment in a bygone era and a good primary-source record of "the streak." 16 pages b&w photos not seen by PW.
From Library Journal
Led by enigmatic coach Bud Wilkinson, the Oklahoma Sooner football team won 94 games between 1948 and 1957, with winning streaks of 31 and 47 games. The team's record of 47 straight victories still stands. According to Dent, to achieve this feat today would require a team to compile four consecutive undefeated seasons, plus bowl games, an accomplishment that appears virtually impossible. Dent, an award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times best seller The Junction Boys, effectively captures the character of Wilkinson and describes how the team evoked the passion of a state that was still haunted by the Depression. Complete with a 16-page black-and-white photo insert, plus bibliography, this publication will be appreciated by college gridiron aficionados. Recommended.
Larry R. Little, Penticton P.L., BC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Oklahoma Sooner football coach Bud Wilkinson won an all-time record 47 straight games over five seasons, which included three undefeated years, from 1954 through 1956. Dent vividly invokes time, place, and personality in order to bring his story to life. In the 1950s, Oklahoma still had a statewide inferiority complex dating back to the Depression, and football was a means of restoring regional pride. Dent describes the payoffs to high-school stars, the rampant bootlegging (Oklahoma was nearly a dry state at the time), and the virulent racism that defined the era. Presiding over it all was the larger-than-life figure of Wilkinson, whose patrician image belied a rugged individualist who was hard drinking, popular with women, and embodied much of the spirit of the oil wildcatters who supported his program. The same story, if revealed of a current college football program, would generate incredible scandal. But Dent reports it objectively, within the context of the times, and as such it is a fascinating account of an extraordinary athletic achievement that is unlikely to be approached, let alone equaled.
Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Berry Tramel, The Daily Oklahoman
"...ranks with Cross' PRESIDENT'S CAN'T PUNT and Switzer's BOOTLEGGER'S BOY as the best books about the Sooner football phenomenon."Kirkus Reviews
"Like eavesdropping on the team bus, sports enthusiasts will enjoy reliving a time when college football was top national news."Sports Illustrated
"Wilkinson was certainly a winner. So is this book."The Wall Street Journal
"His Sooners come across as regular guys, 'humbled by droughts, tornadoes, Indian raids, floods, and the Dust Bowl.'"Booklist
"[A] fascinating account of an extraordinary athletic achievement that is unlikely to be approached, let alone equaled."College and Pro Football Newsweekly
"an absorbing character study of the young men who produced college football's most amazing winning streak."Book Description
The Oklahoma Sooners won their seventh national championship on January 3, 2001, defeating Florida State in the Orange Bowl 13-2. But the story of greatness began long ago in the era of no facemasks when the game was the rallying post of a state still seeking an identity.The Undefeated
is the story of phenomenal winning. From the third game of the 1953 season till the eighth game of '57, the Oklahoma Sooners never lost, compiling a forty-seven game winning streak that likely will never be matched in big-time college football. It is often compared to Joe DiMaggio's fifty-six game hitting streak.During this tremendous run, the Sooners cleared every hurdle known in the world of competitive sports. They never wilted in the face of pressure, nor were stifled by the attention inspired by the streak. Coached by the legendary Bud Wilkinson, the Sooners came from behind in the second half on numerous occasions. Dent presents an absorbing character study of Wilkinson, the brilliant, complex coach who engineered the string of victories and whose starched-shirt public persona hid a man of many secrets.
More than a football book, The Undefeated is the saga of how Oklahomans were was able to rebound from the Dust Bowl years and The Grapes of Wrath image. Over a million people left the state in the 1930s as the agrarian economy was battered by the drought and high winds. When World War II ended, the OU board of regents were compelled to rebuild the morale of the state by investing their faith in the football program. From this effort emerged Wilkinson who, during a nine-year stretch, compiled a record of 94-4-2. The Sooners football program became the model from which others were built, even surpassing Notre Dame in both reputation and winning tradition.
The players who compiled the streak were also children of The Depression, raising themselves from their own bootstraps and winning games the old fashioned way - through grit and blind faith. Through it all, the young men who accomplished this amazing feat shine in vivid life. Dent has crafted a book that goes far beyond merely college football. Indeed, he has crafted a work that is a classic piece of Americana for the book joins together such things as friendship, America in the fifties, the hopes and dreams of these men, and the driving passion of one coach. Possibly it is the greatest story in the history of college football and certainly one of the most glorious in the history of sport.
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Simply put, Jim Dent has resurrected the historical sports genre. He established himself with his bestselling THE JUNCTION BOYS, and now he proves himself a master with his winning and powerful history of the Oklahoma Sooners' run of glory. --This text refers to the Digital edition.About the Author
JIM DENT is the author of the New York Times best-selling book The Junction Boys. He has written two other books, King of the Cowboys and You're out and You're Ugly, Too (with Durwood Merrill).Dent is an award-winning journalist who covered the Dallas Cowboys for eleven years and worked in the sports media for more than two decades. He is a graduate of Southern Methodist University.