GARTH BROOKS GETS LITIGIOUS

OSU fans have maybe heard the "Urban Stillwater Legend" about how Garth Brooks, proud OSU MBA holder, country singing superstar, reclusive javelin grandmaster, and Duck St. resident 1987-1988, once donated a substantial amount of money to go to building an indoor track and field facility for OSU, a team in which Brooks was once a member. OSU, who still does not have an indoor track facility, appropriated the money to football, that all-powerful, money draining God-sport. Brooks did not like this transaction, so he swore he would never give money to OSU again. This would seem a reasonable story, except that every time Brooks has been attached to OSU in the last few years, he seems more than magnanimous about being a Cowboy.

So, now comes a substantiated story about Brooks in the exact same situation, this time instead of his alma mater, the defendant is now the Integris Hospital in Yukon, OK, Brooks' hometown. Brooks maintains that he gave the gift to honor his mother, Colleen Brooks, and was under the impression that the $500,000 he gave was going to be used, at least, to get his mama's name in neon lights on the front of a building. All due respect to Mrs. Brooks and Track and Field, the hospital, like OSU, had better things to spend the money on (like cancer research) and had nothing at all like what Brooks had envisioned to show for the donation. Brooks may have a claim here, but if he gave the money in a "anonymous and unconditional" manner as Integris is claiming, maybe "multi-thousand dollar indian giver" should be added to his long list of accolades. At the same time, how much would it have cost Integris to throw up some lights to honor their verbal agreement? Probably a lot less than the lawsuit and the bad press in Yukon will cost them.

BIG 12 NON-CON SCHEDULE: PLAYING IT BY EAR

OSU AD Mike Holder is as opportunistic as he is ballsy.

Since West Virginia is embroiled in Big East red tape and may or may not be out in Big 12 country in time for seasons start, Big 12 teams are scrambling to make sure they have enough non-conference games listed on their schedules. Or, more precisely, the two Oklahoma Big 12 members are scrambling. OSU has an At Arizona and a better-than-the-hyphen-suggests Louisiana-Lafayette on their schedule already, with another yet to be announced non-con foe in the works. Thankfully since OU had TCU scheduled as a non-con before TCU joined the conference, the Sooners are in even worse shape than the rest of the Big 12's remaining 9 teams, needing to schedule two more, possibly three, games in eight months time.

So, Mike Holders suggestion?: Home and Home Bedlam. Again. Making four years in a row the Sooners would come to Stillwater and give Holder his "Marquee game". Don't know why this is a solution, but damned if Holder's not gonna throw that out there on the table, anyway. Yachoff would love Mike Holder if Yachoff didn't hate Mike Holder so much.

Farewell to Jim Stanley, OSU's Only Big 8 Championship Coach

This news is not peripheral to OSU, but Coach Stanley's contributions to Oklahoma State Football deserve a tip of the cap. A few years back, Yachoff was privileged to witness Coach Stanley and members of the 1976 Cowboy team receive a standing ovation by a crowd full of Orange. A defensive minded Coach that used a running offense to perfection, Stanley paved the way for the rapid success that would sweep Cowboy football in the 80's. Coach Stanley, CRFF salutes you.

What a weekend, right? In national championship tournaments, Oklahoma State gets bounced in four different sports within twenty four hours. Which one hurt the worst? Let's make a quick list beginning with the least painful.

4. OSU softball: Nobody expected them to make it to the College World Series so honestly, it wasn't necessarily a bad loss once they got there. Their loss is only bad when lumped in with the other sports for a "total amount of team losses in one weekend" stat. In reality, every OSU fan should be proud of the girls for their accomplishment.

3. OSU baseball: Siiiiigh, what the hell happened to us in the last half of the season? To get bounced in a manageable regional by going 0-2 in the first two games is almost as shameful as your parents finding out you're gay because they saw you rollerblading. Is it Frank Anderson's fault or this a school support issue? Is it both? I have no clue but something definitely has to change very soon.

2. OSU golf: I am so utterly tired of Augusta State. It's one thing to get beat by them in the championship round of the National tournament. It's quite another for them to do it a second time in a row but this time it is on your own course and it eliminates you from even competing in the championship round. That's like watching your son rollerblading towards you...and then hearing him sing a song from Glee.

1. Oh wait, you thought we only lost three times this weekend? I'm afraid not, friends. And this loss hurt the worst. Yours truly represented OSU this last weekend in Las Vegas at the First Annual Cezar's Palace's Pool Bachelor Party Swim-Off (catchy, I know). The competition?.....The UNLV girl's swim team.

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OSU has many accomplished alumni.  In the world of hostile takeovers of Fortune 500 companies, there is no more infamous name than T. Boone Pickens.  Dr. H. Edward Roberts is credited with inventing the personal computer, at least it's the one the Microsoft guys used to tinker with back in the day.  J. Tinsley Oden is one of the most highly sought after computational engineers in the world.  And these are just the OSU grads that use initials as part of their given name. 

But perhaps the most famous OSU alumnus of them all is good ole' Garth Brooks.  Garth is so endearing to OSU folks because he earned his multi-platinum name in the heart of OSU playing Willie's Saloon on "The Strip" and working as a bouncer.  Despite differences in musical tastes, any Oklahoma State student becomes a Garth fan by default.  Garth is such a legend in Stillwater that there is a house on Duck St. that proudly advertises: "Garth and Sandy Lived Here 1986-1987" over its front porch.  "Friends in Low Places" will at some point be blared over loudspeakers at any OSU sporting event you go to, and everybody in attendance will invariably sing along.  During OSU freshman orientation, recent high school graduates are issued a copy of "No Fences" and are asked to commit the opening stanza of "The Dance" to memory alongside the Alma Matter.  Freshmen are further asked to disavow any knowledge of Chris Gaines.

So, in the continuing legend of "The Garth", we now find ourselves coming out of the "Reclusive Save a Few Dr. Pepper Commercials Era" going into the "Master Businessman Era".  Graduation ceremonies on May 6th were overshadowed by the presence of Garth sitting in with the other soon to be matriculating students.  Garth had graduated in 1985 with a Bachelor's degree in advertising, and graduated with a MBA on Friday.  Good luck finding work in this economy, Garth.  You're gonna need it.

The Cowgirl tennis team plays their last match of the season this weekend as they take on the 20th ranked Sooners in Stillwater.  Fans receive free admission, free pizza, free drinks, free ice cream, and there is an Easter egg hunt.  Also, this should be a great matchup, and maybe someone that knows more about women's collegiate tennis than I do (if that person exists) can explain why.

In other Cowgirl tennis news, the official Oklahoma State Athletic site went ahead and updated "The Belarus Bomshell" Nataliya Shatkovskaya's profile pic from this, to THIS, in what appears to be an attempt to showcase her most internet marketable assets.  CRFF would like to be the first sports blog (splog?) to officially approve of the profile pic change, and we look forward to updates to any other Cowgirl tennis profile pics... (suggestion: Alisa Buslaieva could use an update as well.)

This has been your quarterly "lame news item excuse to post a pic of OSU female tennis athletes".  Thank you for understanding.

As odd and unthinkable as it may seem, the good staff here at CRFF is not perfect. Close--but still, every once and a while we will miss on an OSU event or occurence that is worthy of being mentioned on this glorious site.

This is where we need your help.

If any of you fine readers happen to catch something OSU related that we haven't posted, we encourage you to write your own Fanpost or Fanshot about it. We will most likely promote it to the front page for everyone to see, admire, and be incredibly pissed about because they were two minutes late in submitting the same information (Suckers!).

This is a great way to bring attention to the lesser talked about sports that you feel deserve just as much attention. So hop to it! And as a reward, Sam promises plentiful OTPHJ's to the submitters (Is that a word? It is now.)

Check out the newest shirt at the CowboysRideForFree apparel store. And then buy it or one of the others if you are into wearing shirts and stuff.

Well you can read the headline right?  The store is open and we have a few shirts for sale in there so check it out. 

Apparel Store Link
There is also a box on the right sidebar of the main page with a link to the store and a few sample designs.

We plan to fill the store up with all kinds of great apparel (shirts, hats, umbrellas, basically anything that can have a logo on it) that people may actually want to wear... and this is where you come in.  As a reader of this site you are VERY aware of our laziness and un-creativity-ness-er.  This store is a great example as what you see available for sale is the result of 9 minutes of work spread over 4 years. So we are asking for you to submit your ideas for designs.  Leave them in the comments section, email us (addresses are in the footer), skywrite it, whatever... just get us your shirt ideas.  Now you may ask youself... "What the hell is in it for me?"  Well, if we use your idea we will send you that shirt... FOR FREE!  We get a great shirt idea, you get a free shirt... everyone wins!

Now, as there are licensing issues, there are some rules as to what can go on a shirt.  Here is a brief summary of those rules:

• No full player names (NCAA rules). No distinctive first or last names either. For example: you can get away with using the name Brandon as it is common, but not Weeden... and even this can sometimes be a gray area.
  
• No licensed images, OSU related or otherwise.
  
• Can use the words "Cowboys", "Pokes", etc, and can use "Oklahoma State", but not "Oklahoma State University". It can't sound like the shirt represents the school. No using the words "Big 12" at all.

If we like your design, and it doesn't violate any of the above rules, I will send it off to SBNation legal to make sure it doesn't violate any others that I don't know about, and you are on your way to a free shirt.  But don't get too hung up on all the licensing rules though, I just wanted to put them up so you know they exist... just send your suggestions, and even if we can't legally put it on a shirt, we can still be wowed by it in the comments section.

To recap, here is your to-do list:  check out the store, buy some shirts, submit your ideas for more shirts, and if we use it, you get a FREE SHIRT (following this site is turning into a 2nd job isn't it?).

Happy Shirting!

Just wanted to throw up a quick note here to let everyone know that we have added an additional writer to the CRFF team.  I feel like this deserves an announcement for two reasons... 1) We can't have everyone freaking out when he throws up a post later this week and no one knows who he is.... and 2) Making announcements makes me feel important.

Anyway, the new writer is Royal John, and he will be doing a lot of the same stuff we already do around here, just more of it.  Royal John has been a reader, and sometimes commenter, of the site since back in the wastedoptimism days and is REALLY (all caps) excited to be joining the writing team. So welcome Royal John.  I know you will enjoy his writing as much as mine... if that is possible.