All Sooners

COLUMN: Why Patty Gasso Learned Early On What 47 Straight Means at Oklahoma

She once worked in Bud Wilkinson's old office alongside some uninvited guests, but after beating Clemson Friday, the Sooners' softball coach has her own claim to an all-time winning streak.

John E. Hoover

NORMAN — Patty Gasso knows all about 47 straight.

Oklahoma’s hall of fame softball coach literally spent two years working in Bud Wilkinson’s old office in her early days on campus.

But now, with all due respect to Wilkinson, Gasso has her own streak — her own 47 straight.

The No. 1-ranked Sooners took down 16-seed Clemson 9-2 on a muggy Friday afternoon at Marita Hynes Field, tying Arizona’s all-time NCAA softball record for most consecutive victories at 47 in a row.

It also ties the all-time OU record for any sport, accomplished by Wilkinson’s Sooners from 1953-57.

If the Sooners beat Clemson again on Saturday to sweep the Norman Super Regional and return to the Women’s College World Series, they’ll own the new mark at 48 in a row.

Gasso prefers to not talk about her team’s winning streak, but after 29 years at OU, she knows a thing or two about Sooner tradition.

SB - Patty Gasso, 2023 Super Regionals
Patty Gasso :: John E. Hoover / AllSooners

Surely she gleaned something from being in Wilkinson’s old office every day? Surely there were gridiron ghosts or football shadows lurking around for a young coach trying to make her way?

“No, there were cockroaches,” Gasso said. “No ghosts. That’s the truth. It was over in the wrestling field house.”

Gasso avoids the record talk at all costs. But she’s not coaching at Cal or UCLA or Florida or North Carolina. She’s coaching at Oklahoma, where 47 straight means something bigger than just another winning streak, another NCAA record. It’s a hallowed number, largely considered untouchable. At OU, 47 straight brings a deep lore.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Gasso said. “The difference, though, is we have to keep going — and they play, what, 12 at a time. So it probably took them a little bit longer.”

Gasso talked of grit and character and moments that unfurled subtly in Friday’s game.

But one of Gasso’s stars unleashed a game-changing moment of her own that was anything but subtle.

Haley Lee
Haley Lee :: John E. Hoover / AllSooners

Hayley Lee’s fifth-inning grand slam led to a five-run outburst and gave OU the separation it needed in what had been a 4-2 game. It answered a two-run inning by the Tigers. And it collapsed the Clemson bench at the end of four consecutive hits.

Lee has a nose ring and full-arm tattoos and rides motorcycles. She’s tough and unbothered by pressure and clearly knows how to seize a moment. When she transferred to OU from Texas A&M, she probably never envisioned 47 straight.

But playing softball for America’s best coach in the game’s preeminent program delivers to players once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like home run record or national championships or unthinkable winning streaks.

“I wouldn’t say it was necessarily about the wins of why I came to Oklahoma,” Lee said. “Talking to Coach Gasso, it was a very competitive program. I wanted to play to the best of my ability and just reach my limits and talking to her, that’s what I bought into — every day’s a competition and every day’s a grind and that’s kind of what I looked at when deciding to transfer.”

Lee elevates her teammates with a constant gyration of dance and chants, singing and laughing. She played designated player Friday, so much of that came from the dugout. But when her teammates set the table for her, she seized the moment.

It’s not hard to bring that energy every pitch of every game, she said — and it’s not fake.

“I think it’s kind of my personality,” Lee said. “I feel like if I’m down at any point, it’s really not my character and someone else can just see it right away and just pick me back up, so I feel like my energy is going to be constant. It’ll always be constant. Y’all see, y’all keep hearing it from me.”

Wilkinson probably would have liked Haley Lee.

“Haley just has a care-free nature about her,” said pitcher Jordy Bahl, “where it’s like if any one of us is taking it way too seriously, we can talk to Haley Lee for five seconds and all of a sudden we’re like, ‘Oh, OK, we’re cool, we’re chilling.’ So just, I think that energy in the dugout, when there is pressure all the time, it just kind of helps everyone keep things in perspective.”

No doubt Wilkinson would have liked Patty Gasso, too. Wilkinson created the monster at OU. He established the standard that Barry Switzer and Billy Tubbs and Bob Stoops and Kelvin Sampson and Sherri Coale and Mark Williams and K.J. Kindler and Patty Gasso have all pursued at a high level.

Patty and Bud, for one day, at least, share 47 straight.

“Look,” Gasso said, “when I first got here, I had his office and I was a queen because I was in his office. So I know who he is, very well, and it’s an honor for that. But I never would’ve put that together.”

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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