Influencing Switzer

Published: October 5, 2007

Most OU fans know the great influences on Barry Switzer. Frank Broyles, his college coach and first football boss. Jim Mackenzie, who brought Switzer to Oklahoma in 1966. Merv Johnson, the "rock of Gibraltar,” as Switzer calls him, and an Arkansas graduate assistant during Switzer's playing days.

But here are three people from long-gone Arkansas days who set Switzer on the road he traveled:

•Irma Reynolds: "She was my daddy's girl Friday. Sold all his whiskey. Collected all his money. Fixed us breakfast, lunch, dinner. She actually raised us. She lived to be 102. She was in a nursing home. I took care of all her bills. At her funeral, I gave the eulogy. Me and my brother were the only whites there.”

•Len Yarborough: "When I was in the eighth grade, I gave up football. We had moved from El Dorado to Crossett. I had to walk home after football practice. In eighth grade, no one lived out where I lived, and no one had cars anyway. I got tired of that. So I quit football. A week later, the athletic director, Len Yarborough, an OSU grad, he came to me, came out to my house, and said, ‘I will get you a ride home.' If he hadn't done that, I wouldn't have played football.”

•Harry Denson: "My high school coach. When I went to Arkansas, I was like every kid that goes to college. I wanted to quit. No scholarship limitations, you always got lost in the shuffle. My freshman year, I came home, and (Larry) Lacewell was at (Arkansas-) Monticello. All my buddies were playing at Monticello. I talked to my high school coach. He convinced me, made me see the light that I could play at Arkansas. He talked some sense into me when I was about to go to Monticello and be a Boll Weevil the rest of my life.”

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