Oklahoma Players Were 'Speechless' Over Stadium Announcement

Current players and alumni alike were overjoyed at the announcement of Love's Field, Patty Gasso said.

Patty Gasso and her latest trophy :: John E. Hoover / SI Sooners

They were speechless.

On Thursday, when the University of Oklahoma announced the largest donation toward a women’s sport in OU history, head coach Patty Gasso's softball team had no words.

Love’s Travel Stops made a donation to the OU softball program that could total $12 million, paving the way for Love’s Field to become a reality and giving the Sooners a new home for softball as soon as 2024.

And while head coach Gasso said she’s known about the donation for a few months, she had to play things very close to the vest with her players.

“I told them just a few days prior to the announcement,” Gasso said Friday during a Zoom press conference about the stadium announcement. 

There were a couple of reasons Gasso waited until this week to let the team know, both for their information but also to protect the surprise of the announcement.

“I didn’t want them to get shocked,” said Gasso, “and I had to put them on lockdown to make sure nothing leaked out because somebody would be in big trouble if that happened."

But when the team finally did get the news, Gasso said there was a mixture of joy but also just shock and astonishment in the room with her player.

“It’s one thing to see it on paper, see the renderings and go 'Wow,' ” Gasso said. “Some are excited because they know they’re gonna play in it. And some are like, 'Why is it always me that’s on the other end of these things?'

“But I made sure that they understand that they all have a piece of this. Their handprints are all over this stadium.”

Of course, most of those players who will graduate before Love’s Field opens played a role in the Sooners hoisting their fifth National Championship last season, a huge moment in the process of the donation from Love’s coming to fruition.

The current players aren’t the only ones who will get to celebrate the announcement this weekend, however, as OU softball alumni from across the country will return to Norman for alumni weekend as the current crop of Sooners participate in a closed-door scrimmage on Friday night.

“The timing of all of this could not have been more perfect,” Gasso said. “We get to celebrate with them this weekend.

“ … To share that with our alums, I think that sometimes alumni feel like they get forgotten. And that, without question, is not the case, and that is something I’m going to drive home with them this weekend. They have their handprints all over this. It started back for me in 1998 and it’s just been building and building and building to the point of where we are right now. But if the foundation wasn’t built back then, we wouldn’t be sitting where we are right now.”

Thursday was a landmark moment in the history of Oklahoma softball, as the program prepares to enter its next era.

And while some surrounding the program were left speechless, Gasso said now the team can move forward and begin to embrace all of the success that has culminated in a brand new stadium.

“We didn’t look at the renderings together,” Gasso said of when she made the announcement to her team. “But now that it’s out there, we’re going to talk about it piece by piece, and I think that will bring them a little more reality.”

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