The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football (33 page)

Pickens’s suite was overlooking the fifty-yard line. Inside, two chefs prepared beef tenderloin, sautéed mushrooms, potatoes, beets, carrots and creamy spinach. There were hot hors d’oeuvres, cold beverages and plenty of glossy game-day programs sponsored by Verizon and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Additional VIPs milled around—friends like Steven W. Taylor, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. Taylor was more of a basketball fan. But he was Boone’s special guest at all football games. A 1971 OSU graduate, Taylor had volunteered countless hours to improving and enhancing the university’s academic programs. That’s how he met Pickens.
In addition to the record-setting gifts to the football program and other sports, Pickens had given just as much—well over $200 million—to fund professorships, department chairs, scholarships and the Boone Pickens School of Geology. As a result, when the state cut OSU’s general education budget by 4.7 percent in 2011, OSU didn’t miss a beat, continuing to hire faculty and planning a new business school.

By hanging around with Pickens, Taylor became a big believer in the notion that a winning football team can lift a university’s academic profile. “It was his philosophy that for this university to grow, the football team had to be competitive,” Taylor said. “Boone told me many times, ‘If we have a successful athletic program, then the giving everywhere else will increase—the chairs, the professorships and the buildings.’ ”

That’s precisely what happened. In the four years prior to Pickens’s gift, OSU received $327 million in donations. In the four years after his gift, the university took in over $1 billion in donations.

“It’s all because he put the big money in and everybody followed,” Taylor said. “He has changed this university.”

As soon as his guests were settled, Pickens grabbed Taylor’s arm. “Come with me,” he said, hustling down to the field for a pregame interview with a local television station. The minute he reached the field, Pickens walked past the student section. Shirtless guys sporting giant cowboy hats and orange-painted chests chanted alongside girls wearing black bra tops and jean shorts: “T-Boone. T-Boone. T-Boone.” Of the nearly fifty thousand season ticket holders, more than eleven thousand were students who paid a reduced rate—$200—for a season pass. That’s nearly half of the entire student body. Many were holding orange wooden paddles that said
POKES
. Others had orange wigs. But every one of them was jubilant, and they all knew the man responsible for the surge in campus spirit. “T-Boone. T-Boone. T-Boone.”

He went up to the stands and shook their hands.

“We love you, Boone,” one guy in an orange tuxedo jacket and orange bow tie said.

“Thank you, Boone,” another yelled.

A group of army reservists from the ROTC wanted in on the act. They were wearing their military fatigues, standing behind the sideline, right in front of the student section. They all recognized Pickens and lined up to shake his hand. One by one, he greeted each of them.

Chief Justice Taylor stood back and watched Boone work the student section of the stadium. “If you could have seen this when it was Lewis Field,” he said to a reporter, “it looked like a medium-sized Texas high school football stadium. Exposed iron. Bleacher seats. No suites. It was just a big iron football stadium that had been dubbed ‘Rustoleum’ because it was so rusty. Before Boone came along, an OSU game against Texas would draw twenty-five thousand on a good night. Tonight there were over fifty-eight thousand people in attendance. The alumni spirit and student pride is off the charts. This is a different university. And it’s just because one guy decided to do something.”

After Pickens finished his television interview, he and Taylor left the field and headed up the tunnel. “Mr. Pickens,” someone shouted. Pickens looked up. A man in his sixties was on the other side of the chain-link fence that prevented spectators in the bleacher seats from falling into the tunnel opening. He had a game program in his hand and was wearing blue jeans and an OSU football jersey and baseball cap. “Mr. Pickens, I just wanna thank you,” the man said, “for what you’ve done for this community, for your generosity. This is a magnificent stadium.”

A number of senior couples seated within earshot of the man stared at Pickens. “You have given us something to cheer for,” the man continued. “You’ve brought us together. We thank you.”

Pickens reached up to shake the man’s hand. “Well, thank you,” Pickens said. “I appreciate it.”

More than seeing his name on the stadium, Pickens got a lift from the heartfelt expressions of appreciation from students, veterans, retirees and the thousands of blue-collar people who came together around OSU football.

Suddenly a security guard ran up from behind, waving a radio. “You’ve either got to go or stay,” she yelled at Pickens, “because they are coming. But you gotta decide right now.”

He looked over his shoulder. The Longhorns had just come off the field and were headed back to the locker room for final preparations. They were running right toward him and Taylor.

“Let’s go,” Pickens said. He took off running up the tunnel, Longhorns at his heels.

At 6:34, Boone stood, placed his hand over his heart and stared in silence during the national anthem. Then the crowd chanted:

“Orange!”

“Power!”

“Orange!”

“Power!”

A black stallion ran down the field, and the OSU team raced out of the tunnel, through a smoke screen and onto the field.

“We welcome you to Boone Pickens Stadium,” the PA announcer said. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a beautiful night in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Are you ready for Cowboy football?”

More noise.

Pickens grabbed his binoculars.

On the second play from scrimmage, OSU’s running back broke loose for a sixty-nine-yard run. Less than one minute into the game, OSU was up 7–0.

“Pretty good,” Boone said.

Ozzy Osbourne thundered through the PA system. “All aboard! Ha, ha, ha, ha.” The crowd went into a frenzy.

But minutes later, Texas quarterback David Ash tossed a forty-four-yard touchdown pass to Jaxon Shipley, tying the game and silencing the crowd.

“That shut them up,” Pickens said.

Another CEO entered Boone’s suite. James “Jim Bob” Moffett was listed as one of the twenty-five-highest-paid men in America on the
Forbes
list. His total compensation in 2010 was $35 million. He had barely taken a seat next to Pickens when Ash threw another touchdown pass to Shipley—14–7 Texas.

Five minutes later OSU’s quarterback tossed a forty-four-yard touchdown, tying the game at 14.

The game was a barn burner, both teams marching up and down the field, putting up points, giving fans their money’s worth. With 9:36 to play in the fourth quarter, OSU’s running back barreled into the end zone, giving the Cowboys their first lead since the start of the game—33–28. Pickens rose to his feet to applaud. Everyone in his suite followed. Cannons blasted. The black stallion charged across the field, his masked rider hoisting an OSU flag. Cheerleaders kicked and flipped. The army reservists banged out thirty-three push-ups in the OSU end zone while the eleven thousand students in the student section cheered them on. And in the suite next to Boone’s—the one occupied by OSU’s president, V. Burns Hargis, and his wife—twenty-four VIPs jumped up and down, hollering with excitement.

Hargis had plenty to smile about. On the one hand, revenue had poured into the athletic program. OSU sold forty-six thousand season tickets in the first year of the new stadium. That number had risen to nearly fifty thousand by 2010. On the other hand, student enrollment had skyrocketed 44 percent in the four-year period since the stadium upgrade. Annual giving was off the charts, too.

By midway through the fourth quarter the sky was dark. Moths flooded the stadium lights. Texas was driving. In the bleachers beneath the suites, bowlegged men in cowboy boots and cowboy hats were on their feet, hands on their hips. But their hands went to their heads as Texas running back Joe Bergeron punched it in from one yard out, putting Texas back up 34–33 with 5:48 left. But they grabbed their hats and waved them in a circular motion above their heads when Texas failed to make a two-point conversion. OSU had life.

Pickens stayed on his feet as OSU drove deep into Texas territory. With 2:34 remaining, Quinn Sharp nailed a field goal. OSU was up 36–34. The crowd noise was deafening.

But with time running out, Texas made a last-ditch drive deep into OSU territory. Pickens had seen enough. He stood and everyone in his party quickly gathered their jackets. It was time to roll. OSU still had the lead. But Boone was a betting man, and he didn’t like OSU’s hand. By the time he reached his shuttle van, Texas had gotten in the end zone to go back up 41–36 with twenty-nine seconds to play.

Final score: Texas 41, Oklahoma State 36.

Pickens hated to lose, but he couldn’t complain. As his Gulfstream took flight a few minutes later, he looked down on streams of car lights that stretched for miles. All of them led back to Boone Pickens Stadium. The crowd was emptying out. Texas had won the game, but Oklahoma State had clearly become one of the top programs in the nation.

“Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, you are making a record,” Pickens said. “I’ve always been sensitive to my record. I want people to see me as a hardworking guy and that I am a serious person whatever I’m doing. At the same time, I have a lot of fun doing it.”