University of Oklahoma Athletics
Gasso, Stoops Inducted into OK Sports Hall of Fame
August 12, 2019 | Athletics
NORMAN – University of Oklahoma head softball coach Patty Gasso and former football coach Bob Stoops were inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame on Monday night.
The duo was joined in the 2019 class by Olympic gold-medal-winning wrestler Kendall Cross, College Basketball Hall of Fame coach Lou Henson, former Cy Young Award finalist Mike Moore, college football and Kansas City Chiefs Hall of Famer Will Shields and MLB All-Star Mickey Tettleton during a ceremony at the Showplace Theatre at Riverwind Casino in Norman.
Having recently completed her 25th season at OU, Gasso, who is in the NFCA Hall of Fame, has molded the Sooners' softball program into a national power and permanently placed herself among the elite college softball coaches in the country. With 29 seasons as a head coach to her name, Gasso has a career collegiate coaching record of 1,421-392-3 (.783) and holds a 1,260-333-2 (.791) record at the OU helm.
Oklahoma, which has won four national championships (2000, 2013, 2016 and 2017), is one of just three softball programs in NCAA history to win more than two national titles. Gasso and the Sooners have reached the Women's College World Series 13 times during her tenure and have participated in the postseason in each one of her 25 seasons.
Gasso has won more Big 12 games (343-85 record; .801) than any coach in the league's history and has more than twice as many overall wins as any other coach in OU annals. The Sooners have claimed 12 Big 12 regular season titles, including an unprecedented eight straight since the 2012 season, and six postseason league championships under her direction. Gasso's Oklahoma teams have finished second or higher 20 different times in the 23 years since the inception of the Big 12 in the 1996-97 school year.
Gasso's career with the Sooners began in 1995 when she arrived at Oklahoma after five successful seasons at Long Beach City College. Her accomplishments at LBCC and OU led to Gasso being named to the LBCC Hall of Champions in 2004. That summer, Gasso was also inducted as part of the inaugural class into the Long Beach City Baseball and Softball Hall of Fame. She was also inducted into the El Camino City College Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Long Beach State Hall of Fame in 2013.
The owner of the most wins in Oklahoma football history and engineer of 10 Big 12 Conference titles and the 2000 national championship, Stoops posted a 190-48 (.798) record at OU and coached the Sooners to a school-record 18 consecutive bowl berths. He is the only coach in the BCS era to win the Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl and the national championship, and accumulated more victories nationally than any coach over their first 18 seasons. The Youngstown, Ohio, native also guided the Sooners to the most wins of any Power Five program from 1999 through 2016.
Stoops led the Sooners to double-digit wins in 14 of his 18 seasons — the most at the time of any FBS coach since 2000 — and to at least eight victories in each of the last 17 campaigns, good for the longest active streak in the nation. Seven of his squads finished in the AP top five, including each of the last two, while three more finished No. 6.
Stoops' penchant for knocking off quality opponents was reflected in his 60-30 record against AP Top 25 opponents. OU's .667 winning percentage in such contests during his tenure was the best in the country from 1999 through 2016.
A six-time Big 12 Coach of the Year and two-time national coach of the year, Stoops was responsible for reviving one of the most storied programs in college football history. In the nine years prior to his arrival in 1999, OU posted a 54-46-3 record (.529) and went 31-33-2 (.485) in conference play. In the four years before he was hired, the Sooners were 17-27-1 (.389) overall and 10-21 (.323) in Big Eight play.
The Sooners' Big 12 supremacy under Stoops was unrivaled. Oklahoma amassed 10 league titles over Stooops' 18 years while no other Big 12 program won more than two during the stretch. OU posted a 121-29 (.807) regular season league record under Stoops, easily outdistancing the second- and third-best marks (.693 by Texas and .560 by Kansas State).
OU also went 101-9 at Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium under Stoops, with all 110 of those games sellouts.
