University of Oklahoma Athletics
Fun Times at the Sooner Oath
August 22, 2016 | Athletics
NORMAN -- Sooner student-athletes gathered in McCasland Field House Sunday evening to kick off the new school year with the 10th annual Sooner Oath ceremony, and a spicy, new twist made this year's event more fun -- and intense -- than in the past.
The OU Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) created Sooner Oath in the spring of 2007 to encourage community among student-athletes before classes begin each fall. The annual ceremony, held the night before school begins, was essentially a banquet with speakers and awards for the first nine years of its existence, but SAAC wanted to make the 10th year something special.
Sunday's ceremony started with a brief banquet, and then student-athletes heard from President David Boren, Director of Athletics Joe Castiglione and fellow student-athletes, who recapped the 2015-16 athletic year, which was one of the best in the school's history both on the field and in the classroom.
But after the banquet, student-athletes were surprised with the event's inaugural student-athlete relay races. A long-time Camp Crimson ritual, the relay races are meant to bring OU students together to create community through competition, and SAAC wanted the student-athletes who hadn't previously gone to Camp Crimson to experience the OU tradition.
“This year we opted to change the format of Sooner Oath significantly, and a lot of this had to do with feedback from the student leadership because of the amazing work that the student-athletes did over the course of last year with the Sooner Choice Awards,” said OU Senior Associate Athletics Director for Academic Services Mike Meade. “We wanted to carry that momentum from the end of last year forward into kicking off this year with the incorporation of the relay races.”
Camp Crimson staff assisted SAAC in organizing and planning portions of the event. The relay races included making human pyramids, playing dizzy bat, passing a hula hoop from team member to team member while holding hands, and more.
At the end of competition, the men's gymnastics team came away with the gold medal, while the women's gymnastics team won the silver and a team comprised of OU coaches left with the bronze.
Meade said that the feedback he received from student-athletes and staff members was positive.
“Several students that I've seen this morning have talked about how it was a lot of fun and that it was funny seeing their teammates get involved,” Meade said. “I've also heard that the captains of the various teams have felt that it was very positive as well, so the relay races definitely seemed to be a hit.”
