Barry Tremel: The Worse Columnist in OK

Barry Tramel of The Oklahoman posted this article, blaming Texas politicians for the saving of the Big 12. The following is an email sent to Tramel. I hate him.

Your recent article regarding Texas politics and the saving of the Big 12 Conference is further evidence of your inability, as a resident of Oklahoma, to admit that the horse that drives the cart in the southwestern world of football has, and always will be, The University of Texas. You try to convince readers that Texas only stayed because of politicians in Texas? What about the media rights Texas will retain in order to start their own network? How about the new tv deals coming down the pipe from Fox (reported to be in the $140 million range for the conference?)

Texas cannot be the all powerful money greedy school you seem to disparage on one hand, and turn money away from the politicians on the other. The argument makes no sense.

You know what I think? I think that folks in Oklahoma such as yourself are pissed that despite the dominance of your OU Sooners football team, you still can’t usurp Texas as the local power. Here is a school, in OU, that is arguable the most successful program in the history of college football (8 national titles, is it). And within days of the conference realignment talk, the OU AD comes out and says “We go where Texas goes”. That must burn every Sooner in the state.

So here’s the question? Is Oklahoma as a state and the universities within it so weak that, according to your argument, the future of their conference and university success lies within the Texas political landscape? If Texas politicians kept the Longhorns from going to the greener fields of the Pac 10, then surely they kept the teams from Oklahoma going as well. Man – that must suck as a reporter in Oklahoma – to believe the future of the programs you cover on a regular basis is decided in the backrooms of Austin.