Barbed wire can't keep Jo Lee Foster from watching her OSU Cowboys

When we think of college football passion, don't stop with face-painted students and pom-waving hordes and message board-reading kooks or even that Arkansas pig lady who is all the Internet rage.

Put Jo Lee Foster of Ardmore, America, on the list, too. Eighty-two-year-old Jo Lee Foster, squirming along the dirt and gravel of Love County, trying to reach the safe haven of a home that had the Pac-12 Network.

The OSU-Arizona game last Saturday was a disaster even before kickoff. The Pac-12 Network controlled the game, and no amount of cajoling could entice the West Coasters to free the game for Oklahoma distribution. Put the network on your cable or satellite system, or do without.

Which left Cowboy fans in the dark, including Jo Lee, an OSU fan since she and her late husband attended school in Stillwater six decades ago.

But Saturday morning came a sliver of news. The Dish Network would carry the network. Jo Lee called around, found a friend who had Dish and wangled an invitation to watch her Cowboys.

Trouble was, the friend was a fellow widow who lived on a ranch west and north of Marietta, a decent Saturday night drive from Ardmore, 25 minutes or so.

Jo Lee didn't commit. But the pull of her Cowboys got to her. She's followed OSU football all over, from season tickets in Stillwater to bowl games both before and after her husband died a few years ago.

“It got later in the day, I said, ‘I guess I'll just go,'” Jo Lee said.

She threw some clothes together to spend the night — the game wouldn't end until around 1 a.m. — and headed out on her Southern Oklahoma adventure.