NORMAN, Oklahoma — Less than an hour before jotting his name on a piece of paper that would alter his life, Orlando Brown and his mother pulled into the parking lot at Sugarloaf Mills Mall just outside Atlanta.
"Buy an Oklahoma hat," Brown's high school coach had told him in a frantic phone call around 8 the night before, so the 6'8", 365-pound senior hurried into the first sporting goods store he saw and plopped down $25 for a crimson Sooners cap with the "OU" logo stitched in white.
Brown had never visited Oklahoma, had never met then-head coach Bob Stoops.