Right place at the right time, as God would have it

Not Sooner forgotten ...
     After starting life as a fizzled dud -- an asthmatic retard in grade school and a bad student in high school who then flunked out of college my freshman year -- God strapped me in for a rocket ride that hasn't stopped yet.
     Though I didn't then believe in Him, the Lord plugged me into journalism at OU. How do I know this to be true? After my very first class of beginning journalism, I was promoted to "OU Daily" staff writer because I just happened to be in the right place at the right time by wandering into the news room during an emergency and being pressed into service.
     That somehow got this flunkee a job in OU's acclaimed Sports Information Office under the great Harold Keith. And because my bad grades were just a fraction higher I was awarded the Sports Editor position over Hall of Famer Al Eschbach for Chuck Fairbanks' explosive first season that put the Sooner football back on top.

     By hanging out in the student newsroom -- again right place, right time -- I picked up on innovative page layout not taught yet in classes. I took it to Ardmore's paper where that ability caught the eye of the "Daily Oklahoman," which was compiling a sports staff to champion its own innovative layout scheme. Wanting to look like the "Oak," the Phoenix newspaper hired me to bring it and train its staff. So did Albuquerque later. When ordered to run fake news, however, I quit as sports editor and left the newspaper business after a 20-year career.
     God then led me to become a "strategic communicator" (do-it-all writer) for two large electric utilities where the Lord added to my abilities -- and God finally got through to this heathen by giving me a Damascus Road episode that won me to Christ.
     Now a true believer, a church called me to plant and pastor a mission church at an apartment complex without any seminary experience -- definitely a God deal! It even had me take five courses during which this previously horrible student made all 100s on tests -- another seemingly impossible blessing.

     Then God sent this Sooner to Austin to fester for two years until inspired to train staffs to run their small newspapers God's way. 
     That caused my wife and I  -- oh, I forgot to mention He gave me a soulmate for 49 years -- to hit the road in a battered pickup to begin turning around a series of six failing weeklies. My evangelical columns on the edit page inspired a troubled church to call me as its interim pastor.
     I even became a "missionary to the Internet" and designed then-pacesetting websites for a series of church camps, providing pictures, text and coding, thanks to His insane gift of enabling me to somehow know intricate HTML code without any experience.
     God then employed me as director of ConservativePetitions.com back when email was new and politicians actually read them. After that got my feet wet in politics, God whisked me behind the proverbial curtain as the head writer for the Tea Party's hidden think tank back east where I, ahem, became an enemy of the deep state.
     Having apparently accomplished His political purpose, God unplugged me from politics and sent us home to Oklahoma, thanks to my wife, Ellen, who delighted herself in the Lord and was granted her heart's desire -- to see her grandkids grow.

     And that brought me back to OU as Stoops gave way to, uh, TBOW, who then betrayed the all-time greatest program. Seeing how Brent Venables was revamping the program God's way, I became the Senior Sooner in support of his goal of producing Godly men who will be great husbands, fathers and community leaders. I want Brent and the Lord to succeed and have dedicated myself to this cause.
     Unable to afford eye-catching OU shirts, I started making my own at God's direction and wearing my creations every day. As a result, residents started calling me Mr. OU -- but I wouldn't allow it since there's already a super fan by that name. I told them to instead call me a senior Sooner, and it stuck.
     I don't like being the Senior Sooner because I've long covered the news, not made it. I shy away from attention after years of observing from the sidelines, yet here I am once again attempting something many would call insane. But craziness, as you can now see, has been God's hallmark throughout my life.
     I ask myself why be the crazy Senior Sooner? God only knows. But I know this: trust and obey such calls, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus. So I back Brent Venables and urge you to do the same.

     Think of it: If God is real -- and He most certainly is -- then there really is a devil who's dedicated to not having Brent be successful. Can't you see that it's true when radio reporters describe the unexplainable bad things happening to the Sooners are "demonic" or "ungodly" -- yes, they accurately are.
     So please don't side with the evil one against Venables. Give our Godly coach and the Almighty a chance to beat the devil.