KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — An OU fan called me Thursday. His memory was jogged this week. He attended a 2007 dinner honoring Jack Mildren, the Sooners' 1971 star quarterback.
Mildren then was fighting cancer. He told the crowd that night that he was determined to hang on. That he even had circled a date, all the way to 2015. Mildren wanted to take his grandson to the OU-Tennessee game.
Sadly, Mildren didn't make it. He was dead the next spring, gone too soon at age 58.
In 2007, Mildren's beloved Sooners had games scheduled at Miami, Florida State and Notre Dame.