Sooners in Birmingham: A Q+A with an OU Alumni Association chapter in Alabama

This Saturday finally marks the Oklahoma Sooners official arrival into Southeast Conference football in a marquee game against the Tennessee Volunteers. While the league move gives OU fans in the Sooner State an excuse to see epic stadiums and college towns outside their normal travel routine, the Crimson and Cream enthusiasts who happened to already live in the South are rejoicing at the chance to finally have their favorite team come to their neck of the woods. In conjunction with Oklahoma Today's September-October cover story on the implications of conference realignment here in Oklahoma, we spoke with Bruce Burdett, founder and communication coordinator for the Birmingham, Alabama chapter of the OU Alumni Association. Until now, opportunities near him to see the Sooners compete in any sport were few and far between, but as full members of the SEC OU will now find themselves in his neck of the woods all the time. Burdett shared his perspective on the conference change as Sooner in Crimson Tide Country during an interview earlier this year:

The Birmingham chapter of the OU Alumni Association regularly competes in a Birmingham-area tailgate challenge.

Oklahoma Today
Okay, so are you from Oklahoma? Or when did you graduate OU?

Bruce Burdett
Yes, I'm from Oklahoma. I actually grew up in Broken Arrow. And I graduated in 1971 in biomedical engineering.

Oklahoma Today
What brought you out to Alabama?

Bruce Burdett
Well, I retired from the Navy. I actually almost haven't been back to Oklahoma since I graduated in ’71. I retired from the Navy. And after I retired from the Navy, I took a job with what was called the Southern Building Code Congress, and basically the Southern Building Code was the code for how to build buildings throughout the southeast, you know, which actually included Oklahoma, and so I would get to maybe one football game a year because I could teach a class at Norman, and they used the Southern Building Code.

Oklahoma Today
So what kind of activities does the Birmingham Alumni Chapter do? I guess you have game day watch parties? What else are you all involved in?

Bruce Burdett
Actually, we have limited ourselves to watch parties as a chapter over the years, or activities that benefit and that interact the members with the university. We do participate in an annual tailgate in Birmingham. So, universities can be represented. Primarily the universities that participate are the University of Alabama, the University of Auburn. You know, UAB, which is University of Alabama, Birmingham, Sanford University, which is a local school in Birmingham, Birmingham Southern which is another local university in Birmingham. It would be kind of like if you had something in Oklahoma City—a tailgate challenge—you would probably have OSU and OCU and OU and Central Oklahoma. So we participate in that tailgate challenge every year. And as I told you yesterday, kind of proud to say we won it seven years running. Well, when I say we won it seven years in a row, I should point out there's actually five prizes, you know, best food, best drink, the most school spirit, best all around, and crowd favorite. We're never going to win the crowd favorite because the crowd votes with their ticket stubs. Usually Alabama or Auburn wins crowd favorite, and there's usually five tents supporting Alabama, and there's usually another five tents supporting Auburn. So it's going to be one of those ten tents. But we've won the most school spirit six years in a row, and the best all around once.

Birmingham alumni chapter founder Bruce Burdett is originally from Broken Arrow and graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1971.

Oklahoma Today
Do you remember when you first heard that OU was headed to the SEC? Was that surprising to you? Or what was your initial reaction to that?

Bruce Burdett
My initial reaction was one, that is fantastic. Two, it hurts some to see the loss in some of the traditions. However, being selfish, our club will have such great access to so many activities. You know, we felt like refugees out here in the southeast, as far as being Sooners and trying to support our university. So selfishly it’s, “Wow, they're going to be in the southeast for all sorts of things.” I'm going to get my Sooners and the club might actually benefit. The club has been dying for the last 10 years. Social media is kind of, I think, diminishing the need for clubs. People can interact virtually, so they don't come together for watch parties. They can have a watch party on their phone, in essence. So I think that's kind of killed the clubs, but I think that might be a stimulus to the club.

Oklahoma Today
As someone who has lived in SEC country for many years now, how do you think OU fits into that area? Are they going to be right at home, or is it going to take some adjusting? What do you think?

Bruce Burdett
I don't see any adjustment whatsoever. I think they will be quite at home. I don't see any adjustment whatsoever. I think the fans that do travel to away games, they will find themselves more frequently at much nicer venues than, say, showing up in Lawrence, Kansas, which is kind of—you know, I'm not bad-mouthing the Kansas stadium, but it is not a Southeast Conference stadium like Norman's is, like the Palace on the Prairie. The Palace on the Prairie, in fact, will probably be about the norm instead of the best. And all of a sudden, we're on equal footing as far as venues for our fans to attend. And so we're going to see very nice venues in Arkansas, a very nice venue at Texas A&M, a very nice one here in Birmingham, at Auburn, and Athens, Georgia. And so the fans will, I think, be treated to what they're used to in Norman. What they deserve.

Oklahoma Today
At the end of the day, there's nothing OU fans love more than cheering for their football team. And there's nowhere that has more pride and interest in college football than, you know, the southeast. So they're a perfect match.

Bruce Burdett
And I will say this, when we set up our little tailgate, all of the other SEC schools are very welcoming and accepting at that event, just taking that little thing as an example of how well we fit in. In fact, over the last seven years all we've done is make fun of the SEC, and yet we win. For example, one year we made marshmallows with each of the colors of the different SEC teams, like orange for Tennessee, and then built an oil well with chocolate and let the chocolate coat their favorite SEC marshmallow. In other words, poking fun at how, you know, there's a strong bias in the SEC living here over the last 30 years.

Oklahoma Today
I was going to ask, do you plan on going to see the Sooners play either football or any other sport when they're in the area in these coming years?

Bruce Burdett
Well, for the first time in a long time, I bought season tickets in Norman so I can buy away tickets at the other events. And so, yes, whenever the University of Oklahoma has been here for any other sport, which is rare, I've always attended. So yes, I plan to. I plan to probably give up working with the club and actually go to the events, since they will be here.

Oklahoma Today
I thought it was funny when we spoke earlier and you said that the farthest place that they'll actually play is from you now is Norman.

Bruce Burdett
Yeah, that's suddenly the farthest game I'm going to have to travel to: Norman, Oklahoma. Yeah, I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure, I haven't checked if it’s Norman or College Station, but it might be competitive with Norman from Birmingham. Everything else is going to be closer. And you know, I think that benefits a whole lot of Sooners. As I said, I retired from the Navy and and the and Oklahoma has Army, Navy, and Air Force, ROTC, and all those Sooners graduate and they go someplace else. If you're Navy, you were not going to get to attend sooner events, but now there are naval stations in Charleston, South Carolina. There's going to be students coming to South Carolina. There's a Naval Station at Mayport in Florida, though there's a Naval Station in Corpus Christi, there's an air Naval Station in Memphis, which is close to Tennessee and Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

Oklahoma Today
Right, right. Well, I think I had all my questions answered. Is there anything else you want to add about the move to the SEC or anything like that?

Bruce Burdett
I guess I would try to emphasize the clubs are available throughout the SEC. The Oklahoma clubs are already available, and we certainly hope those clubs will grow throughout the southeast. I think there's a misconception when a freshman enrolls, they don't have to graduate to support an alumni club. They could—their parents could come to our watch parties the day they enroll as a freshman.

Written By

Ben Luschen

Luschen joined the *Oklahoma Today*’ staff as Research Editor in 2021 and currently works as the magazine's Web Editor, managing the website and social media fronts. His past *Oklahoma Today* stories have ranged in content from the state's bee and quail industries to its vibrant art and music scenes. Not adverse to a road trip, Luschen is always on the lookout for the next big adventure. He is never out of opinions about the current state of Oklahoma City Thunder basketball.