University of Oklahoma Athletics

Bobby Jack Wright Media Session

Assistant head coach/cornerbacks coach Bobby Jack Wright
Media Session
Jan. 13, 2015

On retirement:
“It’s certainly different. It’s been kind of fun since my wife, Bee, and I came to the decision and decided it was time. We’ve felt good about it ever since that time. It’s actually kind of an exciting time because it’s a little bit different. It’s a different part of my life and a different stage of my life that certainly I have no experience with. It’s kind of exciting. We’re looking forward to it, and I think it’s a very, very positive thing from that standpoint. It’s positive for me, my life and my family. We’re looking forward to it.”

On when he made the decision to retire:
“We’ve been kicking it around and knocking it back and forth for probably almost a year, and we finally just in the last week, it just felt right for me. It felt like it was time. As you guys know, you’ve read the articles; it’s been 42 years. I appreciate somebody putting that in there because I had lost count of how many actual seasons it’s been. Forty-two years is a long run and a good run. It’s been a fun run. It’s been a great profession to be a part of, the coaching profession, and certainly the 16 years here at the University of Oklahoma have been very, very special to me and my family. It’s been a great run. It’s been a lot of fun. Wonderful friends that we’ve made here. Great fans and great support. And good media people, too. Y’all have been wonderful to me, and I appreciate that. It’s been a great run, and I recommend it for everybody. It’s been good.”

On if he expected to be at OU for 16 seasons:
“I can’t say that I did, to be honest with you. Anytime you think you’re going to be at a place in the coaching profession for 16 seasons, it’s pretty unrealistic; it just doesn’t happen. I’ve been very fortunate and very blessed in the last 29 years to only be at two places. As y’all know, I was at the University of Texas for 13 years and then came here with Bob (Stoops) and have been here 16 years. To only have moved my family one time over a 29-year period is pretty special. Most of you know, I’ve got three daughters, and we were able to raise them all, for the most part, right here in Norman. They all three have graduated from the University of Oklahoma I’m proud to say. My youngest daughter is still in graduate school at the OU Health Science Center up in Oklahoma City. We’ve been very blessed and very fortunate. I’ve been blessed in this coaching career for this last 16 years at the University of Oklahoma and 16 years working for what I consider to be the best coach in college football. Bob Stoops is without a doubt one of the best coaches in the college game. He’s a great football coach, but better than that, he’s a great man and great friend. He’s a guy that I enjoyed being around and working for. I enjoyed coming to work every day. When I say coming to work every day, I’m lying. I never worked a day I was here. It was fun. I had fun, and I played a game every day for 16 years at the University of Oklahoma. It was special to me.”

On what he will miss about coaching:
“There will be a lot of things that I miss. It’s going to be hard to say what I miss the most, but probably the camaraderie with the coaches and the players. That’s what it’s all about in our business is the relationships you have with your fellow coaches and certainly the relationships with those young kids that you coach and work with. I’ll miss those relationships. The other part that I’ll miss is the competition. The fun of going out and competing every Saturday. The high that you get when you prepare to go compete like that on a Saturday afternoon or a Saturday night. The thrill of all that. Those things are just off the top of my head when you ask that question. Those are three things that come out real quick to me: the coaches, the players and competing.”

On if he would consider an office job at OU:
“I don’t know how valuable I am, probably not very, but I appreciate you saying that. I don’t know that I’m riding off into the sunset. I’m certainly stepping away from the coaching part of it, and who knows where it’s going to go. I haven’t even had time to wrap my head around that yet. Maybe something down the road may be available, and if it fits me, great. We’ll see.”

On if he plans to move:
“I’m going to stay. We’ve got our own children here, and sons-in-law and grandkids. We’re planning on sticking around for awhile.

“I’m actually going to go up to my office and hang around for a while. I’ve been in that office for 16 years. I’m trying to clean it out and get it ready for the next guy in. The girls up there say ‘Coach, you have a lot of stuff in here’. I say, ‘Well after 16 years…’. I’m trying to get ready for the next guy to come in. I’ll hang around. There are still some things I need to help guys out with as far as recruiting and working with other guys taking over my guys and stuff like that, so I’ll be around.”

On if he will miss recruiting:
“I don’t know how weird it’s going to be that everyone else is off recruiting and I’m going to the golf course, but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be pretty good. Now that’s weather permitting. It will be good. There’s no doubt about it. For 42 years I’ve been getting on the road and flying somewhere to visit somebody, so it will be a change. I’m good with it. I really and truly am happy about it and excited about it and looking forward to it. Forty-two years is a long time, and it was just time. I felt like for me it was just time.”

On what has changed about recruiting:
“Lord have mercy, the biggest change as all of you know is all the social media that goes on: the Twitter, the Facebook, the Instagram and all those things. Cell phones; when I started there weren’t cell phones. You drove around in a car, and I see all the young people in here laughing and smiling, yeah that’s right. There was a day and time there weren’t cell phones. Literally, you’d drive in a car and you might go 50 or 60 miles down the road, and it would hit you, and you’d go, ‘Oh man! I’ve got to call Johnny!’ You’d pull off in a 7-11 or whatever and you’d go up to the payphone and pouring quarters in there to call Johnny and let him know where you were or when you were going to get to his house. It might just be a recruiting call to just shoot the breeze with him. Then you’d drive another 50 miles and you’d pull into another 7-11 and make more phone calls. You’d have to go in and get some change from the cashier so you could go out and put your quarters in the phones. Then they finally came out with phone cards they’d give you. You’d stick them in the machine. It’s changed quite a bit, no doubt. But the biggest change is I believe the social media.

"You guys don’t remember this, but back in the day when I started there weren’t any limitations on the number of days you could go out on the road. Now you’ve got all the NCAA regulations on number of days and number of times. We could go to the same high school every day of the week back in the old days. We might spend five days a week at one guys high school. I can remember when I first got started recruiting in San Antonio. I was recruiting some kids at San Antonio Holmes High School, and their coaching staff was big dominos players. I didn’t know anything about dominos, but after that recruiting season I was a pretty good domino player. I was there every day at lunch sitting there because I was going to play dominos until the kids came out for their athletic period and I was going to visit with them. Those are some of the biggest changes.”

On what Bob Stoops’ pitch was to hire him:
“He really had a hard time getting me up here. He said, ‘Hey, I want to hire you,’ and I said, ‘I’ll be on the next flight!’ The reason for that, I had been at Texas for a long time, and I was with three different head coaches, and they had just let John Mackovic go, and they hired Mack Brown and Mack didn’t keep anybody. Bob (Stoops) had gotten the job here, so he called and offered me the job and literally, I was on the first plane out of Austin the next morning and came to work for Bob the day after he got the job, and he and I hit the road, jumped in a plane and hit the road recruiting. Sixteen years later, it was a pretty good run.”

On being one of the first guys on the staff with Bob Stoops in 1999:
“He and I were the first two to go out and hit the road, yeah. No question. Do you want to hear a funny story about that one? Well I’m on the road, and I fly into Oklahoma City, somebody picks me up and they bring me over here and Bob and I were visiting. He’s got to do obviously a lot of stuff here before he can get on the road. But anyway, the next day, he and I take off and we’re out recruiting and I leave him and I’m going to Houston to do some recruiting down there and he’s going to come down and meet me. So I talk to him on the telephone and I’m running around in Houston visiting different schools and he says he’s going to jump on a plane down to Houston and I’ll pick him up. I said, ‘Alright, what flight are you on?’ He told me and I said, ‘Alright, you’ll be here by so-and-so, I’m going to hit a couple of schools, I’ll pick you up at the airport,’ at whatever time – 3 p.m. – and this is like about noon so around 1 p.m. I get a call on my cell phone and it’s Bob and I answer the phone and I say, ‘Yeah Bob, what’s up?’ He says, ‘Where are you at?’ I said, ‘What do you mean where am I at? I’m down here in Houston. I just told you that.’ And he said, ‘Well I’m at the airport waiting for you, are you going to pick me up?’ I looked at my watch and I said, ‘One hour…’ I said, ‘What? Bob, you can’t possibly be in Houston.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m in Houston! Are you going to pick me up?’ I said, ‘Bob, you can’t be here that quick, there’s no flight to get you here that fast.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m just telling you I’m here, and I’m ready for you to pick me up.’ I said, ‘Where are you standing? Where are you actually?’ He said, ‘I’m standing right out here underneath the sign that says Dallas Love Field.' I said, ‘You’re in Dallas.’ He said, ‘Oh my gosh! I shouldn’t have gotten off that flight. So he turned around and ran back inside and he was able to catch the flight that was going – the same flight it was just stopping in Dallas to let people off. So he ran in there, got back in the plane and flew off back down to Houston and I picked him up. That’s kind of how our experience started out recruiting. To his defense, you have to understand the whirlwind he was going through as a new head coach at the University of Oklahoma, and he had a million of irons in the fire and hiring people and doing all the paperwork and everything as far as the job was concerned and then rushing out and trying to recruit and all that. So when they landed, he had his mind on a million other things and everyone started getting up and walking off the plane, he got off and followed them off. But that is one of my favorite stories of recruiting with Bob, that first day out. He got off at the wrong time.”

On if there was a guy that he recruited that convinced him that he and the staff were on the right track:
“Oh gosh, there were a lot of kids involved with that. A lot of kids that we take pride in, still to this day. Especially that first recruiting class, if you’re talking about that. But, you just look around at these walls and look at all the numbers that are up there, and what I mean by that is the dates. As coaches, we always talk to our players about putting your numbers up and certainly that first year – that recruiting class – and then winning the national championship in 2000 was pretty darn special. But there’s no way I could – shoot I would leave out too many guys. There were so many of them that were important and special. But certainly that first recruiting class was in particular really a special class and you all, as well as I do, know who all was involved in that class and what their record ended up being. Pretty special group of kids."

On Quentin Griffin:
“We talk about that all the time. Quentin Griffin was a special, special player; special young man – still is. One of our favorites. We talk about him as coaches all the time about how special he was. It’s funny, and you all may or may not know the story behind that one. There was a player that had played for Texas A&M when I was coaching at the University of Texas and that player went on to become the head football coach at the high school that Quentin Griffin was at and he called me when I got the OU job and he said, ‘Man Coach, I’ve got a player down here that I think you all ought to take a look at.’ So I said, ‘OK’ and I take a trip to Houston and go by the school and he says, ‘You know, actually, I’ve got two really good running backs – one of them is already committed to A&M.’ He said, ‘But the other one is not committed to anybody yet.’ And that was Quentin Griffin. So I said, ‘OK I’ll take a look at him, why don’t you pull some tape up for me?’ And so he does, and it’s a real small video screen and the tape wasn’t real good but anyway, he puts it up there and I’m standing there looking at it and a kid rips up this long run and it was really impressive and I go, ‘Well is that that kid going to A&M?’ He said, ‘No. That’s Quentin Griffin.’ I said, ‘OK.’ So I watch a little more and the kid rips off another really impressive run and I go, ‘Well, is that the kid going to A&M?’ He said, ‘No, that’s Quentin Griffin.’ So I kept watching and gosh dog, all these great runs. And I said, ‘Is that Quentin Griffin?’ He said, ‘Yeah, that’s Quentin Griffin.’ I said, ‘Well, he’s better than the guy going to A&M!’ And he says, ‘Well, he’s available.’ So long story short, we end up getting Quentin Griffin, the other kid goes to A&M and in a year, he’s out. So yeah, that was special getting him. That was one of my greatest recruiting, too. I think I beat Sam Houston State on Quentin Griffin. He was very much overlooked because of this other kid he was sharing backfield time with. So, he wasn’t a highly-recruited guy coming out of high school but when we got in and watched tape I called Bob on the phone and I said, ‘Bob, this guy is really special.’ And Bob said, ‘Well, you think we ought to offer him?’ I said, ‘Yeah, no doubt.’ And Bob said, ‘Well, Bobby, if you think we ought to offer him, offer him.’ I said, ‘OK.’ So, of course we offered him and obviously what a great, great career he had. He was a lot of fun.”

On any other stories that stand out on his recruiting trips:
“Well, you’re right. I’ve been on all kinds of recruiting trips. I’ve had a lot of fun and met a lot of wonderful people. I’ve always enjoyed the recruiting aspect of it because of that. You get to meet so many people across the country and make relationships and build relationships and things of that nature. I’ve got all kinds of stories. But this is the family channel, so I probably shouldn't tell any others. I’ve got lots of great stories and again, 42 years of them. I’m not going to divulge many more here. I’m going to let you all read them in my book when it comes out. That way you guys will have to buy the book.”

On recruiting Charles Tapper
"Yeah, Tapper, all of you probably know the story. But what a special, special kid he is. And special family. It was just one of those deals that here’s a guy, again, that was overlooked and he wasn’t a big football player to begin with. He was more of a basketball player and was a big AAU basketball player at the time coming out of high school. And he had a guy in the Baltimore area that was a football coach that just told him and said, ‘Hey, you’re probably not going to be a college basketball player.’ You know, he was 6'4, 6'5 at the most and those guys are 6'9 and 6'10 and so he convinced Tapper he should go the football route. He had only had one year of high school football when I looked at his tape, so I didn’t see a real good football player but I saw a very athletic guy running around and a big guy that had a lot of athleticism, had a big motor, had a lot of intensity about him – looked like he was having a lot of fun. He never took a lazy step. He just played hard all the time. He didn’t play particularly technique very good, but he did show great athleticism. So, from that standpoint, is why we got involved with him. And then of course, as all of you have seen through the years of him being here how much he has gotten better and better as a football player, and he’s got a chance to be a really good football player here before it’s all said and done."

On if the program is at a pivot point:
“Not at all. There has been a lot of change going on here in the past 16 years, I just happened to be the latest one. During the 16 years that we have been here there has been changes. As you just mentioned, Cale (Gundy) and (Jerry Schmidt) the strength coach [are the only holdovers from Bob's first staff]. There has been a lot of other changes through the 16 years. For the most part it has all been good. Most guys that have left have moved on to bigger and better opportunities and jobs, so no I don’t feel that way at all. The program is in great shape. Change is good. It is like I always tell these young guys, you are playing at one of the premier places in the country at the University of Oklahoma. Don’t get to possessive about that desk that you sit behind because once you are gone they will have someone in the spot in about 12 hours. It doesn’t take long to fill a spot at a place like this. To that, change is good. There will be someone new in my desk tomorrow or whenever that happens, and it will be a good change. There will be someone coming in that is fired up and excited. Bob is going to hire a great guy, and they will do a great job. Things will continue to go forward, and I think we are in a great position when you talk about where the program is right now. Certainly we didn’t have the season that we wanted to have this past season. If you look at next year though with all of the guys that are coming back on defense and where we are with those guys. Recruiting is going well right now. They are going to have a great recruiting class. I think it is at a great spot."

On the players he leaves behind:
“At my position I feel great about it. I think Zack Sanchez has a chance to be outstanding. He has had two great seasons back-to-back. He has the opportunity to be better with another year of improvement. I think Jordan Thomas is going to be a really special player before the end of his career. He showed great signs as a true freshman of what he is capable of doing. It is hard for a true freshman to show what he is capable of doing at that position as a true freshman, as you guys know. He had moments where you could see that in time that this guy is going to be good. He had his mess ups, but all freshmen do. I think those two guys coming back are special and the young guys we have too are good. And we have a great recruiting class.”

On how much pride he took in being able to coach multiple positions:
“It is funny that you mention that. I spoke at a clinic a few years back. I may be one of the few guys that has done that in his career. I started out as a really young coach at Texas A&I. I worked for a guy, a really sharp guy that I still look up to a lot, a guy named Ron Harns. Ron had hired me there. Ron had told me when I was a young coach to not get yourself pigeon-holed into one thing. If you do that, the opportunities for you may be limited. If you only have expertise in one area, then that is the only spot that you are going to get hired at. If the only thing you do is work on getting hired as a defensive backs coach, then you might have the opportunity to go to better place as a running backs coach, but if you don’t know anything about how to coach running backs you aren’t going to get hired to coach running backs. So even at Texas A&I, I was coaching the defensive backs and Ron, who was an offensive guy, wanted me to move over to offense, so I did. I moved over and started coaching running backs and quarterbacks. As my career went a long, I coached at North Texas State and was on offense, went to the University of Texas to coach running backs. Then I had the opportunity to go back to the other side of the ball and coach defensive backs. Then a coaching change happened. I had the opportunity to stay, but I would have go back on the other side of the ball and coach offense again. I ended up coaching wide receivers and we ended up leading the Southwest Conference in receiving that year. All of a sudden I got the reputation that this guy can coach just about anything because I had coached a lot of positions. When I came here I started out as the defensive ends coach. When Mike (Stoops) left and then Bo (Pelini) left and we needed a secondary coach again it all worked out great. To finish with the point, you don’t see that much anymore because a lot of coaches in the college game do try to specialize in one area. My point when I spoke at a clinic a few years ago was learn everything you can about football, offense and defense, because the more you learn multiple positions the more opportunities there are for you. You won’t just be pigeon-holed into he can only coach this one thing. That limits the number of jobs you are available for and that limits the number of schools you may be able to apply at because they may not have that job open. That is kind of why I went that way years ago is because I wanted to learn both sides of it as well as I could.”

On if switching it up made the 16 years go by a little faster:
“Well, to a certain extent it kind of keeps you fresh because you say ‘Oh, well this year I’m coaching this and it’s kind of a different challenge, a little different player group, a little different player mentality’ or whatever the case may be. It makes it a little more fun, a little more challenging, yeah.”

On how and why he got into coaching:
“The how and why was that I was raised by a high school football coach. My parents were divorced at a young age, and it’s funny that you asked that because my high school football coach's last name was Wright. He had four sons and we were all about the same age. He ended up kind of being that surrogate father, a father image. I ended up being great friends with all of his sons, which I still am to this day. Of course, I hung out with them, stayed with them, as I said, I played for him. Everybody in Mission thought he probably had five sons. They thought I was one of them even though I really wasn’t one. He still claims me today. I grew up with that ever since I was six or seven years old. Just being around it all of that time, I just knew I was going to be a football coach and there was never any doubt of it. I went to college and I knew I was going to be a football coach and when I got out of college I went right into it.”

On if he is curious to know how he is going to handle not coaching next year:
“Well I am curious as to how I’ll handle it; that’s a fair question. I probably won’t throw up as much. No, I’m just kidding. I think I’ll do fine. Obviously, I’ll be very interested and I’ll be very supportive of Oklahoma I know that. I’ll be anxious to see them do well. No question. Obviously, I think they will, and I will certainly be pulling for them to do well. All of these relationships here are still very strong with me, player relationships, coaching relationships, so I’ll definitely be pulling for them. I just won’t be out there doing all of the sweating during the week and sweating bullets during the game. I’ll probably be a lot more relaxed.”

On if Bob Stoops would be crazy not to consider him for a front office role:
“I’ll be sure to tell Bob that he is crazy. I’m kidding. We haven’t even gone down that road. If there is something in the future that I can help with, that I feel like I would have value in, and if he wanted me in that role, I would entertain that, sure. No question. We haven’t even gone down that road, but we’ll see.”

On what player would deserve his own chapter in his book:
“Oh my gosh. Right off the top of my head and since the season is fresh, Eric Striker. Eric Striker is going to get his own chapter. I can promise you that. Now, there will be others, but just off the top of my head that would be the first one that comes to mind.”

On if Dan Cody is the biggest freak he has had an opportunity to coach:
“Dan Cody, I’m glad you mentioned him, because that’s what I said, if I start naming players I would leave out so many that it wouldn’t be right. Since you mentioned Dan Cody, certainly without a doubt one of the special guys I coached. You like to have all your players, not just in that position, be like Dan Cody. He was just a tremendous worker, a great athlete, but great work ethic, great pride, great practice player. He practiced so hard. On the football field, on the game field, never took a lazy step. He always played so incredibly hard, played with so much pride, played with so much passion. He was just a joy to coach. No doubt. No doubt.”

On something we don’t know about Eric Striker:
“Oh, you guys know everything. He makes sure that you all are aware of everything about him. Eric Striker is a really good player, as you all know. The thing about him that I appreciate so much is that he brings so much life to the practice field. He’s another one of those guys that loves to practice. He is constantly talking and jabbering and poking fun at people in a funny way. It’s funny. He brings a lot of joy to the practice field. You have to have guys like that. If you want them practicing hard and getting after it and all of that, it is kind of fun to have that continuity out there too. That’s what Striker brings on top of being a good football player.”

On if he likes the way the college football postseason has evolved:
“I kind of do. I don’t have anything negative to say about it at all. I like the fact that they changed. I don’t think change is bad. Obviously, it’s just like the BCS, you’re never going to make everybody happy. Even with the four-team format, it didn’t make everybody happy. There were some people out there, obviously, that felt like they got left out. Even at that, with that being said, they still came down with four teams, and they had the Playoff. I thought last night showed that you have two one-loss teams that got in it, and I think they pretty well showed that they wanted to be in there. Certainly, Ohio State showed that they wanted to be in there. I kind of like it actually. Again, nobody thought the BCS was perfect and now they don’t think this perfect, and now they need to go to eight teams. That’s the rumblings going on now. Whether they need to go to eight teams or not, I don’t know. I’ll leave that up to somebody else. I’m not going to have to worry about it. I do kind of like the way it worked this year. I thought it was good.”

On if he has ever thought about getting into broadcasting:
“Well, I appreciate that. I haven’t given it much thought but if you know anybody out there with a job tell them to contact me it might work out, I don’t know. That’s never even crossed my mind so I doubt it.”