Bud Wilkinson
Bud Wilkinson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States on April 23rd, 1916 and is the Football Coach. At the age of 77, Bud Wilkinson biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Charles Burnham "Bud" Wilkinson (April 23, 1916-to-date) was an American football player, lecturer, and politician.
He served as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1947 to 1963, compiling a record of 145–29–4.
His Oklahoma Sooners won three national championships (1950, 1955, and 1956), as well as 14 conference titles (1950, 1955, 1955, and 1956).
Wilkinson's Oklahoma squads won 47 straight games between 1953 and 1957, a record that still holds the highest level of college football.
Wilkinson took up politics after retiring from coaching following the 1963-19 season, and in 1965, he became a TV presenter for ABC Sports.
In 1978, he returned to coaching, leading the St. Louis Cardinals of the National Football League for two seasons.
In 1969, Wilkinson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach.
Personal life
Wilkinson married Mary Schifflet in 1938, with whom he had two sons, Pat and Jay. In 1975, the two families divorced. Donna O'Donnahue, 33 years his junior, who died before him, was married a year later.
Early life and playing career
Wilkinson's mother died when he was seven years old, and his father sent him to Shattuck School in Faribault, Minnesota, where he excelled in five sports and graduated in 1933. Wilkinson attended the University of Minnesota, where he helped lead the Golden Gophers to three national championships from 1934 to 1936. He also played ice hockey for the University of Minnesota. Following his graduation in 1937 with a degree in English, he led the College All-Stars to a 6–0 victory over the defending NFL champion Green Bay Packers in Chicago on August 31.
Coaching career
Wilkinson worked with his father's mortgage company for a brief period, then became an assistant coach at Syracuse University and later at his alma mater, Minnesota. He joined the United States Navy in 1943, where he served as an assistant to Don Faurot of the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks football team. On the USS Enterprise, he served as a hangar deck officer. Jim Tatum, the University of Oklahoma's new head coach, persuaded Wilkinson to join his staff in 1946 following World War II. Tatum left the Sooners for the University of Maryland after a season in Norman. The Sooners' 31-year-old Wilkinson was named head football coach and athletic director.
Wilkinson led Oklahoma to a 7–2-1 record and a share of the conference championship, the first of 13 consecutive Big Six/Eight Conference titles in his first season as head coach in 1947. Wilkinson went on to be one of the world's most popular college coaches. His teams have won national championships in 1950, 1955, and 1956, total, and they have a 145–29–4 (.826) record. After World War II ended, he saw OU football players in a five-year span (1955 and 1960) for illegally paying players out of a $125,000 slush fund.
He was on his way to Norman from 1953 to 1957, a NCAA Division I record that still stands. Only four times have it been seriously affected by North Dakota State in Division I FCS (39 wins, 2017–2021), Toledo (35 victories, 1969–1971), Miami (FL), 1998–2005, and USC (34 wins, 2003–2005). From 1948 to 1950, the Sooners had won 31 consecutive victories from 1948 to 1950. Wilkinson's Sooners did not lose more than one game per season between 1948 and 1958, going 107–8-2 during that period. His teams went 12 seasons (1947-1989-1988), all 12 seasons (1947–1958) without losing in conference play, a streak that has never been seriously harmed. Wilkinson's first conference loss was against Nebraska in 1959, his 79th conference game.
In 1960, Wilkinson had just one losing season. However, he went on to be the winningest coach in Sooner history over the course of his career. He has since been passed by Barry Switzer and Bob Stoops.
Wilkinson began writing a weekly newsletter to alumni during the season to keep them interested in Sooner football. He was also the first football coach to host his own television show. Duffy Daugherty, a Michigan State University coach, and Duffy Daugherty worked together to support a national network of high school coaches. They converted their clinics into a profitable company later on.
Wilkinson retired from coaching at the age of 47 after the 1963 season, his 17th in Oklahoma. He is one of four football coaches to win over 100 games at the University of Oklahoma, along with Owen, Switzer, and Stoops. More than three coaches have worked in any college football program than this one.
Wilkinson served on the President's Council on Physical Fitness from 1961 to 1964 while living in Oklahoma. He created 11 floor exercises for schoolchildren who were integrated into President John F. Kennedy's "Chicken Fat," the theme song for the 1960s and 1970s national gymnasiums.
Later life and career
Wilkinson declared in February, 1964, that he would run in a special election to replace his friend, the late Robert S. Kerr, as the United States senator from Oklahoma. He had already resigned as the Oklahoma University Sooners' head coach. Politicians and the Oklahoma press disagreed on whether he was qualified to serve as a U.S. Senator, but most seemed to agree that his fame as a cultural icon gave him a major edge. Wilkinson easily won the Republican primary in 1964, changing his first name to Bud at that time, but then narrowly lost to Democrat Fred R. Harris, then a State Senator in Oklahoma. Both groups were concerned with political heavyweights, from out of state to campaigning for their candidates. Former President Eisenhower and Senator Barry Goldwater were invited by Republicans to speak with them. Eisenhower was unable to attend the occasion, so his former Vice President Richard Nixon served as a substitute. President Lyndon Johnson of Harris, as well as many other national Democrats, all appeared in a rally. Senator Strom Thurmond was sent by Wilkinson's Republican strategists to appeal to ultraconservative voters in Little Dixie, which had recently turned reliably Republican. The effort went wrong. "My campaign got an extra benefit from Senator Thurmond's visit to Oklahoma," Harris said later. "With his jingoist addresses, Thurmond shocked the daylight out of even more conservative white voters, who are calling for the increase of the American war effort in Vietnam." Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee in 1964, lost to incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson 55% in Oklahoma. Johnson was the last Democrat to represent Oklahoma in a presidential election through 2016. Wilkinson entertained competing for the other seat in Oklahoma's Senate in 1968, but he did not run, and the job was given to former Governor Henry Bellmon, also a Republican.
Wilkinson joined ABC Sports as their lead color commentator on college football telecasts, alongside Chris Schenkel and Keith Jackson in 1965. Wilkinson was the color analyst on four of the best college football games in history, including Notre Dame's 1967 match against Texas versus Arkansas in 1969, and Nebraska vs. Oklahoma in 1971.
In 1969, Wilkinson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
He received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1975.
Wilkinson returned to coaching with the St. Louis Cardinals of the NFL in 1978. He was fired after less than two seasons, and ESPN has re-introduced broadcasting.
Wilkinson died of congestive heart disease in St. Louis at the age of 77 on February 9, 1994. He is laid to rest at Oak Grove Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.