From all accounts John Blake was a stand up guy who was respected by all. You can’t do much better than that. It’s unfortunate that his football life was characterized by his days as the Head Coach at OU. It was to say the least ugly. A three year period without a winning season… the only time in OU history.
Unlike many, I feel badly for John Blake because he deserved better. Most importantly, this should never have happened. You can’t blame John Blake for applying for the job with no experience. We have to believe in ourselves and John Blake was given the opportunity of a life time and he took it.
OU fans were desperate after the Howard Schnelenberger debacle and we wanted to believe that John Blake would be the answer. We were sucked into this thought by people we trusted. Barry Switzer had campaigned for Blake to get the job the first time around and when it came open a year later, he would not he denied.
Al Eschbach, the Sports Animal loud mouth saw John Blake as his ticket to the big time, not to mention a way to buddy up to the King. Neither Barry nor Al considered the ramifications to John Blake if he got hired. Between Barry and Al and starved OU fans, the Regents were outnumbered and hiring John Blake was the only way for them to stay in town. This ended up being bad news for OU fans and bad news for John Blake. He was in over his head.
John Blake was mercifully relieved of his duties three years later. Good news for OU fans and if the truth be known, good news for John Blake. Fortunately, there is a good ending to this story.
Unknown to most OU fans, John Blake won a National Championship in 2000. Yes, Bob Stoops was the Head Coach, but Bob won that trophy with John Blake’s players. You see, John Blake was one heck of a recruiter.
Every OU coach has a legacy and in John Blake’s case helping make that 2000 National Championship season happen will be his…
Boomer Sooner…